This is it. The very last stop on our trip before we returned home. We hired a car in Dublin and split a grey, rainy week between Galway and Cork, then hung out in grey, rainy Dublin until it was time to head back to New Jersey for the winter holidays. There’s a grey, rainy reason why I only have a handful of photos from our two weeks in the Emerald Isle, but I expect we’ll be returning in more clement weather to make up for it.
A random observation: the street the Guinness Factory is situated on smells absolutely divine. We stayed in an AirBnB within five minutes walking distance of it, and every time we walked into the city for something, we purposely detoured toward the factory just so we could walk by it and smell that angelic smell.
Note: Most of our purchases were on the credit card, but some were made in cash. To get an accurate approximation of how much in USD we spent, I used the exchange rate that our cards gave us on the day on or nearest to the date that our cash purchase was made.
Hello, Ireland!
US$1,895.57/ 15 days ≈ US$126.37/day
Transportation: US$491.02
Accommodation: US$818
Food: US$442.33
Adventure/sightseeing: US$98.25
Miscellaneous: US$45.98
Grand Total: US$7,820.69 (New Zealand) + US$3,547.80 (Australia) + US$6,153.16 (Japan) + US$3,261.79 (SERBIA, CROATIA, and GREECE) + US$1,696.18(BudaKraPraVienna) + US$2,230.59(Italy) + US$3,861.82 (France and Switzerland) + US$1,793.33 (Germany) + US$784.55 (Netherlands) + US$705.76 (Belgium) + US$4,918.84 (UK) + US$1,895.57 (Ireland)= US$38,670.08
Divide that by 400 days of travel and that leaves us with an average of just over US$96.68 for both of us, or about US$48.34 per person per day. Sure, we probably could have spent a little less if we had been more thrifty (using Couchsurfing instead of relying on AirBnBs; using more ride sharing apps like BlaBla to get from point A to B), and we DEFINITELY could have spent a whole lot more if we had chosen to eat out for every meal instead of cook most of the time, or splurge on more adventures or tours. But we budgeted to spend no more than US$50 each, and WE DID IT! We got 13 months of travel for LESS than most people spend in the US just being stationary somewhere for the same amount of time!
The end of our trip was bittersweet: we were ready to go home for the holidays and see our family; we were ready to sit for a while and not worry about where to go next or how to get there or where we would sleep. I wouldn’t say we were ready to stop traveling, but we were ready for a break. And what a glorious break it was!
Yet at the same time, it meant our trip around the world was over. For me, having planned and researched and saved and schemed for the better part of two years before we ever boarded that first plane to New Zealand, it was kind of sad. Thirteen whole months of travel, and yet it wasn’t enough. I doubt that it will ever be enough–there are just too many places to see, too many people to meet, too much food to eat. The smaller, shorter trips we plan on taking in the future will help alleviate some of that maddening wanderlust, but I doubt it will ever truly slack it.
Perhaps one day we’ll pack up our bags and set off on another year-long adventure. I hope we do.
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