Calculating our expenses for three months in Australia and three in New Zealand was, still is, much more complicated. The first thing we had to decide was: what do we want from the experience? Seeing as much as possible for sure, but not only. Above all we want to experience everyday life Down Under to see if it suits us, in case one day we came across the right opportunity to move over there. With this in mind, we have divided our staying both in Oz and NZ in three parts, 2 standing still in one place and 1 traveling around.

In Australia we'll be spending 5 weeks in Sidney, 3 on the road and 4 in Brisbane. Once again we started form the Rough Guide and budgeted the 3 weeks on the road as tourists. After that we had to look into cost of living in the cities we picked as bases for the first and the last month. Thanks to the guides, internet and above all our Ozzies friends we came up with an australian budget of 15 thousandE. Thanks to Simon and Leah who generously offered to us the use of a granny flat in their house, Brisbane was the easy part (Thank You guys, I'll never say it enough :-)

For Sidney, we had hoped to organize a house-swap by joining two sites that specialize in these kind of holidays: Homelink and Home4exchange. We came close a few times but in the end we never found an ideal partner. Part of the problem is the precise idea of what we want from Sidney: a real city experience. We want to enjoy the place fully with all that has to offer, with the possibility of spending a few days on the beach but not forced to do so by an accommodation too far out. Time was running out, so after some research on the internet we booked a place (Take a look!) in Randwick, 20 minutes from the center and 10 minutes from Cogee Beach. It will become home for 5 weeks where we hope to mingle with the locals and live like real Ozzies, barbecue and all.

New Zealand is still in the planning stages. We know that our bases will be Queenstown in the South Island and Wellington in the North Island. For the moment we trust the guides and the fact that the NZ dollar is cheaper than the Australian one. Our budget for NZ is 13 thousandE, we can only hope!

At the end of the trip I will publish a spreadsheet with a detailed account of our expenses, divided in categories and countries, only then we'll be able to see how accurate (or not!) our forecasts were. To the travel expenses we'll have to add our fixed costs back home, chiefly the mortgage and car insurances, considering also that we won't have an income until the end of September. We are going to cancel phone, broadband, gas and electricity. Our total budget, considering even a contingency fund, is 60 thousandE. On top of it, we'll add a safety net of another 20 thousand, thanks to a special loan for emergency available through AIB Bank that doesn't charge interest until the money is drawn. If in the end of the trip we won't have touched it, we'll be able to give the money back the way we got it. We both agree that when we'll start dipping into this fund, it will be time to turn back (or rather keep going as you can back track!). We hope our budget will hold so as to arrive to Buenos Aires in the end of August, but if it won't never mind. Even if we had made a gross mistake and were to run out of money halfway, we'll have always seen China and Australia, there are worse calamities. Sure what else would we be doing?

Listening to The Killers: Bones

Pricing the plane tickets was the easy part, the safest part for sure, no surprises there. Costing all the rest was more difficult and no matter how many calculations and research we have done, the truth is that we won't know for sure until we get back. Obviously we have a figure in mind, we can make a reasonably educated guess, add contingency, but until August the 20Th when we'll be back on Irish soil we can't give a definite answer.

Once again the key to tackle the problem was dividing the eight months into smaller segments and start budgeting for the shortest ones: the first 3 weeks in China and the last 5 in South America. Up until now we have always used the 'Rough Guides' every time we traveled and were never disappointed. We'll trust them even this time :
China 70$ pp a day
Chile 350$ pp a week
Bolivia 40$ pp a day
Peru 60$ pp a day
The figures refer to food, accommodation and transport. All touristy stuff is extra, at least the big ones like a trip to Machu Pichu or a cruise on the Yangtze river. For the children we have budgeted half quote.

The guides always provide three budgets: economic (for backpackers using exclusively hostels and sometimes not even those), moderate (B&B or Hotel and a bit more comfort) and luxury (for who travels 4 stars all the time). At this stage of our life we fall into the second category. Adding the tourist's bits and contingency, the budget for the holidays within the holiday is as follows:

China 4000e
Chile 1700e
Bolivia 1000e
Peru 1300e

We still have to add 5 days in Buenos Aires for which we haven't a figure yet but we assume a cost of living similar to the one in Chile rather than Peru or Bolivia where it is definitely lower.

The next segment to be quoted was the week in Fiji. Even there no surprises because it will be a week in the sun staying put in a resort, getting ready for 5 weeks in South America where we'll be constantly on the move, covering the distance between Santiago and Lima by land. We'll then jump on a plane to Buenos Aires where we'll spend the last few days before getting back to Europe. Prices in Fiji vary greatly. For now we stuck to the middle range and budgeted 2500e for the week, but we won't book anything until much closer to the date.

Costs

Once made the decision and overcome the initial euphoric feeling that came with it, the first reality check were the costs. Can we afford it? Or rather, WHAT can we afford? We realized straight away that a full year like it was in our original plans, it is too hard both financially and school-wise. By reducing the time from 12 to 8 months though everything looked much more doable.

The first step in deciding the itinerary was to exclude any stop in Europe (we live in the middle of it, we can see it whenever we want) and North America, (we'll leave Christmas shopping in NY for when we'll be older and calmer). As cost of living, these are the most expensive parts of the planet hence we eliminated them completely. The next bit to be chopped off our map was Africa, only because we both see it as a place of its own, deserving a greater attention than the one we could give it in only a few weeks.

At that point we were left with Asia, Australia, New Zealand and South America. We both came up with our preferences: for me NZ, South America and South East Asia, in the order. For Brendan China, OZ and NZ. We both agreed that it made sense to spend as long as possible in the countries furthest away where we don't know if we'll ever have the chance to go back. We often talked about moving to Oz if the right opportunity arose, so this is our chance to try what it's like to live Down Under and see if it suits us.

Now we had a clearer idea of what we wanted to do: 3 months in Oz, 3 in NZ, partly staying put in one place and partly moving around, with a month holiday in Asia at the beginning and one in South America at the end. By simply putting things that way already made it more possible!

The next step was to talk with the local travel agency, Foreign AFares (thank you Sinead!) to organize the plane tickets. Always travel in one direction, back tracking not permitted, number of stops and restricted mileage, the rules were too many for us so we decided to look for the expert's advice. Once cleared our minds on these rules we understood very quickly that it wasn't possible to see everything, despite actually going around the globe. This was the second reality check and made another casualty: South East Asia will have to wait another trip.

The tickets we finally booked are called World Discovery Plus and allow 29000 air miles with the possibility to buy an extra 3000 for 150E per person. The airlines we'll be using are British Airways and Qantas, all the seats were booked in Y class as soon as they appeared on the system, some 330 days before departure. The final itinerary is as follows:

29Dec Cork-Heathrow-Beijing
surface to Shanghai
20Jan Shanghai-Sidney
07March Sidney-Cairns
surface to Brisbane
12Apr Brisbane-Christchurch
surface to Auckland
05Jul Auckland-Nadi (Fiji)
12Jul Nadi-Auckland
13Jul Auckland-Santiago
surface to Buenos Aires
19Aug Buenos Aires-Heathrow-Cork

Full cost, for 2 adults and 2 children 10400E, (2220+tax pp adults, 1690+tax pp child)

Listening to Red Hot Cili Peppers, Snow