What the Full-Time Airbnb Lifestyle Really Costs 

Just a few years ago, we were working at our high-pressure jobs, living in an expensive condo in Singapore and wondering what it could possibly cost to live out our dream of traveling the world full time.  

Sure, there’s no end of information available about how to save money while traveling; about how to see the world on a shoestring budget. But none of the usual advice was quite right for us. We really admire backpackers but we’re not in our twenties anymore. Our days of staying in hostels and taking overnight buses are long over (although in truth I’ve never actually stayed in a hostel or taken an overnight bus 😂). 

We knew we wanted to see the world but we wanted to do it comfortably. 

For us that means going out for great meals, not just eating street food. It means going to museums, galleries, maybe the occasional tour — activities that all cost money. 

And, of course, it means staying in well-located, well-appointed, beautifully-designed apartments — places we would be happy to call home.

After more than three years of traveling full time — that’s 14 countries, more than 40 Airbnbs — I think we finally have a handle on how much this lifestyle costs. And we know that this is something that would-be nomads and travellers really care about given the detailed questions we field every week. 

So we’ve tallied our spending for the past few years and we’re ready to share the results. For the very first time, we’re revealing what we spend every month to make this lifestyle work. And, we have to admit, we found the amounts quite surprising. 

Of course, we’re going to share how much we spend on our Airbnbs — including how we can afford the occasional splurge — but we’re also covering the other essential budget categories, starting with entertainment.

The whole reason we travel is to experience a place. Sometimes that means wandering the streets of an historic centre; other times it means ponying up to take a surfing lesson or go on a food tour. When we looked at our numbers for the past few years, we found that on average we spend about $100 USD a month on entertainment. But since it’s an average that amount hides a whole lot of variation. 

For example, last year we spent the entire summer in Mexico covering Puerto Escondido, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico City and finally Oaxaca. In each of these destinations we spent at least a couple hundred if not a few hundred on tours and other activities. That seems like a lot, especially because we’re usually very independent with our travel. But those tours turned out to be completely worth the extra spend. 

On the other hand we’ve gone to quite a few places where we’ve easily spent under $30 for entertainment — and that’s for both of us. That includes countries like Albania, Serbia and Türkiye where going to a historic site or a museum often costs just a few dollars. We also tend to spend very little in destinations where our entertainment is all about heading out and enjoying nature, like the week we spent hiking the Quilotoa Loop in Ecuador. 

  

Of course, if you want to do all those great hikes or go to ruins that are typically out of town, you do have to get there somehow. Our average spend on transportation for the past few years was also $100 USD a month but, again, that hides a whole lot of variation. 

If we’re in a city with interesting day trips available, we often rent a car for a few days which can cost a couple hundred dollars. In Albania we rented a car for a whole month because we were traveling all across the country from Tirana to Sarande and back again. That added up to a hefty $500 USD although I think we snagged a relatively low price because it was during COVID.

Of course, there have been many months when we’ve hardly spent anything on transportation. In walkable cities like Belgrade or Tirana we spent under $20 USD a month, primarily because we stayed in a central location. If we did need to take a cab, it was really inexpensive. 

The numbers start getting higher when we talk about food. We aim to spend roughly about $800 USD a month on food, which  includes both dining out and cooking at home. When we took a look at our average spend on food for the past couple years, it came in at $760 USD — right within budget. The interesting thing about our food spending is that it’s always about the same every month. We find that it’s a self-regulating category; when we’re in a place where restaurant prices are high, dining out becomes more of a special occasion. And when we’re in a place where prices are low, we’ll happily eat out once or even twice a day.  

Now for the most significant category: accommodations. This is the area of spending that gets the most feedback from our Youtube audience.

On one hand, our viewers who want to have a similar lifestyle as us — hopping from one Airbnb to another — are usually pretty impressed with our apartments and the amount we pay for them. However, budget travellers and particularly locals are often quite shocked by what we pay for a monthly rental.  They’re always very quick to point out that what we’ve paid is outrageously high by local standards. 

Our response is always the same: It all depends on what you’re looking for in your short-term rental. 

We have a pretty long list of must-haves and nice-to-haves. We’re not just tourists spending a few days in a place; we’re staying for a month and want our accommodations to feel like home. That means that we would ideally like a modern bathroom and kitchen — and we want that kitchen to be as equipped as possible. We can’t always find an apartment with a full complement of kitchen appliances like an oven, dishwasher or microwave. But at the very least we’d like to have a full set of dishes, glasses, pots and pans.

Additionally, we want the space to be well designed and accessorised, because that makes life at home just a little more comfortable. Finally, we want our accommodations to be in a central location so that we can walk everywhere. All of those requirements, particularly the central location, really drive up the monthly rate. Once the Airbnb service fee is added along with any local taxes…it’s not going to be cheap. 

Over the past couple years we’ve spent an average of $1,700 USD a month on accommodation but, again, we’ve seen lots of variation, both in price and quality. For example, one of our highest Airbnb spends was $2,200 USD for a month in Seville and that was for a decent little apartment in a good location. Then we paid the same amount in Mexico City and that was for a luxury apartment in a prime location. 

We’ve also discovered that you can pay a lot for an apartment — relative to the local rental market — and still end up with a disappointing space. We paid $1,700 USD for our place in Izmir, which is a significant amount for Türkiye, and we were shocked by the filthy entranceway, cluttered kitchen and freezing temperatures blowing through every window frame. 

Misadventures aside, the reason we can afford to spend more in places like Seville and Mexico City is because other times we’re spending a whole lot less. Just a couple months ago we paid $1,200 USD for our apartment in Cuenca, Ecuador and it was one of the nicest apartments we’ve had to date: two bedrooms, two bathrooms, fully equipped, beautiful space and a great view. 

We manage our budget by balancing out the high-cost destinations with the low-cost ones over the course of a year. If we plan to spend time in Austria, for example, we know we need to balance it out with a good long stay in Romania. 

And if we do a good job of managing our Airbnb costs this way, the rest of our day-to-day expenses are really quite affordable.

Of course, we’ve only reviewed some of our travel costs in this post; there are all kinds of other expenses that come with this lifestyle like medical costs, health insurance, data, travel gear and — the really big one — flights. Fortunately we’ve covered all of these in the previous post that you can delve into right now. 

How Much it Really Costs to Travel Full Time