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Home 〉 Travel Planning 〉 Tips & Advice
Budget for travel, tips and advice: Travel's eight most
expensive hobbies
Ben Groundwater
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2.
SHARE It's not as if travel isn't already expensive enough. This pursuit is a
pricey one. It's the sort of passion that quickly drains your
finances, that eats up the bulk of your savings.
What are you spending your money on? Holidays. Always holidays.
Catching flights, staying in hotels, eating in restaurants, getting
from place to place – this stuff adds up.
And then, you go and add something more to it. You combine
another hobby, another passion, with your love of travel. You take
something else that's really expensive, and you make it part of
your holiday experience. You add extra gear; expensive gear. You
necessitate pricey locations. You add exclusivity.
I'm a huge fan of combining your passions with your holidays;
however, if you happen to be into any of the following, you'll find
your finances dwindling even faster than usual.
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Sailing the Greek Islands - not a cheap pasttime. Photo: Alamy
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Skiing/snowboarding
Pretty much everything about snow sports is expensive. The gear is
expensive: even if you don't buy actual skis or a snowboard, you
still have to buy all of the clothes, the goggles, the gloves etcetera.
Then you have to pay to hire everything else. Then you get slapped
with an outrageous bill for a lift pass. Then you have to pay an even
more outrageous sum for any accommodation that's within cooee
of a mountainside. And then you have to pay to get there in the
first place. And yet, if you love the snow, it's all worth it.
Scuba-diving
Diving the Red Sea, Egypt. Photo: Alamy
This fine pursuit has similar drawbacks to snow sports. There's a
lot of expensive, specialised equipment necessary, and if you don't
buy your own you'll have to pay to hire it each time you dive. The
world's best diving also happens in pretty remote locations that are
expensive to get to – try Papua New Guinea, or Belize, or the Red
Sea. Then you need to pay for the boats to get you out to the dive
sites, and accommodation in these places is nowhere near cut-
price. Still, once again, it's worth it.
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Boating
There's a reason boating isn't exactly the sport of the people, and
that's because it costs a huge amount to be involved in. Have you
seen how much a boat costs? It's insane. Even if you're not cruising
around in your own luxury vessel, the hiring of a boat when you're
away from home is prohibitively pricey, and also likely to involve
travel to some fairly exclusive climes. Of course, if you can afford
all of this, I'm jealous, because boating is truly great.
Fine-dining
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5.
If you love food, then it follows that you'll love fine-dining. This is,
after all, supposed to be the pinnacle of culinary endeavour, as
practiced by the world's Michelin-starred and 50 Best-featured
chefs. If that's your thing, then you'll want to do it when you
travel. And you'll have to pay a lot of money for the privilege. Most
fine-dining meals will set you back somewhere in the range of
$200 to $300 per person, per meal. That adds up, quickly.
Wildlife
Mountain gorillas in Rwanda: Not a cheap experience. Photo: Alamy
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6.
Indulging your passion for wildlife should be fairly cheap. After all,
it doesn't cost anything to lace on your boots, grab a pair of
binoculars and start spotting. However, if you really do have a
passion for this stuff, then you'll want to go to the best locations to
do it, which means shelling out for pricey safari lodges in southern
and east Africa, or for wilderness retreats in the Amazon, or to
head on an expensive cruise down to Antarctica.
Rock-climbing
Abseiling Table Mountain, Cape Town. Photo: Alamy
This is another hobby that looks like it should be fairly affordable –
rock faces are free to access – but that ends up being a serious
costly affair. There's all the equipment: ropes, harnesses, shoes,
carabiners, cams and everything else. Then, once you have a
passion for rock-climbing, you find yourself travelling to more and
more obscure places, chasing the best walls, the most amazing
experiences. It's an obsession that seems to cancel out all other
travelling pursuits, and it costs some serious cash.
Cycling/mountain-biking

7.
Step one: buy a bike. And not just any bike. If you're crazy enough
about this sport to want to spend your holidays doing it, then
you're probably going to talk yourself into buying the fanciest,
most expensive bike you can get your hands on. Then you're going
to pay to have that bike lugged around the world, and then you're
going to pay all of the associated costs of accessing trails, and
having support with you. That's not to say that this isn't a valid
pursuit – it just costs a lot.
Mountaineering
Do you know how much it costs to attempt to climb Mt Everest?
Time Magazine worked it out in 2012. They put the price back then –
including training, gear, mountain permit, plus other associated
travel costs – at about $95,000. Ouch. And you may not even be
successful. Of course, not every budding mountaineer is going to
try to summit the big one, but it does give you an idea of costs that
can be involved if getting to the top of big hills is your passion.
Do you have any expensive travel-related hobbies? Does your pursuit of
them meaning giving up other aspects of travel?
Email: b.groundwater@fairfaxmedia.com.au
Instagram: instagram.com/bengroundwater
See also: The eight worst types of people to travel with
See also: There's a big problem with the 'World's 50 best
restaurants' list
Ben Groundwater Jul 18 2018

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