Wow, can you believe it? We've been traveling for one month already! For a trip that was over 3 years in the making, the first month flew by (although feels like we've been gone for an eternity). You can only imagine how excited we are to have another 13-17 more months ahead of us.On the last RTW trip we covered on this site we featured a country summary after visiting a destination. We wanted to continue that post series; however, we'll be hitting a lot of countries in rapid succession throughout our trip such that we'd be full of posts for just a few days. Instead, we decided that we'll have a monthly review to summarize how our journey is going for the destination(s) we have visited over that period of time.
With that being said, it is time to see how Month 1 went!
Spending
During our first month of travel we spent roughly two weeks in France (Paris, Bordeaux, Avignon, Nice), two weeks in Switzerland (Geneva, Lauterbrunnen, Zermatt, Zurich), and a few days in the mountains of Austria in Mayrhofen.
Our total out of pocket spending for the month was roughly $6,000 USD, likely our most expensive month of the trip. The good news from that is it will all be cheaper from here!
This spending includes the following breakdown on a per day average (in USD):
Accommodation
Food
Sight Seeing
Transportation
Souvenirs
Misc.
France $72.60 $69.58 $39.13 $49.22 $8.84 $1.15
Switzerland $81.41 $67.59 $28.81* $13.85* $1.09 $6.77
Mayrhofen Pricing summary to be featured in Month 2 report
*Excluded from the above table is roughly $1,300 in partnerships in Switzerland that covered mainly transportation and sightseeing (or $50/day for each) in the form of a Swiss Pass and Zurich 72h Card. Had we paid for this out of pocket without the pass, the value would have been much higher. A review of these passes will be coming shortly.
RTW Tally Snapshot
Our RTW Tally is starting to fill up nicely. As this feature is visible on our sidebar at all times, some of the data may get lost if we don't recap it periodically. So each month we'll post the values we've achieved within this post and compare it to the previous months at the same time.
Days Traveling: 31 (+31)
Countries Visited: 5 (+5)
Dollars Spent (USD): $16,051 ($6,000 due to this month only)
Pictures Taken (Jeremy): 3,038 (+3,038)
Miles Traveled: 5,234 (+5,234)
Planes: 3; Trains: 19
Buses: 0; Ferries: 0
Days of Rain: 1.5 (+1.5)
Sick Days: 0
Itinerary Changes: 0
Arguments: 1 (+1)
Days Apart: 0.5 (+0.5)
Nights in a Dorm Bed: 7 (+7)
Combined Books Read: 2 (+2)
Bottles of Wine: 11 (+11)
Random Thoughts
As with the last RTW trip covered on this site, these monthly updates are a great place to put in the little random details that we found interesting in the countries we visited that may not find their way into a full blog post. The following are some of our favorites from the countries we visited in Month 1:
- We rented private rooms in apartments on Airbnb for most of our stays this month with the exception of hostels in the mountains of Switzerland. We found this to be the most economical option for two travelers with the added perk of having private rooms! Yes, you read that right. It was cheaper to get a room an apartment than two beds in a hostel in almost every city we visited. Thanks Western Europe.
- Food in Switzerland is incredibly expensive in both grocery stores and restaurants so we found ourselves cooking our own meals quite a bit while eating dinner out once per city. A good fondue will set you back at least 25 Francs and a meal for two with drinks will easily cost 60-70 Francs. Likewise, water in restaurants almosts costs as much as beer so we found ourselves drinking far more than we had planned just because it wasn't that much more than water.
- On the other hand, drinking at a restaurant in France falls under an incredibly odd pricing structure. A glass of wine may be 3-4 Euro, but a 500 mL carafe may only be 6-7 Euro for up to four times the amount of wine. We never got used to that one and ended up drinking a bit more than we anticipated because of it.
- Compared to the other cities we visited, Geneva and Zurich felt incredibly empty and quiet. A major festival was going on in Zurich during the weekend we were there, with hundreds of thousands of visitors, but go a few blocks in any direction away from the party and the streets were eerily empty. The mountain towns on the other hand were quite busy, but no where near the magnitude of the cities in France we visited. Perhaps Switzerland's expensive nature is worth it for a few things!
- Overall, I'm pretty happy that we went to the expensive countries first. I think if we had saved them for last the sticker shock and lack of money in our account would have deterred us from doing anything at all. Luckily we hit our budget almost exactly so we're not sunk yet!
Since each month is limited on the number of days, we cannot write our posts fast enough to fit it all in! But don't worry, we've got ideas for a lot of great posts for after this trip ends (if it ever does). The following are a selection of some we're thinking of!
Avignon Lavender Tour Review
Concept Chef Cooking Class Review in Avignon
The Weird and Wonderful Exhibits in Paris
Cheap Things in Switzerland
Swiss Chocolate Recap
Swiss Pass Review
UN Palace Photo Tour
Valley Hostel Review
..and more!
KEEN Shoe Summary
We're really pumped to have received great shoes for this trip, and our KEEN shoes and sandals are one of our favorite things in our packing list. After the last RTW trip we had a great post covering the life and death of our travel shoes so we thought it'd be interesting to do a running display of how our shoes are holding up this time. Each month we'll post a photo of our shoes to see how they're doing.
Overall the first month with new shoes is always the worst. Breaking them in can be a painful experience when walking miles and miles each day, but we didn't have too many issues after the first week or two. The real perk we've experienced many times while traveling is that a random rain storm or puddle will get in our way and we hardly notice it due to our shoes being water proof. Even shin high snow on Jungfrau Mountain gave us no issue. Hooray! We haven't had much of an opportunity for the sandals yet, however.
So what will month 2 bring? We're heading to Italy in a couple of days to spend just under three weeks exploring the country, followed by about ten days island hopping in Greece! Our spending is definitely set to decrease as we go which is something we so desperately need (and planned for). Either way, its going to be a great time and we hope you'll stick around to enjoy it with us!
Is there something you'd like us to cover in our monthly reviews? Or perhaps something you'd like to see more or less of in our posts? Comment below to let us know and we'd be happy to feature it!
