Budget for South American Adventure
 

Ok, ok, I know that this is a tired topic and a subjective one as well. But please hear me out. I have a couple of plans for an adventure down south and want more opinions and thoughts that are specific to me and my journey than others.

About me:
I live in Portland, Oregon, am 24 years old and ride a 2009 G650GS (same as the F650GS single - new letter, black engine).

My Goal:
Experience the lands via motorbike, learn the language via immersion, and live a little

Route Ideas/Plans:
1) Ride from Portland, South America and back (6-12 months of living).
2) Ride from Portland to TDF and ship myself/bike home
3) Ship myself/bike to Argentina, ride to TDF back home

Thoughts about the journey:
The first plan is the ideal plan. The thoughts behind it would be for me to drive down to Argentina, the girl friend would fly down and we'd ride either 2 up home, or if we had a second bike by that time she'd ride it home. (2up would most likely consist of me riding a larger bike instead of the 650. Although we love to ride 2up on the 650 now, i'm just thinking about the weight of luggage and 2 bodies for that distance).

If we did either plan 2 or 3 we could both do it together 2up or 2 bikes. Its a time to debt ratio for the girl friend. She went to much more expensive school thus has much higher student loans to pay.

Thoughts about budgetting:
The plan is not to live a life of luxury. I like to camp and pay little for accommodation. Camping may not be an option all the time but I would look into Couchsurfing.org and cheap hotel stays when needed. I take Grant and Susan's words about riding slower/less miles a day and staying longer to heart. Most because the goal is not to mile munch and accomplish the route but more to live the life.

I've heard many many many many different ideas about the costs per day. It's been anywhere from $10 - $100 a day. This is where is becomes more subjective.

Questions/Comments:
Is it crazy to think 6000 is enough for 6 months? My heros Simon and Lisa Thomas (2 Ride the World) spent a year and a half in Latin America - 6 months in Brazil... although I'm not planning on riding the most dangerous "road" in the world and don't plan:rolleyes2: on breaking my neck in a place where I'd have to ride another 3 weeks just to seek medical attention. When I met them at BMWOR Tigard at one of their last presentations before they headed off to Japan, I forgot to ask them about costs or things like that - also wasn't sure if its considered rude at all.

Doug (Wrong Way Round.. on a Chopper) said in the Horizons Unlimited DVD that he spent $12,000 for 5 months of RTW travel... half of that was shipping him and his bike over the 2 oceans that he crossed.

Chris and Erin (ultimatejourney.com) averaged $57 a day for 4.5 years around the world.

Please comment, I sincerely take everyone's thoughts, ideas, concerns, issues to heart and appreciate everyone in this world of adventure travel.

Thanks,
Sean (Bug7)

Nobody has any thoughts?

Be patient. If you can't muster more patience than that, you're going to have a miserable time (at least intermittently) on the road.

Have you checked the recent thread which addressed, from a number of different perspectives, this topic? Are you asking for something which wasn't said in that thread? If so, what?

FWIW, I think you're trying to pare costs too far at $1000 per month. All else aside, 10% of it is going to go for transport around or over the Gap. But if you want to try, just make sure you've got a contingency plan set up in advance; what to do if the bike craters, if you're sick or injured, if if if. Then go for it and see where you end up. What's to lose?

Oh, and try to make sure that the g.f. is really on the same program as you. Sometimes that gets a bit sticky.

Suerte!

Mark

I'll be heading that way (USA first) early next year then the prudhoe to TDF and hoping on $20k should cover my trip till I get to SA and line up some work (TESOL) and hope to slowly live and move through SA

might see you on the road I'll be on a G650XC

oh and replies might come but this site people are generally on the road so patience

Travelling on two bikes and sharing accommodation, we averaged $30/day in South America and $40/day in Mexico (food/accomm/fuel) in 2007. USA/Canada was more like $80/day camping, main cost being fuel. Other than the USA and Mexico, you probably won't camp much till Chile/Argentina though you can obviously camp if you really want to. It's just harder to find places to camp and the rooms are cheap enough anyway.

