3 Months, 10 Countries, 1 Backpack: From Germany to Japan

I am super excited and so, so happy to be able to say this… We are going for a 3-month long trip starting from Munich and travelling by trains, buses and planes to Uzbekistan on 2nd July!

It’s always been gnawing on my mind to travel for an extended period of time, and we’re finally going to lift our butts up and do it. Although we had initially planned to start the trip in August to avoid most of the summer crowd, we had to bring forward the date to July because of my sudden retrenchment! Luckily, we were already preparing to quit our jobs for the trip so it wasn’t a big blow to our finances.

There are sooo many countries that we want to visit, but with just 3 months to spare and a limited budget, these are the places we’ve decided to explore… For now. We might still change the itinerary a little though, depending on how much we love the places we’re currently in!

Our initial itinerary

Germany: Munich
Czech Republic: Prague, Cesky Krumlov, Kutna Hora
Poland: Wroclaw, Zakopane, Krakow
Slovakia: Propad, Bratislava
Hungary: Budapest
Croatia: Zagreb, Split, Hvar, Dubrovnik
Bosnia & Herzegovina: Sarajevo, Mostar
Turkey: Istanbul, Pamukkale, Cappadocia
Armenia: Yerevan
Georgia: Tbilisi
Azerbaijan: Baku
Uzbekistan: Tashkent, Bukhara, Samarkand, Khiva

Our budget

These are the numbers we came up with after rather extensive research. Hopefully, we’ll be able to stick to the $16.5k total budget we set for ourselves! If you have any suggestions or think our budget is impossible, please let us know!

Our packing list

We want to travel light, so it’s going to be carry-on only! I’ll be wearing a small sling bag with the essentials, while WJ will be carrying a camera bag with his trusty DSLR. As for our backpacks, we’ll be toting around a 36l CabinZero each. The bag only weighs 0.7kg when it’s empty so it’s super light!

Here’s a list of what we’ve packed (including what we’re wearing):

I know I’m bringing what seems like an alarming amount of pantyliners and pads, but this was after I’d cut down the initial amount! And I bought and tried a menstrual cup 2 months back, but I haven’t gotten the hang of it… At all. So no help there to bring the weight down.

What’s going to happen to our apartment?

If you’ve been to or live in Singapore, you’ll know how humid it is. And with that high level of humidity comes a big problem when leaving your house vacant for a long period of time – mould.

We’ve heard the horror stories from our friends that people they know who took long trips came back to a mouldy home, definitely not the most welcoming sight! So to avoid this problem, we recruited my mother for help. She’ll be coming over to our unit to open the windows and cabinets to air them out every other week or so. Luckily for us, she lives just 15 minutes away so our plants should survive too.

I’ve also placed dehumidifiers in our storeroom, wardrobes and some cabinets to absorb the moisture. And we’ll be leaving the topmost windows open so that there will be some ventilation in the house. Hopefully, these measures will work and we won’t come home to a living nightmare!

And to save electricity, we’ll be unplugging all electrical switches save for the fridge. We still have some frozen food that aren’t expiring anytime soon so there’s no point in turning off the fridge. We’ll also be keeping all the cutlery, utensils and the random small things that are usually on our tables into drawers and cabinets so they won’t get all dusty!

Update after we’re back from the trip

(updated on 3rd July 2019)

Our actual itinerary

Germany: Munich
Czech Republic: Prague, Cesky Krumlov, Kutna Hora
Poland: Wroclaw, Zakopane, Krakow
Slovakia: Propad, Bratislava
Hungary: Budapest
Croatia: Zagreb, Plitvice Lakes, Split, Dubrovnik
Bosnia & Herzegovina: Sarajevo, Mostar
Turkey: Istanbul, Pamukkale, Cappadocia
Uzbekistan: Tashkent, Bukhara, Samarkand, Khiva
Japan: Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama

Here’s the budget breakdown of what we spent on our 3-month trip to 10 countries.

We spent a total of S$16,180.30 over 86 days, including all flights, which was within our taget.

Country / Item	Accom.	Food	Transport	Attractions	Misc.	Total	Nights Stayed	Avg / Night
Germany	$245.91	$190.60	$141.64	$60.31	$1.59	$640.05	3	$213.35
Czech Republic	$368.92	$234.13	$110.95	$31.75	$28.90	$774.65	6	$129.11
Poland	$683.27	$304.19	$117.29	$231.88	$26.23	$1,362.86	11	$123.90
Slovakia	$260.27	$113.96	$94.68	$15.87	$0.79	$485.57	5	$97.11
Hungary	$141.32	$105.44	$53.21	$121.69	$25.25	$446.91	4	$111.73
Croatia	$836.35	$199.99	$282.91	$227.93	$58.03	$1,605.21	7	$229.32
Bosnia and Herzegovina	$459.81	$244.17	$94.16	$15.38	$53.79	$867.31	7	$123.90
Turkey	$671.87	$624.67	$590.82	$630.39	$113.55	$2,631.30	14	$187.95
Uzbekistan	$471.99	$251.41	$1,317.45	$125.90	$292.95	$2,459.70	11	$223.61
Japan	$1,370.88	$576.15	$1,360.60	$391.81	$356.73	$4,056.17	18	$225.34
Flight back to SG						$372.57
Travel Insurance						$478
Total	$5,510.59	$2,844.71	$4,163.71	$1,852.91	$957.81	$16,180.30	86

Average expenditure per night: S$188.14

Country we spent the least per day: Slovakia

Country we spent the most per day: Croatia; close second and third – Japan (because of S$1,095.40 flights from Uzebkistan) and Uzbekistan (also due to the S$1,060.20 flights from Turkey)