I think what Mrs Fox meant to say is it's in excess of 5 times our budget for our 2 year round the world trip otherwise, I want to know where this money tree is that is going to magically going to come up with this £375000.00.

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Maths has never been my strong point evidently.

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While this figure does shock many people, and most of us are indeed doing it for WAY less per day, it can depend.

It's 275 per day. A few top end African game parks, and you'll make a serious dent in it. Easy to blow over 1,000 per day there. A few flights and you could burn another 5k to 10k off that (more if all were first class).

When I worked in software, I would tell clients there were 3 variables they would need to juggle. A project could be A) Cheap, B) Fast or C) Good. I let them pick any 2, and the third would suffer. Always.

To do a Good trip, Fast, it will probably not be cheap.


And no, I wouldn't pay it, but that doesn't mean someone else wouldn't take it in a heart beat. And it may be right down their alley.

And there is a difference between surviving, and living. We have decided we want a really good trip, and I'd prefer 18 great months than 24 miserable months (no booze, skip all attractions, no dinners out....). That said, we don't need to drink hundred euro bottles of wine and eat lobster every day either. Ever actually.

What about the folks that buy €250K+ unicat trucks, and use them for a year and park them up. What's cost per day in depreciation? But still it happens.

Merv.

To be fair to Globe Busters it really does depned on what is included in their package.

For some people the best way to go is an organised tour - it's much more time efficient and you probably get to see the best bits without any research on your part.

Looking at their website they do offer a lot of tours at much lower cost but it isn't clear from the site what's included.

My own experience of overland tours is that a lot of time is wasted in administration and whilst it's all part of the 'experience' I would hope that paying £75k for a tour would mean that it was:

1. Quite luxurious in terms of accommodation and food.
2. Stress free - just get up every morning and ride my bike.

But I bet it's not!

In all honesty I would expect an organised tour to be at least double the cost of going it alone, so Globebusters price isn't to far wrong.

At the end of the day they are a buisness and need to make a profit to not only pay a living wage to the owners, guides and administrators but also to ensure the buisness has value for the day Kevin Julia decided to retire and sell the comapany on.

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I have no affiliation with GB but once asked Julia who their clients were that paid their exuberant prices and why they were so high. Like many on the HUBB, my holidays are DIY so it's hard to comprehend why someone would spend that much cash.

Customers with the cash tend to be:
1. self employed reaping the rewards of a successful business
2. people spending redundancy /retirement funds
3. people celebrating a special anniversary
4. rich folk

The Price covers:
- full support before the trip. Some include the BMW off road training or advanced road training prior to departure and all the necessary paperwork is outlined
- very experienced guides (such as Tiffany Coates!)
- complete organisation - no need to spend time figuring out how to get to the next destination / where to sleep / where to eat / what to see along the way
- support vehicle and medical assistance
- knowledge of the local language / country or access to one who does
- salary for all: guides, office staff
- pre-selected accommodation
... the list is quite extensive

A huge majority of riders would never organise or go such a tour on their own. It's why many tourists go on package holidays!

It's not something I could afford and even if I had access to such funds I'd still travel on a budget as it's in my nature. But best wishes to those who want to spend their money on such trips - at least they're getting out on the road and supporting a British company

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Elaine

Striving to live the ordinary life in a non ordinary way

This ^


There seems to be an unsavoury tendency on here of late to bash people trying to turn 'our hobby' into 'their livelihood'.

If the price someone is charging for a service seems astronomically high to you, it probably means one or more of the following:

1) You're not their target customer.

2) You've utterly underestimated the time/cost/effort/manpower that it takes to provide that service at a level of quality which is acceptable to a paying customer. It's easy to skimp on things when it's only yourself affected.

3) You're not valuing your time highly enough.

There is also a possibility that:

4) Their assessment of what the market will bear is wide of the mark.

However if that were the case, you might expect to see them radically dropping their prices fairly soon. I suspect that won't happen.


Don't get me wrong, I'm not their target market for this tour either. But I don't begrudge them the right to try and make as much money as they can from the people for whom £75k is pocket change. Similarly, were I hand-making customised 'adventure overalls', I'd be damned if I'd be doing it for any less than Austin is charging - it just wouldn't be worth the time it takes.

Nicely said

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