Monthly Summary, Stats And Budget – Jan ’15

Well happy new year everyone, I can’t believe the first month of 2015 has already flown by! Mental times!

After seeing in the new year in Kuta, Bali with a heap of my travelling buddies 2015 kicked off after recovering with a flight back to the Philippines. Having missed out on Palawan after my weather cancelled my flights from Siargao me and T nabbed a pretty bargain fare from Indo and headed there for a good few weeks.

Palawan was incredible and although I thought El Nido was over rated Coron was the perfect way to finish our time exploring there. We partied with some epic new travel friends, island hopped, scuba dived, free dived and generally kicked back on island time in the sun!

After a quick stop off in the capital of Manila with the guys from Z Hostel we headed to our final stop in Asia – Singapore.

It was a fun, slow paced month finishing up with a bang –  3 countries in 3 days!

Anyway here’s my stats round up for January 2015;

 

Overland Distance; 611.24 km

Flight Distance;  12,108.47 km

Total Distance; 12,719.71km

 

Countries; Indonesia, The Philippines, Singapore

Main Spots; Kuta, Puerto Pricessa, El Nido, Coron, Manilla, Singapore

Transport Taken; plane, boat, minibus, dive boat, jeepney, taxi, outrigger boat

Flights – DPS-PPS (Philippines Airlines) COR-MAN (Cebu Pacific) MAN-SIN (Philippines Airlines) SIN-BNE (Emirates)

 

Money Breakdown

Indonesia – £67.97 over 4 days = £16.99 per day

Philippines – £429.79 over 25 days = £16.53 per day

Singapore – £55.48 over 2 days = £27.74 per day

Total spent – £553.24 over 31  days = £17.84 per day

 

Cheapest Place – Coron was easily the cheapest stop in January, with accommodation being £2.80 each for a double fan room (Marleys Guesthouse) and meals ranging from 80p to £2. Even the day trips were less than £10 all in with food!

Most Expensive Place – Singapore! It was a bit of a shock to the budget bouncing out of the cheaper side of Asia into Singapore, where a dorm bed cost twice what I was paying for a private room in the Philippines! El Nido was certainly more expensive than what I was expecting too though!

Biggest Splurge/Unforeseen Expense – my main unforeseen expense this month was a stupid one! I tried checking in for my flight to Australia only to discover I’d forgotten to renew my e-visa! Luckily they managed to put it through quick enough for me to get on the flight but it was £25 I wasn’t expecting to pay (and is why my Singapore average is much higher!)

 

Highlight – Coron was the highlight of the month and is battling hard with Siargao as my favourite stop in the Philippines! The cheap cost of living and stunning scenery really captured what I was hoping to find in the Philippines

Lowlight – January was actually a pretty solid month of travel and apart from Tara getting sick for a bit there wasn’t really any massive lowlights – apart from saying goodbye to South East Asia of course!

 

Top Shot

Once again my camera was jam packed full of amazing pictures having spent most of the month island hopping and exploring Palawan – which was recently voted the top island in the world! My personal favourite has to be this shot of me freediving on a Japanese shipwreck from WW2. If you’re heading to Coron tour B stops at it and it’s easy to snorkel, with the shallowest point being only 4m below the surface.

 

What’s Next?

After 4 months exploring Thailand, The Philippines and Indonesia I’ve once again said goodbye to South East Asia and started a new adventure.

The first part of this is a 2 week stop in Australia to spend some time at my favourite destination on the planet…Byron Bay! After 2 weeks in the Bay it’s time to head across to New Zealand where I’m FINALLY getting started on my working holiday visa…probably ;)