A world tour with the family… a getaway of a year or several months, with your children, to take the time to be with them, live unique moments, and make crazy discoveries in different countries, on different continents. It makes you dream, of course. But how do you turn your dream into reality? Specifically: what budget should you plan for a family world tour? What organization should you put in place regarding accommodation (leave it? keep it and rent it?…)? And what about work? .. resign, find an arrangement with your employer, work remotely?.. These are the questions I asked 5 families that I enjoy following on Instagram, who are currently on a world tour, or about to leave. Elsa Koala family, Envie du Monde, The Family on Earth, Chaloumar 360, and Perpète les Ones tell us about their organization, and you will see that many schemes are possible!
Elsa, Bertrand, and their daughter’s family world tour
So we are Elsa and Bertrand, 29 years old, and our little koalas are 4 years old for the “older” one and soon 2 years old for the little one. Bertrand has been a general practitioner for 1 year and I have just finished my internship in child psychiatry. We started traveling to survive psychologically our studies And to celebrate our theses and the end of these 10 years of intensive studies we decided to take a break to go for 7 months around the world with our daughters In our “World Tour”, we venture to Thailand, Cambodia, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Argentina, Hawaii and the Canadian Rockies. This long-distance travel project started to germinate 3 years ago. We started to dream, to imagine the itinerary,y and to save last year Bertrand was on call every weekend and worked during the week until 8 p and 9 pm. For my part, I was an employee of the hospital, I worked there during the day and I had my thesis to advance in the evenings and weekends in addition to being alone with the girls, in short, we gave everything to save as much as possible.
Our family world tour budget
Our initial goal was €30,000 for 7 months for 4 people, then we realized that the itinerary we were dreaming of would require €40,000 (the Pacific Islands, Oceania, and Canada are very expensive) so we made additional efforts to get there. See you this summer for the final verdict because the estimate is very general, we may even have to revise our forecasts downwards a little, we’ll see! Concerning our accommodation, we were renting so we sold all our furniture, gave away all the girls’ clothes, and kept (still far too much) stuff stored at the families’ houses So we have been nomads since Christmas and we travel from country to country with 2 backpacks, 1 handbag, 2 small Trunkis and a stroller!
The Envie du Monde family a year around the world
We are the Envie du Monde Family. There is Lena (9 years old), Lou (6 years old), Melanie (34 years old) and Gerome (43 years old). We have chosen to take a “round the world” ticket valid for only 1 year, which we sometimes regret due to the lack of flexibility. During this year, we will have been to Bali, Australia (2 and a half months), New Zealand, French Polynesia (Tahiti, Maupiti, Bora Bora, Raiatea, Tahaa, Huahine and Moorea), Easter Island, Chile, Chilean and Argentine Patagonia, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. Travel has always been a part of our lives and, 3 years ago, the desire to go on a long-haul trip took shape. We were in a sort of routine with our jobs, our house, our cars in short o,u r daily lives… Approaching forty and following structural changes in our companies, we then decided to drop everything to go on an adventure and live the dream of a lifetime.
Our accommodation organization during our one-year world tour
We put our house on Airbnb for the first 3 months and had about ten rentals. At the moment, friends live there which allows us to maintain it. From May, we will try the house exchange .
Our budget for a family world tour
The estimated budget is 60,000 euros. At the time of writing, we are over 200 euros, which is to say nothing after 9 months of travel. The secret is to keep good accounts daily for food, transport, and accommodation. Extras and excursions are more difficult to plan so, depending on our budgetary advance or delay, we treat ourselves or skip it. Each country visited has its budget, defined by having cross-referenced the balance sheets of dozens of world travel blogs . We had no income during our trip, except what we received from Airbnb. Everything is based on savings made with changes in daily habits (1 car instead of 2, not spending excessively, favoring bartering rather than purchases, reducing unnecessary costs according to our priorities)
The family on earth
We are Diane, Malo, and Thomas, a young family from Nice who decided to drop everything to go travel for 7 months around the world. Diane and I had been thinking about this trip since our return from 6 months backpacking in Asia 4 years ago, but the trigger came with the birth of our son Malo. We wanted to make the most of him and what better way to do that than to go traveling all 3 of us.
budget and organization for going on a world tour with baby
So we decided on a budget (€40,000) to reach for her first birthday. Once the sum was raised, I left my job and Diane put her replacements as a general practitioner on hold . We rented out our apartment (to cover the loan as much as possible) and bought tickets to our first destination. Wanting to keep maximum freedom, we booked everything as we went along, letting ourselves be guided by our desires and the feedback from different travelers In the end, we visited 9 countries in the following order: United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Panama, Belize, Mexico, United States (Hawaii and the West Coast, which we are currently visiting in a camper van). We left with a baby who could barely walk and we’re going to come back with a little guy who runs everywhere. If this trip taught us anything, it’s that children are made to travel, even babies!
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