Route

The route I actually took didn’t vary significantly from the original route I had planned. I excluded several Russian cities and included Oslo, but other than those changes, the trip was largely faithful to the original route.

• Total Distance: 20940km (31823km including return flight to Singapore)
• Countries: 18
• Cities: 27

Here’s an embedded map of my route over the past 64 days:

Moolah

Sticking to the plan didn’t apply to my budget, however. My original plan called for 4000 SGD per person, but in the end, I spent almost 6500 SGD. Almost 5000 SGD was spent on transport, accommodation, and visas. The remainder was spent on attraction fees, food and drink, and other necessities.

However, although I may have paid way more than I expected, I’d still consider this budget a success. Most of the prices for transport were relatively accurate, and I’d say the only real differences in price were with the hostel rates. In particular, a bed in certain destinations – Amsterdam, for example, cost 100 SGD/night – was more expensive than in others. Of course, do consider the fact that my travels took place during the summer: generally the peak tourist season in Europe.

In hindsight, I feel like I would’ve saved more money if I had booked hostels in advance, as that was where most of the unexpected spending came from. Also, with better planning, I might’ve been able to book several of the more expensive transport routes in advance as well. But that would have definitely removed the element of uncertainty and improvisation that I loved so much about this trip: booking a hostel or train just a day before you intended to arrive or depart never got old.

Here’s an embedded spreadsheet of my expenses (excluding daily expenses: food, drink, cigarettes, etc.) if you enjoy looking at data and details: