We spent about 11 months in South America and spent a total of $28,250. That means that we spent on average about $87 per day. These expenses include some south-american side shipping expenses in Colombia when we crossed the darien gap but they don’t include our costs shipping home (coming up in the summary budget for our trip). These expenses also include 6 weeks that we spent in Buenos Aires really living it up, where we spent $3,820. If you eliminate our partying in Buenos Aires and the new set tires we bought in Chile (the tires should really be amortized across the whole trip), then our average daily spend in South America is about $81 per day.
Our biggest expenses were transportation which accounted for $10,877 / %38.5 of our total spend. This was followed by Food & Drinks at $10,000 / %35.4. We spent about $3,500 on living expenses (%12.5) and $3,188 on entertainment (%11.3). This includes side trips to the Galapagos Islands and Iguazu Falls, and 6 weeks spent in Buenos Aires while we waited for our truck to ship back home to the USA.
Our transportation budget was primarily fuel ($5,062 / %46.5) followed by maintenance ($2,807 / 25.8%). Maintenance included about $1,500 worth of tires, a $250 repair to our clutch cylinder, new brakes in Peru, a few tire puncture fixes, and several oil changes.