2011: Six months UK-Cape Town cost me £10,000 with the carnet, flights, fuel and a fair few beers. Staying mostly camp sites and hostels. I could of done it for £7000 if I ate rice, tinned fish and slept rough more often.

2008: Seven months in South America cost me about £7000 with shipping and flights etc and a fair few Bbeers etc. Again, camping and cheap hotels. Probably could of done that for £5000 if I lived really basically.

I've thought about a RTW like you, thinking 12 months.. I've always come up with a budget of about £20,000 with a couple of credit cards in reserve.. doh

For me, If I'm going away for a long time and doing an amazing thing, I'm going to bloody enjoy it. I'll have a Beer if I want one and buy a steak dinner if I need cheering up. If I like somewhere I'll stay longer and kick back. I'll pay for it later :innocent:


Obviously, if you ride a lot and and don't hang around then you can do it A LOT cheaper and A LOT faster but you really need to ask yourself if you want to just tick something off your bucket list or you really want to travel, experience where you are and really make the most of what may be a 'once in a lifetime' thing.

I've ridden with plenty of people who just can't get 'there' fast enough. Where ever 'There' may be.. Many race because they are short on time and/or money. Try not to be one of those people.

Every time I've rushed through a country I've ALWAYS regretted it.

If you only listen to one thing I say, please let it be "DON'T RUSH"..... Save your pennies and make it last.

Ted

It's not that I didn't like what his opinion. It wasn't a like or dislike thing, I just know the world economy pretty well and given we haven't had inflation, was surprised to hear it and wanted to learn about his particular experiences! Now I have, and have looked a bit into Washington State's consumer price index, gas prices, et al! It's been a great learning experience.

I was just bummed that folks are so rough around the edges when I wanted to learn. I realize I've made people mad, and I shouldn't have participated in this forum without knowing what I'd get into!

Wonderful advice. Thanks Ted!

Mate I'm not mad. It just seemed odd that somebody would post a comment, ask for feedback and then when the feedback comes to support what you are actually surmising you make a comment like that.

In Australia and in particular Melbourne over the last 6-8 years we have seen the cost of food and utilities, housing affordability, Insurance premiums etc increase significantly.

Some of this was due to very local factors such as floods, Hurricanes, drought, Australian dollar fluctuations, our mining boom etc etc etc.
I cant speak for the rest of the world because I'm not an expert in global economics and don't have a RTW trip under my belt to make a comment.

However anybody living here who travels will tell you Australia is a far more expensive country to live in or visit than 6-8 years ago.

Good luck with your research.

Hi mate i know you mean well but PLEASE don't travel for a year based on a 6 year old book, Fuel alone is double. I know you mean well but the theory of doing the trip and actually doing it a far apart. Touring Ted has it spot on, we are 2up and therfore its costing me a little more i expect all in about 30k but i would not look to travel on less then 20k with a 5k emergency fund for tyres, unplanned stops or needing to get out of somewhere.

Fuel is killer now, most countries is £1 or more a litre. YOu have to understand that Asia doesn't give to shit about the west's economy in fact india is booming, even guied books written 2 years ago are often out dated with somethings costing double. This said we ate last night in a great little place in Nepal, we had a full plate of Momo's, some beef chowmein, popdom's and fried soya beans a fanta and a large water and the bill came in at 280 rupes (£2.50) so its still cheap if you look around.

There are lots of people out there who travel or are traveling, listen to them as they advice is excellent, please be cautious about seperating people who have traveled and people who have read alot about traveling. I mean no disprepect but before i left i was in a bit of a pannick recieving so much advice some of it seems to have come from couch tourers this included an email out of the blue from someone i had never met telling me the KTM would never make it, that is not the sort of crap you need to hear when you have sold your entire life and made a commitment to travel the world!!

Bottom line is pack your stuff, get on your bike and get all the money you can raise, be it 10k or 100k at some stage you will run out, travel how you are happiest then you can just fly back with the bike in a create if u need to!!! It does not need to be any more difficult than that, all the rest of the stuff you can figure out as you go along!

Great site
 

Hey Steve,

Check this page, all the statistics you need:

Round the world motorcycle tour - Statistics

Good luck and go for it.

Goes to show what can be done and for how little, impressive stuff.

What would be interesting is to get someone like that to repeat the trip and see the difference, again looking at it fuel would be nearly double.

Thanks for all the posts guys. I think the above is basically what its all about!!

