This was published 5 years ago
Budget for travel, tips and advice: Travel's eight most expensive hobbies
By Ben Groundwater
Sailing the Greek Islands - not a cheap pasttime.Credit: Alamy
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.
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
Credit: 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.
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
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
Credit: Alamy
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
Credit: 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
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
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