Ok so I've saved some money and want to go! There are two of us on two bikes. Have a house listed for sale that should contribute to the finances some. I know the costs of going around the world vary tremendously, depending on if you camp, if you cook, how many times you ship the bike, costs of visas, bike repairs etc. I would love to hear what your entire trip cost you, though everyone's trip and expenses are different hopefully if I get enough replies I can get an idea.

My very vague plan at the moment is to head from USA up to Alaska as a trial run, then down to TDF. Hopefully hang out in SA for a while. Would then love to fly to South Africa and work my way up. Go over to SE Asia, India etc. Then up into the Stans and Russia. I spent some time in EU and feel Europe is well preserved let's say, and all the historic sites will still be there tomorrow, and no hurry to go there and spend lots of money. Would love to go to Australia, but uber expensive it seems! Maybe another trip.

The question do I have enough money to go on the cheap while I'm still young, and willing to camp/eat whatever, or do I need to work more save more money, prepare more etc? The two ideas I have are one: either just go to Alaska then down to SA and around(maybe ride back up to US to save money on shipping?) for now, save more money, by building and selling houses so might take years. Or two: if it's realistic go for the big trip everywhere. I am wondering what other people spent on similiar trips. I know like I said that everything is a variable and it seems hard to get an answer, but if you went on a similiar trip down to Central and South America and have what it costs, or you went all over and know what you spent please let me know. Costs of solo trip, or trip with another person/bike are appreciated. I prefer camping and cooking, but not so strict that I will pass up every hotel/meal/tourist thing, want to experience it all! Esp, the food!!

Please let me know anything you know on what your costs were, or any advice is appreciated.

This is going to be interesting. I wonder what others will say? All I can say is I've just been from Alaska to Panama. And I would say that my average was about $1500-2000 a month.

Of course you also have to factor in buying the bike/equipment/insurance/flights/shipping at beginning and end but as an average, once on the road I'd say about $1500-2000 a month.

I KNOW lots of people will say they did it cheaper than that and I'ms ure you can. I'm guessing my estimate will be higher than most but that's what i spent.

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>>Would love to go to Australia, but uber expensive it seems!

Compared to where?

US-Europe or developing countries?

Camping and cooking is quite cheap down under.

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F650GS for Sale in USA
http://sanfranciscomotorycle.com

Yeah, why do you think down here is expensive? Maybe just because your dollar is down against ours for a change

Anyway, I can tell ya I just did the Americas and in the US there is nowhere to camp, unless you own an RV or want to live like a hillbilly. But, once you get out of town and hit Canada and Alaska then it is good to camp, everything is local.

Basically, I spent a lot of money on motels in the US, even the cheap ones were expensive to me. But, down south of the US border, it gets cheaper right away, so it is a waste of time taking camping gear, unless you really want to live like grizzley adams.

If you budget for $100 a day, or $1,000 a week for a solo(depending on how many s you want to sample) then you would be not far wrong. That includes all expenses, including new tyres and chains/sprockets etc.

Cheers
TS

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www.travellingstrom.com

Ok I should clarify I think it's too expensive at the moment because of the shipping the bike there, the plane tickets etc. I have been looking at flights, I actually was offered a job there and do currently have a visa for Australia but one way was $1,500USD, I didn't even check on the bike. It's also not attached to anything, not like shipping to Africa and then going wherever. I'm not saying I don't want to go there, I just want to go to as many new places as possible on a budget. I'm also don't care so much about hitting the 1st world countries, for one expensive, and two I think in the coming years they aren't going to change as rapidly. Would like to see everywhere at some point though! I've ridden all over the US, and camped everywhere, mostly for free. If you're ok with sleeping in hay fields, church lawns work well(seem less likely to yell at you) etc., then it can be done. Campgrounds are too expensive most of the time, when all you're looking for is a place to sleep not showers etc., why not sleep in a field?

Thanks for all your figures. Any insights help so much to try and figure a realistic budget!

Europe to India to Australia (in Oct07-Apr08), six months, 34.000kms, 2-up on one DL650. Had no tent with us, first had a cooking device, but sent it home after around 1/3 of the way.

