The thing about travel bloggers is it can feel like they are ALWAYS on a trip, and you wonder how they afford it. I’d like to think I strike the balance between trips and home well (mostly because I am never organised enough to hold back Instagram stories from trips to show them weeks later-fair play those people who can do that!) but I still do a fair amount of travel in a good year. In 2025, I managed seven trips, around forty nights away across ten different countries, and six new countries for me. All of these trips were with J, which does mean the cost was largely shared between us, but on the flip side means I went out for nicer meals and evening drinks when I wouldn’t have done that on a solo trip.
At the beginning of the year I thought it would be nice to keep track of my spending on travel, and share it honestly on Inside Laura’s Head. That way, I’m being a bit more transparent about how much I’m really spending, and my readers can see if some of these trips would be affordable for them. I put a bigger chunk of money into travel than others do, giving up things like nights out (I don’t go clubbing anymore!) and clothes (it’s rare I buy something new) in favour of booking flights. It’s absolutely fine if you prioritise something else, of course.
I have, unsurprisingly, been working on this post all year, having started writing it on the second of January. I thought it would be an interesting experiment to keep track of everything I spend on travel throughout the year, and that other people would find it interesting too. I’ll go month by month and count things like my annual travel insurance policy in there too (which renews in March, so that will be counted then) and, honestly, at the point of writing this paragraph I have absolutely no idea how much I’ll spend this year!
In the interests of transparency-my ADHD brain OBVIOUSLY didn’t keep up to this after each trip like I promised, but I did update July’s on the 23rd August, and started to fill in what we’d already spent on September, so I’ve done okay. December’s was filled in on the 20th after we arrived home at 3am that morning-I will take that as a win!
This post is accurate and up to date as of the date of our trips. Flights and accommodation may cost different amounts on different dates, so please do take this as an idea of costs, rather than a promise that you can do any trip for the price we did.
January-Switzerland (and Liechtenstein, but we didn’t make it!)
I knew both of these countries would be expensive, so we planned a two night, two day trip, with a day in Zurich and a day in Vaduz, to keep costs down as much as possible. For ease we had two nights in an air b n b in Zurich, and we were going to Liechtenstein for the day, by train and bus.
Unfortunately for us, the weather ruined our plans and our outbound flight got delayed by nearly 24 hours. We didn’t make Liechtenstein so the below costs are only for Zurich.
Flights: £109.96 Accommodation: £160.04 Airport parking: £30.00 Food: £128.59
Transport: £7.60 Activities: £20 Souvenirs: £10
Trip total: £466.19 My half: £238.09 Subtotal: £238.09
April-Portugal
We went to Porto, one of my favourite cities, for J’s birthday. I’ve been before, he hadn’t (although we’ve done Faro together) and we wanted guaranteed weather, somewhere pretty and, being honest, he wanted to eat Pastel de Natas and Porto’s famous sandwich, the Francesinha.
I paid for the flights, accommodation and parking for both of us for this one as my birthday present for J, and we spent more than we usually would on food and activities as he was given cash from his siblings that was used to do some fun things. The trip was worth every penny.
Flights: £263.28 Accommodation: £94.00 Airport parking: £32.49. Food: £244.93
Transport: £14.32 (an Uber from the airport into Porto and the Metro back, we walked everywhere else)
Activities: £111.26 Souvenirs: £15.45. Other: £10.77 (bag storage)
Trip total: £775.73 My half: £395.59. Subtotal: £633.68
May-Poland
We LOVE Poland. I went to Wroclaw alone on one of my first ever solo trips in 2017, J and I did a week in Gdansk in November 2023, and we’ve since done a weekend in Poznan together too. Originally, we had a hotel booked in London for May, for the play off final at Wembley. Our football team, Burnley, got promoted a few games before the end of the season so we cancelled our hotel and, in typical us fashion, decided that we were saving money so may as well book some flights. Szczecin was cheap, the flights were a good time and I didn’t need to book annual leave, as it was over a bank holiday weekend. It was also partway through a verrry busy period at work, so I needed no further convincing.
We used some free lounge passes we had from our Trusted Housesitters membership to start the trip in style, which meant we didn’t spend anything at the airport. We also prebooked someone’s drive to park on, saving us a fortune in airport parking.
Flights: £174 Accommodation: £100 (Not) airport parking: £15 Transport: £21.88
Food: £194.07 (Including seven cocktails, a beer tasting flight and a beer on the boat)
Activities: £25.62 Souvenirs: 0 (I chose not to buy any on this trip)
Trip total: £530.57 My half: £265.29 Subtotal: £898.97
July-Greece and Cyprus
We wouldn’t have chosen July for this trip ordinarily, because school holidays make things more expensive, but our friends were getting married in Paphos so obviously we wanted to be there! We added five nights in Greece on to our week in Cyprus as I’ve never been to Greece, so I wanted to explore Athens. This was all booked in December 2024, giving me time to pay J my half over the following few months, and the total costs are below.
