The world tour is something that we have talked about briefly on our page but have never really gone into much detail about. Now that time is approaching, we thought that this would be the
perfect opportunity to start talking about it.
This has been a big dream of ours, so it is the ideal moment to start mentioning with you how we are planning a world tour, how we are saving for it and how all of this is affecting our daily lives. With this blog we are hoping to share our personal experience and advice some people who are going through the same things, as well as let you help us with any areas we are struggling with.
We can say that since we met each other, our whole relationship evolved around travelling. Due to being long distance (read our story here), we had to make the choice of travelling in order to see each other. Not going to lie to you, at first, it was scary doing it alone, especially since it was the first time for both of us, but we eventually had to do it in order to meet each other for the first time.
After doing it a couple of times, the thrill of travelling and exploring a new country started getting to us, and we eventually decided to take our first official trip together in Porto. This was when we really decided that we wanted to make this a regular thing and started looking at other countries we wished to visit the next time.
Since research is a key part of travelling, we started coming across websites that are specialised in world tours, which sparked our initial interest in actually doing one ourselves. Ever since then, one of our top dreams became to travel the world as a couple while exploring new cities, cultures and people that we had never even heard of before.
With this blog, we want to really provide an insight into how this experience started, as well as maybe intrigue you about how all of this could also become one of your dreams. We want to inspire some curiosity within you, as well as to plant a seed of interest on our journey to start following us along and witness how all of this will eventually flourish. After all, this was the initial inspiration for starting this travel blog all along!
Now this is a choice that is extremely hard to do, especially if you’re quite indecisive like us. After all, you have the entire world to choose from. Hence, to this day we have came up with many different versions, and we still cannot entirely decide which one we should go for.
What we know for certain is that we want to visit around 13 different countries on at least three different continents (apart from Europe) for around 10 to 11 months. Some of the countries have been a clear and certain choice since the beginning and will for sure not be removed from our list. However, there are others which we hesitate about, as well as some new ones that we just thought about adding recently, such as Argentina.
As you can see on the map above, we have a list of 14 different countries, spread over three different continents. However, we are not certain about all of them and might require your help to make our final choice. What we are sure about is that we want a healthy mix between the continents, as well as a nice combination between the city, nature and beach to truly experience all that there is out there.
Moreover, even though it is a popular choice and was on the top of our list in previous versions, as you can see, there is no North America. This was truly a hard choice to make; however, when weighing down our pros and cons, the disadvantages ended up winning. When we considered the amount of money it would cost relative to the time we would spend in, for example, America, we noticed that it was the most expensive country and that we wouldn’t even have enough time to visit all we wanted to, which made it not worth it.
Let us know which countries would be on your bucket list, and if there are any other destinations we should consider instead!
This is a big choice and far from easy to be made. We can tell you that when making such a decision, you have to keep in mind many aspects that could eventually change your initial
arrangements all throughout.
Our first official plan was to start in November 2026. This choice was based on the fact that we would have both just finished our studies and have been living together for a couple of months.
Even though this is still our main plan, we sometimes consider other scenarios that could delay our departure date.
When visiting a new continent, it is highly important to research about the best season to visit, especially if it is across the world, and completely different than what you are used to. For example, in our case, if we were to start our World Tour journey in Asia, November would be an ideal month to visit, as we would experience an enjoyable climate. However, if we start with South America, we would have to move our departure date to around March 2027.
This also depends on your money-saving plans. For now, we based our budget on saving enough money to leave by November 2026; however of course, you cannot be sure about what life can throw at you. Hence, we still hesitate whether this date is the perfect one for us or not. Moreover, we also consider the possibility of departing later to save more money and eventually make our journey longer.
Let us know if you have any tips on making the right choice, as you could help us immensely!
This money-saving plan first started by establishing the overall budget during the world tour, as well as how much money we needed for after, until we get settled in to live in a new country. After much research, we came up with a good estimate about what the total amount would be.
After we had a concrete figure, we had to determine how much we needed to both save monthly in order to reach our overall goal. This was done by first establishing how much salary we have left after removing our fixed expenses. We made sure to record all of our income and expenditure on a spreadsheet that we will encounter throughout these two years of saving period.
With this, we were able to determine what percentage of our income would go to the World Tour saving plan, and ensure that if there are any months where expenses are higher, we would be able to recover such an amount in the other months. Moreover, you have to remember to think about the fact of any expenses that you still need to pay during your travels, for example, car payments, since you will not be earning an active salary; hence, you need to be able to save for it in advance.
After establishing all of this, now we can see how much we both need to save monthly beforehand, and prior to spending anything extra, we can always check if this would put us over our budgets. Even though it might be hard to establish how much income or expenses there might be throughout two years due to the various changes that one cannot control, it is important to keep track of everything and taking worst-case scenarios in circumstances where it is more likely that you will lose money rather than win it.
