If you were to ride from Los Angeles to Argentina on a DRZ 400e what would be a good amount of money to travel with? Also what would be the bare minimum?

That's a very difficult question. It depends how far you want to do each day (petrol) and what type of accomodation you want to stay in. Will you be cooking your own meals and camping or stopping in hotels and eating out.

You will need to work out a daily figure and then multiply it. Add a bit for maintenance and tyres as well. At best it will be a rough estimate. If it comes out as $50 a day and it takes you 100 days to do the trip then that's $5000. In Europe I plan on £50 a day but in South America you won't need that much.

Search the HUBB, you'll find everything you need on here. Routes, fuel prices, advice on security and interesting places to visit. But you'll have to put the effort in to reap the rewards.

There is an alternative. Take what money you've got, and just go! You'll figure it out along the way.

Good answer to my terribly open-ended question. I am not the sort of person to just up and go and I have plenty of time to plan so I think I'll make a list of stuff. If you notice stuff missing please let me know!

Initial costs:
Flight to LAX
DRZ
International license


Ongoing:
Approximately 200-300km a day
Backpacker hostels
Eating cereal for breakfast, buying lunch and cooking my own dinner
Tyres (how many km will they last on a dual-sport drz400?)
Servicing the bike, oil changes etc
Activities and admission costs

Also mid way throughout the trip I plan to teach english for a year in either nicaragua, costa rica or colombia so probably need some money to settle.

just done about half of that trip,why dont you go to the horizons meet at tintaldra ,i ,doing a talk on my trip there from canada to colombia ,lots of other guys worth talking to about bike travel, yes you may start with the idea of self cooking etc but not worth it ,eating out is cheaper if you eat local food, and yes fuel aint cheap after mexico ,and backpackers are not common but hotels are cheap ,depends if you want to live like a hermit ,or socialise ,plety of travellers to go out with on the way i mixed it up a bit you can prolly find a travel ready bike if you start looking ,drz ,not a bad choice ,most popular bike for this trip is a klr 650, as they are cheap as chips in the states and you can get heaps of travel shit for them,i got mine for $1800
cheap aussie dave

wow $1800?? thanks for the info, how much have you been living on daily since mexico?

hard to say really but i was away for 6 months and dont really know how much i spent , i guess including splurges around $50 -$80 per day then you have tyres ,chains sprockets cost of getting from panama to colombia $500 -$600 but youwill enjoy it ,dont count on making too much money teaching english,its not like doing it in asia i am home working for the summer in albury and heading back to colombia in april
dave

When I visited Uruguay on a three day trip, I spent about $60.00 per day. 450-500 mile days on an xt600. About $30.00 for gas, $15.00 for hotel and $15.00 for food. We stayed 3 to a room at the hotels and split the cost. So I would say, $75.00 per day would be a good estimate for Brazil travel.

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Every where is walking distance if you have the time!

Try searching on here for teaching English. There are lots of threads telling you how little you'll make (local rates). If you want to be part of a community though, or make a difference somewhere then have a go. Not all the worlds riches are money.

30 dollars a day or less is perfectly possible. 15 dollars for 15 litres of petrol...camping/street food.

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Thanks
Joe

I remember allot of Mexico being rather expensive, especially Baja.
After Mexico you can eat for about $3 per meal (sometimes less) Meals are available for 1-2 dollars, but you will start to lose weight and after a couple months picking up your bike will be really hard.

As mentioned, $30/day will do, but you will probably want to do some fun stuff, like climbing volcanoes, para gliding, kayaking, caving etc. Usually $20-$30 per day, for the occasional time you do this. Add in money for tires, oil/filters, chain/sprockets. Count on changing tires and sprockets at least once. If you use synthetic oil, you can prolong the oil change.

Most make peanuts teaching english. I met one Kiwi in Colombia making COP20 000/hour. (about $10) A large business hired him to teach english to their Exec's. This is REALLY rare, but good luck.

That was good advice about the KLR. Also, lots of people want/try to sell there bikes after Ushuia as well, you might think about doing your trip backwards and buying a US bike in Argentina. The bike will be cheap and already set up to travel. (Oh wait, I see you use km's, your from Australia, try to find a bike from your own country)

200-300 km's per day is a nice reasonable amount. Obviously, some days will be 500, some days will be 0.

Sometimes milk is hard to come by, do you like dry cereal?

Hostals are on average $7.

From California, leave with street biased dual purpose tires, they will last until somewhere between Panama and Lima, Peru, depending on how you ride. From Peru you can decide if you want more dirt or more pavement.

I think I would say $1500 per month will get you by rather easily.

$5-10k dollars

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http://www.journeyrider.net Latin America blog (07-8)

Thanks very much you've all be really helpful. I was aiming at around
$10k but I think I will delay a couple of months so I have $10k + money for the bike and airfare.

I don't expect to save money teaching english but I would like to settle somewhere for a little while to allow for me to learn spanish

Does anyone know a good classifieds site for Los Angeles, or is there a section here for people selling their bikes in Argentina?

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Every where is walking distance if you have the time!

Hi Bamaboy, thanks for the heads up, I am studying the FSI spanish course which is quite old (1960's) but free for download from here:

FSI Spanish

Currently up to unit 6

I just picked this up from Poorbuthappy.......I've no idea of it's validity....


Quote:

ENGLISH TEACHERS WANTED AT PETERSON'S BOGOTA


.." Here are the rates: $ 32,000 cop per session of 1:30 Hours.

$ 47,000 cop per session of 2:15 Hours

$ 62,000 cop per session of 3:00 hours

The amounts stated above are after taxes or take home money, Only the British Council beats Petersons money wise speaking. We are still hiring, we will need more than 7 teachers so far.UNLIKE OTHER INSTITUTES WE ALWAYS PAY ON TIME!

petersons@etb.net.co

beckloud@gmail.com

oca75@hotmail.com