Flights: £686.21 (including a large suitcase, because we needed wedding clothes) Accommodation: £622.59 Airport parking: £89.00 Food: £492.03
Transport: £268.34 Activities: £135.5 Souvenirs: £101.78
Trip total: £2395.45 My half: £1248.61 Subtotal: £2147.58
My half of the pre trip expenses was £697.40, and my half of the food, transport and activities was £449.43 As always, the souvenirs were fully mine, J doesn’t feel the need to bring things home like I do, so all of that cost came out of my budget. We spent a lot more on food than we normally would, choosing to treat it more as a holiday than travel, and taxis cost us a lot because we went to quite a few events with our friends that weren’t walking distance. We’d budgeted £500 each for spending money on the trip and we did keep an eye on money, coming in under budget (other than my souvenirs, which included a beautiful silver bracelet I’d been saving up to spend on) so I’m really pleased here. This trip was absolutely worth it!
September-Sarajevo and Belgrade
I really like the Balkans, having visited Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Albania in the summer of 2024, and I’d had Belgrade high on my must visit list for years now. J put together an absolute bargain for flights and accommodation for this trip and we added Sarajevo as Bosnia & Herzegovina means we have now visited each Balkan country, which I’m pleased about.
We did a night in a hotel in Luton before these flights which I’ve put in the ‘other’ category, and this cost £80. I could have driven down in a day, from Leeds to Luton for the 4pm flight-but we would have needed to be there around 1pm and so the drive would have been a rush, and we could justify paying an extra £80 to save stress.
Sarajevo
Flights: £288.55 Accommodation: £187.05 Airport parking: £47.00 Food: £121.78
Transport: £23.51 Activities: £71.94 Souvenirs: £36.03 Other: £80 hotel the night before our flight
Belgrade
Flights: £288.55 Accommodation: £187.05 Food: £144.95
Transport: £31.85 Activities: £41 Souvenirs: £4.46
Trip total: £1553.72 My half: £797.10 Subtotal: £2944.68
December-Barcelona
The December trip was, like last year, primarily for my birthday. J paid for the Barcelona accommodation for my birthday present but I’ve counted this in my spending anyway-simply because if he’d bought me a physical present then I would have paid this. Andorra made a perfect day trip, and Malta could not be missed as it would make my 40th country.
Flights: £201.97 Accommodation: £248 Airport Parking: £76.00
Food: £409.91 Transport: £40.28 Activities: £57.48 Souvenirs: £40.39
Trip total: £1074.03 My half: £516.82 Subtotal: £3461.50
December-Andorra (coach trip from Barcelona)
Food: £28.49 Activities: £190.00 Souvenirs: £5.72
Trip total: £224.21 My half: £114.96 Subtotal: £3576.46
December-Malta
Flights: £34.74 Accommodation: £160
Food: £302.76 Transport: £57.67 Activities: £47.58 Souvenirs: £33.87
Trip total: £636.35 My half: £335.11 Subtotal: £3911.57
Honestly I’m pretty thrilled with this amount, it works out at about £325 a month and I have budgeted £400 a month for travel for 2026, which feels like I’m totally on track to cover travel.
Does the amount I spent surprise you? Did you expect it to be less, more, or about this?
That was an interesting read as most posts are about how much travel bloggers make in a year rather than how much they spend.
That’s a pretty good total for all the travelling that you did in 2025. It’ll be interesting to see how 2026 compares!
Kudos for recording your travel expenditure in such detail, even the pre-trip expenses such as airport hotels and parking, which can add up. (We always have to consider the cattery expenses.) It was interesting to see the places that you had visited and the sort of costs to expect there. It’s great that you kept within your monthly budget.
Always good to record what’s going out as well as what’s coming in. It was interesting to compare the different countries which you visited and give us an idea of what it actually costs for bloggers. Budgeting is essential for long-term travel, as I have come to learn.
I love these posts that consider a long time to get all the data in and provide transparency. I appreciate that you have shared your costs and I agree, for outsiders it always looks like you are on vacation and seem to have endless money for these trips. What no one sees is the meticulous planning, far in advance booking to secure deals and staying on alert for cost saving extras such as activities, best food ect. For my trips it is roughly 500€ for a long weekend (3-4 days) and around 1000€ for a week. Being single often means I have to pay higher accomodation fares and my local airport has a small selection of flights and destinations. Bugger!
Carolin | Solo Travel Story
This is probably really good practice to do a cost wrap up because for some reason, I’m always surprised at the end of the year when I have no money hahah.I am grateful I usually am not traveling solo because splitting costs really helps out. The Balkans seem like such an affordable destination compared to other countries in Europe.
What a splendid idea to track your expenses, keeping in mind the pre-trip and insurance costs. Travel costs can vary hugely, depending upon many factors so it is interesting to see how your destinations compared to each other. Travel budgeting is a major consideration in my life and I would need to factor in the expense of cross-Atlantic flights and the fact that I usually travel solo.
First of all nice work on actually keeping track of this stuff. I often just get to the point where I feel like it’s better not to know. Poland for the win in my opinion, great budget friendly place, and after my first trip there to Krakow I’d love to go back and see Wroclaw or maybe Gdansk. Loved the food there. Really interesting read, maybe I should keep track this year and see how my travel expenses look
This gave me that aha moment I didn’t know I needed — real numbers/realities vs balancing dreams. I have never been good with budgeting and these times call for it. 2026 would be my year to hit refresh. I should be more mindful in keeping tabs on expenses on my travels and even plan trips I daydream about more thoughtfully. Thanks Laura for reminding me that travel isn’t just about sunsets but also choices. #
Interesting way of breaking down how much each trip costs, from transport, accommodation and exras cost over the persiod of the year, it soon mounts up, mine are always quite low at the moment as i’m doing more UK travel, thank for sharing 🙂