We need a financial planning forum. Or where does one discuss this on here? I'm slowly but surely preparing for my RTW multi-year ride but I need to foremostly get my finaces in order before i go. And, this old dogs gotta die before i can leave.

Until there is a separate forum (BTW I think this thread works) here is my key advice:

1) Rough out your minimum route with free planning software (ex. MapSource, BaseCamp. BaseCamp is the latest and greatest from Garmin. I recently switched over and am happy with it.) Route reasonably sized segments, one or two days long, not one long route. Making one long route doesn't work well when uploaded to a GPS and you make a small change while riding, which forces the device will recalculate the WHOLE route.
2) Add up the miles, then calculate minimum amount of fuel, tires, oil changes, and estimate the cost
3) Count number of days planned to stay in one place and ~400 miles highway or ~200 miles dirt per day (very subjective) to estimate hotel nights, meals and in-country insurance.
4) Estimate border fees...too many variables to comment here.

Understanding the above is important if traveling through malaria prone regions and getting the right count of anti-malaria pills (don't try to get them on the road...)

Cross check: look at the total number of miles and divide by the number of days you are planning. Does the number of miles per day sound reasonable? It should be a smallish number, due to days spent not traveling and lost time crossing borders.

Hope you find something useful in the above.

__________________
Peter B
2008/09 - NJ to Costa Rica and back to NJ
2012/13 - NJ to Northern Argentina, Jamaica, Cuba and back to NJ
2023 - Peru, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia...back to Peru.

Blogs: Peter's Ride

i'm planning on $75usd/ day total, with hopefully spending LESS usually to save up for transport/shipping/etc.. in '03-'04 i spent a year riding around SA and averaged $64usd/day but i blew lots on girls! I'm gonna go S-L-O-W-L-Y, and stop wherever i like for awhile. i'm figuring the only additional expenses mite be scuba diving, trans continental air shipping. i'll be staying mostly in cheap hotels along the way, except inj western countries where ill camp some. what i do not know however is where to put my money, here in USA in order to be able to withdraw the interest and maybe some principle during the trip.

Hi,

Not using Hotels I spend 5000 Euro for 2 years around Africa and only 2500 Euro to go around Southamerica including bike excluding flights because i did not need to pay for any visa. Using a creditcard you can even withdraw your money in congo:

http://www.adventure-travel-experien...en_transafrika
Have fun, Tobi