Something that we didn’t want to give up on while saving for a world tour is having small trips in Europe while budgeting for the bigger goal. Now of course, certain sacrifices have to be made, as you cannot have all in life; however if you are saving for something, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to cut out all the things you love to do. You just have to find a better way to do it.
In our case, we firstly established how many vacations we wished to take throughout the year, keeping in mind the amount of money we have to save each month. We finally established that three trips would be sufficient for us to not go over our budget while also still enjoying the things we love.
After that, we had to decide how much money we could spend on each trip. This enabled us to start saving slowly in advance so that when the actual vacation arrives, we will not spend a big chunk of money all at once and not be able to put anything else in savings. Moreover, we also made a rule to never touch the world tour savings account for whatever reason. This allowed us to think more logically and not overestimate the amount of money we have.
Of course, ever since we started saving, it meant that certain destinations or durations were out of reach for us. However, we found this rather as an exciting challenge to find an alternative way to still be able to go on a trip with a certain fixed price that we couldn’t go above. Moreover, it also meant that short, budget-friendly, off-season destinations became our best friends. You can read more about this in our post on Valencia.
This is something that every couple like us knows takes a lot of money and time. Of course, even though you are on a budget, you cannot remove all the costs that are associated with seeing each other; hence it can be extra challenging to save if you are in this situation.
We always try to visit each other at least once a month, depending on when we can take time off of work. This means that sometimes prices can get more expensive, as it happens to be during a public holiday, and, of course, many people have the same idea of travelling. We try to keep a fixed budget for each trip, including the costs of flights and any activities that we want to do. However, this is not easy to keep, especially since the cost of flights is increasing by the minute.
As we mentioned in our London post, when we visit a new country, we try to meet each other directly in that city rather than seeing each other first and then travelling together to the new destination. This helped us cut down on unnecessary costs, such as flights and buying seats, that we would rather use on enjoyment or else just to put extra in the world tour savings.
These are some of the costs that we couldn’t remove completely, especially since we both work and cannot take days off whenever we want to. Even though this problem is not for everyone, we
are sure that you will encounter some similar expenses that you cannot remove although you want to save money. Hence, we recommend that you be smart with it, try different methods to reduce costs, and find the best and most efficient way to still get what you want while being economical.
One thing that is always in the back of our minds is that something will go wrong and our plans will eventually be ruined. There are many different scenarios that could happen that could eventually make this dream not actually become a reality. Hence, we wanted to share them with you to see if anyone else has the same doubts or if any of you could re-comfort us in certain areas.
For example, one of the aspects we always question is whether we would actually meet the money-saving plan. For now it is going great, and we are managing to save as much as we planned. However, there is always some scenario that we did not consider in our original plan that could eventually put us behind in our overall goal.
Moreover, there is currently a lot of confusion going around in the world. The eventuality of a war between two countries or even the whole world, is becoming more realistic every day. This could either ruin our whole plan and we don’t go at all, or, even more scarily, we become stranded somewhere far due to something that happened while we are on our world tour.
Health and safety is also an issue that keeps nagging at our thoughts. It is very common that tourists get sick while abroad, especially in underdeveloped nations. Furthermore, there is also the worry of crimes or scams occurring to us, especially in countries where we have no idea of the language. Although we would of course insure ourselves in case of any eventualities, it is still something that worries us daily.
What do we do after the world tour? This is a question that we didn’t think about well until recently. Since our home countries are different, we have to establish in which country we would like to live after our trip. Moreover, we must ensure that we also save enough money for after the world tour, until we are able to find a job and get back on our feet.
These have been our World Tour plans, preparations and worries for the moment. Even though there is still so much to think about, we wanted to take this opportunity to introduce you to our journey and get you curious, as well as let you help us with any issues that we come across.
Although this will be a long adventure that will require great sacrifice and work, we want to make you a part of it from the beginning, as to see it progress and let you eventually join us on our World Tour journey through our blog. We also hope that through our words, you get inspired to try something new like us, and that although one day it might seem impossible, we will together prove to everyone that it actually can become a reality.
Along this journey, we will share with you our tips, what we have learnt and any hacks that can make your overall travel experience less stressful and more enjoyable. We would also like to use our travel blog to meet people with similar interests so we could help each other whenever we face any issues that come along the way.
We hope that you liked our post and that you will join us along this amazing adventure. Let us know if you have any questions regarding the World Tour or travelling in general, and if this is an idea that has ever crossed your mind. Don’t forget to check out some of our recent posts, such as the ones on Marseille and Malta, and let us know what else you would like to see from us.
See you next time!
We are Martina and Cyprien, a long-distance couple with a passion for travelling.
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I can’t wait to see how this journey progresses 😊!