Cheap Travel…How easy is it?

With an extended trip one of the first things I’ve been thinking about is money. More specifically, how much will it cost me to live per day? Reading books, blogs, and articles some people are living off of $10.00/day. As a future greenhorn traveler that seems unrealistic. $25.00 – $30.00 seems more possible to get started. Or is it?

How much does it currently cost me to live a normal American life? With rent, transportation, insurance (health and car), food, entertainment, utilitiesbills, student loans and any miscellaneous items it costs me approximately $65.00/day to live. That’s a lot. At that rate I would burn through any savings I would have accumulated before the trip really got started. Of course, while traveling I would cut out the items that I know I wouldn’t have to pay for on the road. Cutting out payments that only need to be made from living a sedentary life, like utility bills, but keeping other expenses the same, like rent, transportation, health insurance and miscellaneous items I would be down to $41.00/day…still too much.

Rent comprises half that amount at $20.00/day with transportation and random spending cash comprising most of the rest. This brings up two main questions. In Mexico, Central America and South America can I find a place to stay that costs less than $20.00 a day? Most of what I’ve read makes this seem feasible. I would need to get my bearings and learn some ‘street smarts’ on traveling cheap, but once done I would think I should easily be able to find a place to sleep for $15.00/day or less (hopefully half that). I also won’t be traveling from city to city every day. When I’m in a city walking will be my primary mode of transportation so transportation expenses can probably be cut to $7.00/day when averaged out over a month (a complete guess). Cutting down these expenses it brings my daily expenses down to $33.00. This is still a bit higher than my goal of spending $30.00/day. I’ll need to cut back more. For now this at least shows that traveling cheaply South of the U.S. is possible for someone with the smallest bit of willpower.