I shall hopefully have at least £20k saved by the time we set off (that's after the cost of buying and preparing the bike). Hopefully that will get me everywhere I want to go!

Thanks Touring Ted - we do not plan to rush anywhere!!!

starting my research... just what I'm looking for thanks for sharing

MMMmmmm it is worth noting the amount of nights in other people's homes aka probably free thereby saving a very large chunk of money .

When you going then?

I'm in the same boat but selling my house. Leaving 28th July if all goes to plan. 28yrs as well. Feck it :)

Here's my route so far. It's based on needing no Carnet, which is a pisser as I'd have loved to do Aus/New Zealand but can't have everything. Looking to extend into South America and around then back up.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid= 206428310598675386573.0004b8292c6f44e7f35d7

I'll be on a diesel Enfield doing 160mpg and 60mph unless on a hill. Going to keep it as cheap as possible without unnecessary suffering :innocent:.

There are lots of people out there who travel or are traveling, listen to them as they advice is excellent, please be cautious about seperating people who have traveled and people who have read alot about traveling. I mean no disprepect but before i left i was in a bit of a pannick recieving so much advice some of it seems to have come from couch tourers this included an email out of the blue from someone i had never met telling me the KTM would never make it, that is not the sort of crap you need to hear when you have sold your entire life and made a commitment to travel the world!!

Bottom line is pack your stuff, get on your bike and get all the money you can raise, be it 10k or 100k at some stage you will run out, travel how you are happiest then you can just fly back with the bike in a create if u need to!!! It does not need to be any more difficult than that, all the rest of the stuff you can figure out as you go along![/QUOTE]

Rixxy

I think you hit the nail on the head with your first paragraph, far to many experts out there who have watched the Long Way Round and suddenly become an expert on Motorcycle travel, and the furthest they have travelled is between the Beer fridge and the TV.
Costing wise for me to travel this year from the UK to Thailand with 5 weeks in China i expect no change out of 16000 pounds, its not just the travelling its all the other items that cost, spares, camping equipment, luggage, maps, medicines, visas, insurances the list goes on. China is a big chunk of the cost above so its difficult to work on a daily costings but works out 175 quid per day for the 90 days i will be away, not cheap but when i reflect back i could blow the same ammount in Pattaya every day without trying!!

Eric

Me and my pal Mark did a RTW East to West from UK across States, ship to Vladivostok (most expensive bit) then travelled back to UK across Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary etc etc. The total cost each was around £16,000 (not incl bike) but we mostly stayed in motels/hotels - although the cost for each of us was halved because we shared a room.

We were let down on sharing the cost of a container from Seattle to Vlad so ended up splitting the $6000 cost between us which made it quite expensive - had we found others to share then this could have been cut down to around $1000 (£600) each. Then we had the cost of flying from Vancouver to Vladivostok (via Bejing) so the Pacific crossing by both ourselves and the bikes was a bike drain on the old purse.

Thankfully fuel in America and Russia was cheap (compared to the UK anyway). We did do some rough camping but only when we had to. As "Touring Ted" put it in his post, you want to enjoy the experience so don't turn it into a cost saving exercise every time you want to do something or you may end up not enjoying the experience. Although I would say that I have met many travellers along my journeys who seem to take a perverse pleasure out of getting the best deal or the cheapest sleep or something for free - they are easy to spot and very easy for me to steer around.

Another thing to take into account is that you can travel the same road as many others and each person will have different experiences and encounters - no two journeys are the same and by the same token no two costings for that journey are identical either. In any event £20k will see you a good long way.

Martin

Feck it indeed!!! :-)

I'm off April 2013 and should be away for almost 18 months! Can't wait. When do you leave?

It's pretty simple to attempt to workout how much something is likely going to cost. Shipping costs, fuel cost and even (sort of) hotel costs are easily obtained. You know the distances roughly and you should know how often you are going to ship. There's you unavoidable big ticket items. Don't forget tyres (costly) and maintenance which are also distance related.

Sleeping and eating is the bit that you have to decide how you want a trip to go yourself. You can survive on greasy burgers or chicken and rice. But if you have a pizza fetish you can predict how much it'll cost you extra. I don't like to budget food and I prefer to sleep out as much as possible, but it's not always as easy. Each their own.

Add it all up and if you want to know a /day cost divide by the days and there's you answer.

Good thing about doing it that way is that you can target items where you may be able to save money if you have to. Some things you just can't save on at all (fuel, tyres, etc) so this sets realistic predictions and targets.

BTW, I'm still in denial how much my next trip may be going to cost me.