Darien Gap was $550 taking The Melody from Cartagena to Panama but prices prob up a bit since then.

Don't be put off be titles like 'The worlds most dangerous road' etc....its just a gravel road, perfectly wide enough for bikes with luggage. Take that road to Coroico and then the new road back to La Paz, one of my favourite biking roads.

I'd seriously suggest that you get onto the LANGUAGE portion before leaving. Learning immersion is slow, and not as easy as 1 would expect.
However, give someone just the basics and understandig of grammatic design and you will double your learning speed. Try a decent basic spanish CD, listen to it in the car, at work, on the bike, etc. Then, when you leave for the ride south, upload it to the ipod and use it all the way down and BAAM, you're golden.

Hi Sean,

Don't know if this will help, but I'm currently going through the planning stages as well for a trip from London to Singapore. I'm planning the following daily spends (includes food, petrol, accomodation):
$60 day Western europe
$50 Central/Eastern europe
$40 Western Asia
$40 India
$30 SE Asia

On top of this I have allowances for my flights, bike shipping, a small disaster fund, travel insurance etc.

I plan to camp at every available opportunity, and have friends to stay with in the Western Europe stage. I am concerned that I'm not allocating enough for fuel consumption.

My plan breaks down to the 180km/day (assuming 24,000km covered which is a figure I got from someone else's ride report). I really don't know if this km/day is reasonable, but it is a case of fitting it around work/sisters wedding/other things I can't control.

@ 20km/l consumption plus some buffer, that is about 10L of fuel per day (sorry, I'm Aussie so I think in terms of KM and L, not MPG).

From this I can then estimate my total fuel cost per region. Lots of estimating, but it gives not a terrible ball park figure. (I haven't done this yet, but will do it closer to the trip to get more accurate figures)

While I've never done a bike trip in S.A., I have back-packed around south america for 6 months. I can tell you that in Brazil (where I spent most of my time) I managed to live on about $7-$8 a day for food and you can get accommodation for about $10-$15 (check a lonely planet). With fuel you might need $30/day for your trip? This will be less when travelling with your girlfriend because (a) double rooms are cheaper per person when you are not camping (b) Girlfriends generally don't eat all their food so you can have some too :D

For central america I did Costa Rica/Panama/Nicuargua on $25 a day for a month of back-packing. This was accommodation/food/transport. I could have got it down to less if I wasn't paying for buses everywhere and if the girlfriend hadn't been there (so I could have let my food/accomodation standards slip...)

Warning: These are all estimates by a complete amatuer :)

Don't forget to allow $100/day for fuel alone in Turkey!

Think I was around 30,000kms from Singapore to UK over 4 months.

Thanks for the tip Mike, wasn't something I had realised!

This time last year, it was around GBP £1.50-1.60 / L. Filling up twice in a day if covering bigger distances was bloody painful after the low Iranian fuel prices and generally living on $30-40 / day prior to hitting Turkey. Free camping in Turkey is easy enough though to cut back on costs.

Are you traveling by now?
 

I am in Portland; I am Colombian and I am at the very early planing stage of a motorcycle trip to Colombia from Portland; I only have 2.5 to three months so I am not going to be able to stop and visit much at least until I get to COL; I may ship the bike back to the States if pressed by time riding back; my goal is to be in Colombia Nov 13 2010 as it is the 25 anniversary of a sad day at my home town (Armero, Tolima) when a volcano avalanche destroyed the village killing more than 25 K people; please get back to me ...I can use some help and also give you some good info about COL in case you need it
franrios@yahoo.com

I am in Portland; I am Colombian and I am at the very early planing stage of a motorcycle trip to Colombia from Portland; I only have 2.5 to three months so I am not going to be able to stop and visit much at least until I get to COL; I may ship the bike back to the States if pressed by time riding back; my goal is to be in Colombia Nov 13 2010 as it is the 25 anniversary of a sad day at my home town (Armero, Tolima) when a volcano avalanche destroyed the village killing more than 25 K people; please get back to me ...I can use some help and also give you some good info about COL in case you need it
franrios@yahoo.com