Generally, Europe (from Germany to the Balkans and Greece) was the most expensive, but Turkey wasnt far off. Iran, Pakistan, and especially India were a lot cheaper (India was dirt cheap), Thailand and Malaysia possibly a bit more expensive than India (but still very cheap compared to Europe!) and Indonesia was about on par with India, so highly recommendable to move fast through Europe, and stay longer in that region (between India & Indonesia) to keep the costs down. Camping could make it considerably cheaper in Europe or in Oz, but in many parts of Asia I simply wouldn´t bother, accommodation is so aplenty and so cheap.

Australia felt very expensive right after Indonesia, but I think was in fact a bit cheaper than Europe. (We did another trip to the western side of the US in 2009, and I think it was a tiny bit cheaper there than in Oz, but remember we come from the Euro zone, so the picture might look a bit different depending on exhange rates - Euro to dollar has changed a lot from that time already!)

Freighting the bike and flying ourselves is something most people end up doing a lot on that trip, because first of all the difficulties to get into China or Burma, then the sea between Asia and Australia, and then finally to get out of Oz (getting back home in our case).

The estimated breakdown of freighting and flying on this trip:

- Chennai->Kuala Lumpur->Bangkok, Jan-08, Malaysia Airlines MASKargo, on an open crate, about 600EUR +total 400EUR for our own flight tickets.

- Malaysia to Indonesia, the bike on an onion boat and us on a speedboat... can´t remember exactly, but it´s pretty cheap over there, so I guess about 200EUR probably got us all into Indonesia.

- Bali->Perth with Qantas, March-08 (this wasn´t planned, but needed to be done, because all hell had just broken loose in East Timor, from where we could´ve shipped the bike much cheaper to Darwin by sea, but were running out of time, so couldn´t wait for that to settle down, and couldn´t wait 5 weeks for seafreight from Bali either)... the bike on a closed crate, about 1200EUR (the plane on the direct route couldn´t swallow a package this big, so it had to make a nice detour via Melbourne, flight time went from 3 to 10 hours!) And again we payed about 400EUR for the direct flights for two.

- Sydney->Helsinki, bike by sea on a closed crate, forwarded by Tradelanes in Melbourne, only about 700EUR. Our own flights home via Tokyo were about 1000EUR each (probably possible to get 200-300 cheaper, but with more stops on the way, and taking much longer).

(So as you can see, we spent a bit less than 3000EUR for the above mentioned transport over the seas between India and Oz, and then again about the same amount, to get the bike and us home from Sydney).

All visas, the carnet (mandatory on this trip), and other required papers probably cost in the region of 700-800EUR total. And we didn´t spend a whole lot on entrance fees to sights, didn´t participate on many tourist trips while staying somewhere. And weren´t looking for classy accommodation (but also stayed out of the worst ratholes!) and we usually ate in local places. Especially in Europe & Oz, we often bought something to eat in the evening from the shops.

The "grande totale" of this trip, including all those mentioned above, and our costs of living + bike maintenance + fuel = everything, was about 15000-16000 EUR (or 7500-8000 per head).

And we stayed away for 182 days, so that means we spent about 41-44EUR per head per day, when including all freighting, flying, papers and everything.

Or if leaving everything else out, and calculating only our costs of living + bike maintenance + fuel, it looks like we spent about 24-26EUR per head per day.

And you probably could bring that figure down a bit by camping and cooking your own food, especially in Europe, US and Oz.

You don't mention !!!

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www.travellingstrom.com

I spent most of 2007 touring Africa so this is a little out of date but not including shipping, insurance or things like rafting or diving my costs were about $1,000 per month. This included petrol, usually 50 US cents per litre, cheaper hotels, hostels or camping $10-15 a night, cooking my own food where possible or using cheap restaurants, a few s and visas. I thought this was about as cheap as it could be done and still have some pleasures, money could have been saved with a more economical bike, my ageing BMW only does 50 miles per UK gallon.
I hope this is helpful.

