BootsnAll Travel Community

How do you determine how much money you need?
I've got my own secret little formula, but I'm wondering how others do it!
Before our first trip we just took what we had...and made sure we got a job! This time we have eight kids to support and then may not be happy to eat cabbages and onions for six months straight.

Where do you go to find out local prices of basics like bread and milk and rice and eggs?

There is no exact science in doing so.

You have to figure out where you're going (eg: Western Europe = expensive, SE Asia = inexpensive), determine what kind of traveler you are (eg: dorm beds or private rooms in hotels, meals off the street or sit-down meals in cafes) and check out the rough prices in the LP guides + the Big Mac Index + reading tea leaves.

OH MY you're taking 8 kids RTW????

Lucky kids!

OK. I admire your guts but then my father would haul seven of us around with him. As for as figuring out the prices it depends on where you go. I am putting some links below for Family Style hostels. I've known people who use them and are quite happy with them.

www.hihostels.com/web/family.en.htm Hosteling International
www.transitionsabroad.com/publications/magazine/9903/ir...family_hostels.shtml Ireland
www.syha.org.uk/SYHA/web/site/Family/family.asp Scotland
www.jfgh.at/index-EN.html Austria

Check on the web there are lots of them.

Take a look at this website. I basically made up per-day amounts from my own travel expirance and by looking into hostel/museum/train costs. Once I had that done I used this page to see what they had as their daily averages for the same places. After that I just took the middle number from the two.

However, I am still saving for the amount that I came up with as it is always better to have more than to have less.