Over a period of 33 days the two of us spent $1934.81 = an average of $58.63 a day. This does not include round-trip flights from Narita, Tokyo, Japan.

Accommodation: $874.00 = $26.48/day (By staying in Korean accommodations not designed for Westerners we were able to get decent budget accommodations. We prepaid in cash for the entire stay. It was not our most expensive month.

Food: $849.52 = $25.74/day (This included coffees and nearly all meals out every day. Korea came out as our most expensive month for food, beating Israel out by $1.35 a day.

Transportation: $130.35 = $3.95/day  (With funds loaded onto payment cards we could easily ride buses and the metro not realizing the actual cost of each trip, but it was very convenient.

Entertainment: $42.80 = $1.30/day

Miscellaneous: $38.11 = $1.15/day includes some offerings and the overhead expenses of life insurance, cell phone, VPN, iCloud storage. One cost-saving benefit was taking advantage of the free laundry facilities at the motel.

Mandu makers at the Shinsegae Mall Food Court. Mandu was my favorite Korean food.

It looked like Vegas. We had a good sized room at the Ares Motel.

Accommodations: Ares Motel, 33 nights, $26.48 a night

One final ocean to cross and we will have circumnavigated the globe.

This is our final Expense Report. We knew Korea was not a budget destination, but went in order to visit our son. Lots of places we visited this year cost more per day, but it’s hard to compare “apples to apples” as each situation had unique circumstances, such as housesitting, car rental vs public transportation, hotels vs apartments, etc. In some places we were traveling through and in others staying put, or living. (An Expense Report was published for each place and are in the archives.) Here is a simple review.

Summary of daily food expense averages:

Croatia:  $14.17 (long term in one place, coffees in, take out of prepared food.)

Turkey: $15.54 (huge breakfasts included at the hotel, eating out)

Ecuador: $16.30 (long term and ate only one meal out most days)

Thailand:  $16.55 (coffee out and meals out twice a day, no penny pinching)

Romania:  $18.80 (restaurants and coffee out every day)

Lecce, Italy:  $21.83 (long term stay, coffees in and some cooking in, but a lot of take out of prepared food.)

Summary of total daily expense averages:

Croatia:  $49.84

Ecuador:  $50.25

Lecce, Italy:  $50.86

Thailand:  $52.15

South Korea:  $58.63

Turkey:  $64.34

Colombia:  $68.22

Romania:  $72.88

Israel:  $86.98

UK: $89.36

Budapest, Prague, Vienna:  $105.68

Art installment in Busan, South Korea.

It was worth it to quit our jobs, and sell most of our things in order to see and experience so many different cultures, foods and places! We have so many memories! 

See you next week…