Happy New Year 2026 and greetings from South Africa! In January it’s time again to look back on the past year and sum up the travels, expenses and sports. 2025 was our eight full year as digital nomads, and it was a year with plenty of traveling on four continents. In this post, we’ll first shortly summarize the travels and then reveal how much a year of traveling around the world cost this time!
The beginning of the year in the Caribbean
We rang in the new year in the Caribbean warmth on the paradise island of Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands, where we were dog-sitting over the Christmas holiday season. From the Virgin Islands we returned to the Dominican Republic in January, visiting Boca Chica close to Santo Domingo and Las Terrenas in the northeastern part of the country. Furthermore, we did a whale watching tour in Samana.
Surprisingly charming Santo Domingo
At the turn of January and February, we took a two-week trip from the Dominican Republic to the neighboring island of Jamaica, where we got to know not only the capital Kingston, but also Boston Bay, Port Antonio and Falmouth on the north coast. In February, we returned to Santo Domingo for a few more days, before it was time to leave the Caribbean behind.
Four months exploring Latin America
In February, we flew from the Dominican Republic to Bogota, the capital of Colombia, and toured Colombia for almost two months in total. We spent the most time in Bogota, where we also did a 10 days house-sit with three cats, but we also managed to do a fairly comprehensive tour of both the largest cities and smaller destinations around the country. The route included Medellin, Cali, Salento, Santa Fe de Antioquia, Necocli, Cartagena, Santa Marta, Barranquilla, Palomino and the Tayrona National Park.
From Colombia, the journey continued to Brazil in early April, where our first destination was the capital of the Amazonas region, Manaus, located in the middle of the rain forest. After exploring the city for a few days, we took a riverboat down the Amazon River, stopping in Alter do Chao for a few days, and ending up in the city of Belém in the river’s wide delta.
On the northeast coast of Brazil, we also explored the cities of Recife and Salvador da Bahia, as well as Itacaré, famous for its beautiful, remote beaches. Other destinations in Brazil included the iconic Rio de Janeiro, the gigantic São Paulo, and the stunningly beautiful Iguazu Falls and the city of Foz do Iguaçu.
From Brazil we continued to Buenos Aires in Argentina, Colonia del Sacramento, Montevideo and Rivera in Uruguay, and Encarnacion, Trinidad and Asunción in Paraguay. At the end of the South America tour we returned to São Paulo, from where we then flew to Europe in mid-June, via Madrid to Lyon in France.
Road trip from France to Finland
The reason for flying to France was to return to Alsace, where our camper van had once again been spending the winter on our friends yard. We spent a few weeks as house-sitters in the wonderful landscapes amidst the half-timbered houses and vineyards of Alsace, before heading north towards Finland. This time the road trip route went through Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
Autumn road trip in Europe
After spending August in Finland visiting relatives and friends, it was time to get back on the road. We did an autumn road trip in Eastern Europe, as we needed to participate a work-related event in Albania and a beer festival in Poland in October. There were quite some long driving days, and part of the countries we basically just drove through. For longer time we stayed doing pet-sitting in Thessaloniki in Greece and in Slovenia, and the travel destinations also included the island of Corfu in Greece and the city of Timisoara in Romania.
Ending the year in South Africa
In November, winter slowly began to make its way to Central Europe, and it was time for us to move towards warmer weather. We packed up our backpacks again in France, left the van behind and traveled to meet friends in Andalusia, Spain before the long-haul flight. This time, we chose southern Africa as our wintering destination, partly for work related reasons. The first destination was South Africa, where Cape Town was our base for the rest of the year.
In December, we did a 10-day road trip in the Western Cape and a little bit in the Eastern Cape too, visiting, among other things, Addo National Park, famous for its elephants, and the Garden Route on the coast. We have continued to do house-sits in South Africa, first taking care of an adorable dog in Sea Point and then looking after a lovely dog and cat duo in the beautiful Gardens area at the foot of Table Mountain.
Travel statistics 2025
Visited countries:
– 32 countries on four continents (all in all 90/193 countries visited)
– 7 new countries (Jamaica, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, South Africa)
Ways of traveling:
– 17 flights
– roughly 12 000 kilometers with our camper van
– 9 long distance ferry trips
– 0 long distance train trips
– 33 long distance bus trips
– dozens of local buses, metro trips, uber etc.
Accommodation:
– 188 nights in apartments, guest-houses or hostels (mostly via Booking.com)
– 71 nights house-sitting
– 38 nights with family or friends
– 27 nights house-sitting for friends
– 30 nights in our camper van (10 on camping sites / 20 wild camping)
– 11 nights overnight traveling (bus / flight / airport)
Costs and revenues 2025
Below is the cost summary graph of all the costs of our nomadic life in 2025. During the year we traveled on four continents: North America (The Caribbean), South America, Europe and Africa. We flew relatively lot, and thus spent more money on traveling than the previous years, but it was still a rather budget friendly year, with total costs of 26 065 € all together for two people. Let’s take a short look on what this sum consists of.
Traveling (transportation) costs were altogether 7 411 € (20,30 € per day), which was way more than on previous years. The sum consists of flights (4 004 €), fuel (1 380 €), long distance bus tickets (877 €) ferry tickets (442 €), local transportation (147 €), Uber / other taxis (344 €), and some occasional parking costs and road taxes.
Accommodation costs sum up to 5 338 €, which is 1719 € more than in 2024, simply because we stayed more nights in paid accommodations, less nights free house-sitting and with friends and family (or business). On average the costs were 27 € per night for those nights that we paid for, which is one euro less than in 2024. As described above in the travel statistics, we stayed altogether 71 nights house-sitting, 38 nights with family and friends and 27 in our friends empty house. Counting in also cost-free nights wild camping and overnight traveling, we stayed altogether 167 nights free of charge, which is still a lot, but way less than in 2024 for example.