I don't have any useful information in terms of dollars/day for a trip like this, I only thought it was curious that your trip plans, sound just like what I'm conspiring (at least up to and through Africa) - my plans aren't quite as mature as yours, so I'll be listening in on this thread.

I know there a few good, recent, ride reports over on ADVRider.com too - especially covering the Prudoe Bay/Ushuaia/SA portion. If you haven't already pinged folks over there yet, it might be a good resource.

Are you planning a departure this summer up north? Any travel blogs or sites setup yet to track your travel progress? Where are you in CO?

GL with your plans and trip!

Mike

Hi,

Traveling can be really cheap if you are doing wild camping. Yes you can do wild camping in Europe as well as in Africa etc. You have to calculate about $100 per Country for Visa and about $1,20 Euro per Liter petrol. Therefore your average cost per day are depending on the millage you want to travel.

Riding the rough west coast through Africa part 3

Have fun, Tobi

I've just worked out a prelim cost for our trip from Cape Town to Holland and for 2 including tyres, flights, shipping, hotels, food, petrol for the distance, oil, visa's, general living expenses, etc, it came to AU$45000.

Food I calculated as US$40/day pp which is probably conservative in Africa and a bit under in Europe, 4 hotels per week @ US$60/night just as a contingency. This can be savings during the trip by camping more if you spend more elsewhere. Fuel in Africa US$1.15 and US$2.5 in europe with a usage of 21km/l.

It's pretty simple really. Just be honest to yourself and don't freak out about the price. I use to always go to myself, surely not that much. But end up coming heaps short. The second trip it was about right. A friend of mine went to Europe for a 5 week holiday and rented a car or two, stayed at 3 star places and it cost him AU$25k. Trips are expensive.

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Tacos Tyring Travels.com

$25k Aus for five weeks in Europe??? That's over £3k per week. I'd say your mate got absolutely, totally, truly butt-fcuk'd.

In 2006 I spent about $11,500 on 25 weeks from Texas to Tierra del Fuego, all in. 19,000 miles, so I used roughly 400 gallons of fuel. This includes shipping around the Darien, and sending the bike to Houston by sea from Buenos Aires, and flying home myself. I lived pretty cheap, stayed in a few hotels no girlfriend of mine ever would have, but didn't realy deprive myself of anything. I did a back pack trip, and a couple of mountain bike trips on the way, so the off the bike things I did were fairly inexpensive. I was lucky in that I had no significant bike problems, but I did buy 3 tires. Shipping costs have gone up since then, so be prepared for that. Shipping costs and flights were about 30% of the cost of my trip, fuel about 10%, the rest daily living expenses. Have a great trip.

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Andy Tiegs
https://new.horizonsunlimited.com/ts...lsouth-america

Nah, you're making the same mistake I used to make and other are still making. Budgets should be calculated door to door. So this includes flights, excursions, knowing this bloke probably plenty of s. I know finishing my trips in London trying to find a job you spend a lot of money real quick. Especially if you live out of hotels. Do the experiment of adding absolutely everything up down to the 20p toilet fees and you'll be unpleasantly surprised. Few internal flight or the Eurostar and you've lost a few hundred there.

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Tacos Tyring Travels.com

Well there is a HU meeting where you can get info from the people that have done this. It is a bit of a ride but not bad http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/meetings/California2011.php

There is a saying about riding the world it is. Twice as much money as you think, twice the amount of time you are planing but you need but only half the stuff. Some thing like that anyway.

Some place there is a old thread about riding the world on the cheap. You need not do it all in one go. You do not need to go to all the places people list they go. You do not need ride your bike you can fly and rent or buy there. Ride slow and short where it is cheap fast and long where it is not.

Some things you want spend the cash on.
Food! Yes ramen is cheaper but the food and people is some of the reason for going.
Go and walk on the ice. Antarctica is not that far off a boat trip may run $4,000 but when are you ever going to go back?
A vacation from the trip. Riding looks like fun till you do for weeks on end day in day out.
Stop and take some pics. Get a camera and lots of cards for it.