You Ask: How Can A Family of 6 Afford Long-Term World Travel? Cheap Rent: The Most Detailed Financial Break Down of Costs Around The World- Budget World Travel W/Kids
Our current home lovingly known as “House for Ren” . The “T” got cut off when they cut out windows for us! Third Pier, Green Shack, Koh Rong Island, Cambodia
A new reader just asked us this:
So I would love to know more about your travels, as a family of 5 what the average you guys spend? We are both disabled vets, so working is not so much an option for us, at least i think anyway??? But we get good monthly checks between disability and ss disability. With 6 of us, wondering if this is even a possibility for us?
And, this new friend will push me to bring you the best, most detailed answers I can. Here we go, an almost monthly break-down of our accommodation costs around the globe. It’s a huge part in keeping cheap as you travel. The reply:
I’m so glad you wrote and reached out to me here on and on Facebook. I have soooo much to say to you. soooo much. YeS!!!! YES!!! You can do this for a family of six! For sure! You just have to be willing to live super cheap…
Orazi discovering the beach, Second Pier behind him. Check out the Koh Rong Island waters! Ah! Home!
which really means making your own meals (which saves tons), not moving a lot (for transportation is expensive and when you are new you spend more money).
When you settle down somewhere you learn how to buy the cheapest of everything AND you can negotiate cheap living arrangements:
Costa Rica ranch- $600 for 6 weeks
Panama- my dad’s cabin and then 3 weeks house-sitting for free
Ecuador- indigenous village in the jungles $150 a month for 7 weeks
We got two rooms, one with a queen-sized bed, the other had four single beds. We ended up renting the last bed to a fellow traveler for $1.50 a night, bringing our daily rate from $5 a day, down to $3.50. We spent $178.50 plus $5 for a few plates we broke. This is still, to date, our most powerful experience. No running water most of the time, no internet, no tv, no computers, no tourists, no attractions, just us 6, the river and time. The kids went to school there too! Ah, that river!
Lima, Peru- negotiated hostel stay with three beds, hot showers, and room service and even free laundry (the maid loves us!) for $15 a day instead of $30
Huanchaco, Peru- tent on the beach for free, showers 50 cents a day, on days when we didn’t surf cuz then we all showered for free at the surf school (another money saver!)
Kanchanaburi, Thailand hostel $2.50 a day per room (we went crazy and got 3 rooms!), huge lizards were free!
Siem Reap, Cambodia- $150 a month for hostel we worked for
Around the world- a few free set-ups here and there for advertising them on our blog and online, and now, we’re back in Cambodia to work at the Koh Rong Diver Center.
Koh Rong Island, Cambodia- We’re renting a wooden shack off the pier for $200 a month.
The ever-famous Liquified Homelessness shows tons of homes around the world.
How can you make money as you go?
Kobi and Koh Rong Diver Center Dive Instructor Tom working in the kitchen. Yeah, island life is tough!
You can work along the way in ANYTHING from helping them advertise, to arranging fellow English-speakers to tours, to manager in a restaurant, to teaching English… anything is a skill around the world. You just have to be willing to be very flexible and life on the road is cheaper than you can ever imagine.
Right now, with the Koh Rong Dive Center, for example, we pay $200 for rent a month, and get three free meals a day for our family. How expensive is our tropical paradise life? Less than my electricity bill was back home.
Read all the ‘money’ tab and keep asking me questions. I”m honored to answer them all, and you are inspiring me to write great material for others who want to know. I want to give out the best information possible to make others aware how possible this is.
Keep asking, I love it! Gabi
And, if you have any questions, ask! How do you have sex on the road? How do you stay sane with your kids around you all day? How do you adjust to different climates and food? How do you educate your kids? Ask, ask, ask… I promise I’ll answer them all, especially the sex-related ones! They’re the most colorful!
Off to pee in the hole in the wooden plank we affectionately call ‘toilet’. Kid and Kobi on opposite pier doing homework, I’m writing and determined to sit all day, so that I can get well. Day four and I know, I know, I know today I will get over this and be back to my healthy, energetic self. So, forced sitting all day is going well, very well.
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Gabi
Great insight. $2.50 a day for a room sounds fab. Do you have a picture of the room so we can see what you got for it?
hey guy. it was a really nice room for $2.50 and because of your comment i added tons of links to pictures of lots of the dumps we’ve stayed in, and the nicer places. actually, we have hundreds of unpublished pictures. slowly, slowly. look over the post again, i added links, including one of a video i did in kanchanaburi. thanks for commenting the guy! gabi
I want to trade my RV in now lol… Wow, this is amazing….. Would love to know more about the food (spices)…
evielynne. so cheap, right? i know, people still think we’re rich. this is amazing how cheap you can travel for. it’s actually a pinch-me-now-cuz-this-can’t-be-true life. it is. i love more questions. thank you! I’ll work on the answer! but for now, look up the tab “vietnam” i put in a few bad and strange food moments. i think you may enjoy it. will work on your question. give me a bit and ask me more and more and more. so much love to you. gabi
Good information…and nice video
thank you nick! i love that you are around, watching, supporting. thank you! keep asking me new stuff nick. maybe we’ll get to take your kind offer and we’ll add that to our cool list.
gabi
thank you nick. you are THE BEST. send me more poems! gabi