I Quit My Job to Travel: Here's What It Actually Costs to Leave

There's a version of this story that sounds romantic. Hand in your resignation, book a one-way ticket, sip coconut water on a beach within 48 hours. Cool story, but not exactly how it works.

The reality is that leaving a stable career to go travelling involves a surprising amount of admin, a few uncomfortable conversations, and a bunch of costs that nobody warns you about. Here's exactly what the exit cost us.

The financial side

Lost income is the obvious one. We're wrapping up our jobs only a few days before jetting off, and over the past year between us we've been earning around $200,000 — a decent wage that allowed us to save for both this trip and our recent wedding.

Pre-trip costs I didn't expect

Before we'd even left the country, we'd already spent close to $13,000 AUD. Most travel budgets skip over this part entirely — but it's real money, and it adds up fast:

• Flights — $3,421 (10 bookings covering all major legs of the trip)
• Accommodation — $4,786 (mix of fully paid and deposits across 13 properties)
• Travel insurance — $3,012 (for both of us, full 276-day trip)
• Vaccines — $1,280 (Hep A, typhoid, and a few others for two people)
• Gear & prep — $494 (backpacks, packing cubes, adapters)

That's ~$13,000 spent before stepping on a plane — with another ~$67,000 still in the budget for the actual trip.

What we've cancelled or paused

• Gym memberships: $220/month
• Netflix: $20/month
• Uber Eats: $10/month
• DoorDash: $10/month
• Sports Streaming (Kayo): $30/month
• Health insurance: $160/month
• Other miscellaneous subscriptions: $50/month

Monthly savings from cutting these: ~$500/month

On the bigger side, we're leasing out our one-bedroom apartment in Sydney — although the rent we'll receive is going to be a fair bit less than what we owe between the mortgage, strata, council rates, and insurance. This means we've also had to budget approximately $10,000 extra to set aside over the course of the next 9 months to cover the shortfall.

We're currently in the process of selling our car, furniture, whitegoods, and most of the larger items in our apartment. Some of the other items we'll hold onto until we're back will go into storage for $99/month.

The non-financial side

The conversation with the boss

This was initially a little awkward (from my end, at least). It's a different thing when you tell your boss you're resigning because you've found another job with more pay, or you're desperate to leave. But in both our cases, we absolutely love the work we do, our workplaces, and the teams we work in.

The best thing is they understand the type of people we are and that this trip is non-negotiable for us. It's a big part of how we want to live. Between a 15,000km van trip around Australia, a year of masters study in the Netherlands, and Annalise's two years snowboarding in Sun Peaks, Canada, nobody really batted an eye when we started mentioning we'd spend the better part of the next year travelling around the world.

The things nobody tells you

For us, this decision wasn't wrapped in guilt or grief. We wanted this, we needed this, and we've planned for it. It's not necessarily a universal feeling though — but if you find yourself reading this and in a similar position, I'd flag the following:

• There is a decent degree of admin involved. Not just the obvious stuff like booking flights and accommodation, but the other (far less obvious) things. Forwarding mail and updating addresses, keeping your local phone number and swapping out for a temporary SIM plan, travel insurance research, or selling random things like your couch on Facebook Marketplace at 7am on a Saturday.
• The financial exit costs are real. You don't just stop earning — you actually end up spending a bunch of money to leave. Insurance, backpacks and gear, storage, breaking or pausing contracts.
• Timelines compress. Fast. While we were planning for weeks (and maybe even a couple of months) in advance, as soon as you give notice and put your place up for rent — the weeks disappear. Start things as early as possible.

Is it all worth it?

We haven't left yet, and I'm writing this only a couple of weeks before departure. 2026 is currently shaping up to be (yet again) full of a degree of uncertainty with oil prices surging and airlines cancelling decent chunks of their scheduled flights.

But if not now, when? We got married in late January, told our bosses shortly after, and locked things in. It's the extended honeymoon we always planned, and after years of thinking about it and a few months of planning — it's now actually happening.

If you're in a similar position, the best advice I can give is to simply do the maths. It's all totally achievable, but at a certain point you've got to move beyond the vibes and wondering if you can do it — and just put the numbers into a spreadsheet to see if it's possible. Know exactly what it costs to leave, build it into your budget, and the decision gets a lot less scary.

If you want to see what a trip like ours might cost you, try the Trip Estimator — it covers 60+ countries with budget, mid-range, and luxury tiers. And if you want the full backstory on why I built this site and what we're tracking, check out the first post: Why I'm Tracking Every Dollar.