Living in a different country doesn’t necessarily HAVE to be expensive! Most people use “travel” and “vacation” interchangeably and for me, they couldn’t be more different! When we go on vacation we spend a fuck ton of money BUT when we’re traveling, we are living like we would in our home country – cooking at home, transporting ourselves, doing our hobbies, going out with friends, hosting dinner parties, taking little vacations, etc.
Before I get too far into this blog post, couple things: the total was no more than $9,000! I’d love if you’d take a peek at my fave travel credit cards and how we secure housesitting gigs while abroad or in the US – Trusted HouseSitters (click for 25% off)! Now keep reading for all the infooooo!
What do I mean by travel vs vacationing? Wellllll, for a week in Amsterdam (vacation for C’s bday in Jan 2023) we spent nearly $5,000 for flights, hotel, food/drinks, transport, and entertainment. To LIVE overseas for almost 6 months we have spent no more than $9,000 on EVERYTHING (minus cost of groceries + eating out) – housing, transport, flights for 2 (INCLUDING the flights out of and back to the US and everywhere in-between), entertainment, insurance, misc fees like a speeding ticket in Australia, new suitcase, gas, utilities, etc!
The key to us living luxuriously in countries with a high cost of living – we offset housing costs by picking up 1 to 2 housesitting gigs! We stayed a month in Australia for FREE and 6.5 weeks in The Netherlands for FREE! That also INCLUDES the use of the home owners’ car. Join Trusted HouseSitters using our referral link and get 25% off of your year subscription and we get 2 free months. We chose to do the highest tier for membership (Premium for $259 per year) and it paid for itself within 1 NIGHT staying in The Netherlands, a hotel room is $200-$250 per night but we got to stay in a mansion, no big deal.
We are VERY picky when it comes to what stays we apply for and even pickier on which stays we choose to accept. My thought process: if we can comfortably afford to live in that area in a comparable house/apartment/hotel then we’ll just pay for our accommodation and not have any responsibilities (feeding/caring for dogs, watering plants, etc). BUT if we’re wanting to go to an area like The Netherlands or Australia where the cost of living is super high and they are facing a housing shortage, we will look for a housesitting stay with minimal responsibilities required.
I know what you might be thinking: wow, you want a free stay AND minimal responsibilities?! Yeah, friend. I do. I had two 60lb dogs who cost a TON to board in a nice facility – I’m talking I spent $1,000 to board them both for A WEEK in the US. Soooo I know how good of a deal the homeowner is getting by trading their space and car for the time they’re away for pet care. They’d still be paying their mortgage, utilities, car insurance, home insurance, etc so why not let their fur babies be cared for in that space they’re already paying for without having to pay additionally for care?! Get what I mean?
Example of a Trusted HouseSitters stay:
4 weeks in Botanic Ridge, Australia (40 min SE of Melbourne)
Our responsibilities: feed the dogs at 6pm every night, take the trash out weekly, grab the mail, water the kitchen plants weekly.
Our amenities: 4 bedroom house in a very safe country club neighborhood, office, use of their car and EZ pass for toll roads, washer/dryer, access to the country club (pool + jacuzzi, dry sauna, gym + restaurant/bar), large backyard, + high speed wifi.
This airbnb has all of the same amenities that the home we housesit at had and it’s $8,172 USD for a month – fun fact, this is the lowest priced one. 🫣
We’ve lived abroad for 5.5 months (Aug 14-Jan 28) and have spent a TOTAL of $3,052.52 on housing INCLUDING 3 vacations (1 resort on the beach, 1 airbnb on the beach and 1 hotel celebrating our anniversary in Amsterdam)! Here’s the breakdown for housing:
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: $850.65
Vacay: Con Dao (3 days) $140
Botanic Ridge, Australia (40 min SE of Melbourne): $0
Phuket, Thailand: $1,841.87
Vacay: Koh Phangang (4 days) $220
Wijchen, Netherlands (1.5 hours S of Amsterdam): $0
Vacay: Amsterdam (1 day) $100 (train to Amsterdam + cab to hotel)
Flights Total: $3,562
For TWO people including seat upgrades + additional luggage weight:
Qatar Airlines – Charlotte, NC to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam – $1,534 (32 hours of travel – 1 stop)
VietJet Air – Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to Melbourne, Australia – $581 (direct flight 9 hours)
Jet Star – Melbourne, Australia to Phuket, Thailand – $643 (direct flight 7 hours)
Etihad – Phuket, Thailand to Amsterdam, Netherlands – $626 (17 hours of travel – 1 stop)
American Airlines – Amsterdam, Netherlands to Charlotte, NC – $178 + 64,000 AA miles (15 hours of travel – 1 stop)
I wrote this while we were still in The Netherlands because all of our expenses here are taken care of other than groceries as I mentioned above. I’ve budgeted out an approximation for our gas but other than that everything else is super accurate.
We’re now back in America and have just planned out our next 6 month adventure – going back to Thailand in September! Follow along for that pricing breakdown, I’ll do that in real time on my instagram as well as a follow up post on here of course!
Lmk if you have any questions!
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