Grocery costs, that include all the food and drinks (also quite a lot of wine and craft beer…) bought from supermarkets and other stores, sum up to 4 717 €, which is on average 12,92 € per day for us two. Restaurant costs were altogether 4 782 € (13,10 € per day). These costs are almost exactly the same than in 2024, but higher than in previous years before that. We cook most of the meals ourselves, but also ate out quite a lot, and partly stayed in countries, where both restaurant costs and prices of groceries were quite high. Also, it’s worth noticing that almost half of the restaurant costs are (again) alcohol drinks – tasting local beers and wines is a nice but quite expensive hobby!
In category Tourism, all together 342 €, are the costs of adventures, tours and entrance fees. The sum consists of a whale tour in Dominican Republic, entrance fees to Tayrona National Park in Colombia, to Iguacu Falls in Brazil and to Addo Elephant National Park in South Africa, and a few other smaller entrance fees to sights.
Other costs, altogether 1 252 €, includes passport renewal costs (160 €), clothes and shoes (345 €), presents (141 €) and all small purchases like cosmetics and toiletries (148 €), housing goods and camping gas. In addition, in this category there are ATM fees (32 €) and local SIM cards + prepaid data (75 €). Furthermore, there are for example luggage storage costs (80 €) and some random costs like traffic tickets (42 €), laundry costs and car wash costs. In 2024 we had no healthcare costs.
In addition to these above listed costs of traveling and living abroad, we have the so called Yearly Costs category, altogether 2 082 €. This sum consists of travel insurance costs (1 064 €) and other insurances (136 €), car repair costs (384 €), car taxes (111 €), phone bills (204 €), purchases for the camping van (166 €) as well as subscriptions (17 €). Also, there is a category called Equipment (140 €) that in 2025 only included a new power bank and some smaller equipment purchases like chords and mouses.
Where to get travel insurance for a longer trip?
Over more than eight years of nomad life, we’ve searched for cost-effective and reliable solutions, especially for travelers’ health insurance.
In the article Nomad Travel Insurance: 3 +1 Easy Options, we present international insurance options suitable also for extended trips.
Adding up all the above mentioned together, the price tag of our nomad year was 26 065 € for us two, which is on average 2 172 € per month or 71,41 € per day for the two of us. Taking into account that this sum includes not just traveling and tourism, but all the costs of our nomadic life, we think that it’s not that much money, and that every penny was well spent.
On the revenue side, we worked through our own company, doing business development, international sales & marketing, web-development, content creation and other tasks for Finnish companies (mostly for Manna Insect). In addition, we also got some rental income of the apartment that we own in Finland. Our revenues cover all the expenses of the year, and instead of eating our buffers, we were again able to save some money for years to come.
FinnsAway travel blog and our other blogs
2025 was another quiet year in this blog site. We only published a few new posts about our travels in Egypt, Caribbean and Brazil. It was a challenge to find enough time for this blog with all other writing tasks and work on hand. FinnsAway has been active in social media though, with a bunch of content on our Facebook page as well as on our Instragram account.
Most read posts in 2025
The list most popular posts in FinnsAway once again included both hiking related content and travel guides. The most read post was about our three-days hike on Rila Mountains in Bulgaria, followed by a post about the sun-kissed Algarve region in southern Portugal. All of the most read posts are quite old already, and we really need to update both the content and the appearance of these posts (yes, this was on the task list of 2024 and 2025 too…). As in previous years, the vast majority of readers came to the blog via Google searches.
3-days hike in Rila Mountains, Bulgaria
Algarve – holiday paradise or a tourist trap?
Batumi, Georgian gem by the Black Sea
Cyprus: The walled city of Famagusta
Hiking and camping Tour du Mont Blanc
Other blog sites
In addition to FinnsAway blog, we write posts about craft beer and breweries around the world in our Craft Beer Nomads blog – the beer blog has been more active than FinnsAway, and it’s also reaching quite nice audience in Instagram. We also have an active blog for our Finnish speaking audience; Elämää Nomadina is a site that focuses on our story as nomadic travelers, including informative articles about this lifestyle as well as a travel diary. In addition, we have a (rather inactive) site dedicated to house-sitting, called the Nomad Housesitters.
Sports and activities 2025
We love active lifestyle and outdoor adventures, and being sporty helps us to stay healthy and fit. 2025 was not as active year as the previous ones, especially when it comes to running. We clocked in altogether 1146 running kilometres (95,5 km per month), which is way less than on our best running years, when we ran more than 2000 kilometers. But then again, we were aiming on versatility more than just counting kilometers, and also focused on other sports that running. We went to gym or did other weight training altogether 39 times (which is not enough), and did 9 hikes / treks. In addition we did some MTB rides, roller skating and kayaking, and of course also walked a lot, both with dogs when doing house-sits and just by ourselves when exploring new destinations.
How does 2026 look like?
Judged by the way it has started, 2026 is going to be a wonderful year! We rang in the new year in Cape Town in South Africa, and will stay the next few months in Africa, visiting at least Namibia and Botswana, hopefully also Mozambique and Malawi. At some point in early summer, we will return to Europe and do yet another road trip with the camper van, and of course visit our home country Finland. Regarding the autumn our plan is not clear at all yet, but for the winter we most probably will again fly somewhere overseas, maybe finally to South-East Asia!?
Thank you for following our journey, and have a wonderful New Year 2026!
