Cost of travel in Americas for longer trip

hugheskevi

twopenny said:

What I missed and is a need to know is how much was the travel insurance.

For travel insurance, there are a few issues to consider.

First is the need for whole of world incl. or excl. USA. Obviously including is more costly, and some policies will allow a short period of time in the USA even if it is not included. However, on a trip like this with almost 2 months in the USA it was necessary to get including USA even though I didn't need it for the vast majority of the time.

Second is the quality of insurance. Cheap insurance will have a lot of exclusions and excesses, whereas higher quality insurance will cover just about anything reasonable but be a lot more expensive. Some exclusions may be more restrictive than you might think, eg, not covering even routine hiking if it is at altutide (which it will be in Peru and Bolivia!), so it is necessary to read T+Cs carefully to make a decision about what is wanted.

Personally, I decided to just take the cheapest insurance, which at the time was Tesco Backpacker Insurance which cost £823 to cover both myself and my wife for whole of world including USA for 18 months. That was purchased in June 2022.

One potential frustration with travel insurance on long trips is that the maximum length available is usually 18 months, and many companies insist that you are in the UK when the policy starts, so trips longer than 18 months may be problematic.

All the "set-up" costs of the trip (new passports, insurance, vaccinations, flights, malaria tablets, mail redirection, driving permits, etc) are listed in columns T and U of this Google Sheet. Prior to arriving, I had already incurred over £6,500 of costs, although that did include things like car hire and accommodation in the USA for the first part of the trip. It was about £2,700 for the "set-up" costs.

Also your house insurance as you were away for more than '3 weeks' so all sorts of things come into play here. How did you deal with all that?

I rented my property to tenants whilst we are away, so it is covered with a commercial insurance contract which started as I left - I had to cancel my residential house insurance.

It cost just over £2,000 for all the expenses associated with getting house ready to let (insurance, electric certificates, gas certificates, energy performance certificate, inventory, mid-term inspection, referencing tenants, need to update fuseboard to latest standard, etc). Then there are the on-going letting agency fees too (£99 p/m).

The ability to rent out house and receive rent on a longer trip is a key factor in making it dramatically cheaper than conventional 2 week holidays, where most UK expenses still have to be paid whilst you are away.