I've been tracking how much my husband and I spend on travel since 2018. I've only included "big" trips here, not included are local trips, trips with a specific purpose (e.g. traveling for a wedding), trips to visit and stay with family, trips that are not with each other, and business trips.

  • All figures in $CAD and reflects the net cost after any rewards / points are applied
  • These are trips my husband and I take together, so costs are for two people
  • I've excluded any shopping we did on each trip from the total and per person per day figures
  • We stay at a mix of Airbnbs and hotels, we usually splurge on a really nice hotel for 1 part of each trip (2-3 nights)
  • We usually fly economy out of YYZ
  • If we rent a car, the cost of gas and toll roads is included in the "Transportation" category, the "Rental Car" category is just the cost of the rental and insurance
  • "Other" includes things like eSIMs, tourism fees, and toiletries

Posted by raspberrywines

19 comments

  1. Awesome. Good lay out and easy to understand. I like seeing info like this.

  2. How did you spend so much in Switzerland?? I know Switzerland is expensive but $16k for 14 nights for 2 people seems excessive. 

  3. Surprised to see Gros Morne in there. Also surprising that 6 nights in Gros Morne was more expensive than a week in Iceland.

  5. Crazy how Iceland was the cheapest lol… Any tips? Everything is so expensive there

  6. I was thinking how is NYC so low on this chart? Must have been a shorter visit. Then I swiped to the second image.

    NYC is a vacuum cleaner in your wallet or purse. Still one of the most special places one can go anywhere on earth.

  7. It all makes sense except that week in Iceland. Most expensive place we’ve ever been, but even in a per day basis it seems crazy cheap.

  8. I’m not convinced that points should be excluded.

    Points have a real cash value. They may be worth significantly less in cash than in their nominal flight value. But 10,000 amex points can be redeemed as straight cash against your CC statement for $100. That’s your opportunity cost by spending them on “free” flights.

    If I spent 10,000 points on a flight, I’d book that as a $100 cost to me, personally.

    It doesn’t make flights feel as “fun” and “free”. But it’s significantly more honest with costs.

  9. Ballpark totals per year:

    2018: 4000

    2019: 15000

    2020: 0

    2021: 0

    2022: 13000

    2023: 24000

    2024: 31000

    2025: 16000

    Net costs not including shopping or smaller trips during the year makes these figures wild to me.

    Congrats to you!

  10. I think you overspent big time on accomodation in Portugal in ’23.

  11. Why is the X axis not the same? Impossible to compare the two charts

  13. So I went to St, Lucia roughly 10 years ago for 7 nights as well. Flights and hotel for 2 adults only costed us around 2K USD.

    Looks like a huge chunk of your cost was accommodations. Assuming you stayed at an ultra luxurious resort?

  14. Did you guys get sick on any trip? Water always hurts my stomach when i travel

  15. How did flights to South Korea end up eating half of the budget?

  17. Did you enjoy your BC trip? I’ve spent my life moving across BC, haven’t lived elsewhere. Curious what an outsiders perspective is.

  18. What was it about South Korea that was so expensive? Just the length of the trip? I thought it was fairly low cost.

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