We are often asked on this trip how much it costs to cycle around the world.
Are we really rich?
Is a company paying for us?
How can we afford to leave our jobs and set off on what is essentially a glorified holiday for a whole year or more?
We are only a few months into our travels, but having completed our cycle trip across Europe thought it may be of interest at this stage to share details of our budget, both what we have spent so far and what we have budgeted for the trip as a whole.
It is not very English to talk about money, but we have tried to be as honest as possible, as these were things we really wanted to know when we were at the planning stage.
We hope this will show that you do not have to be very rich or spend months chasing sponsorship deals to set off on your bicycle. Money should not be a barrier and anyone could do a trip like this – but if you don’t believe us, have a look at this article by the marvellously thrifty Tom Allen.
Budget for the trip
We each saved approximately £5000 for this trip, which took us about one year.
We each set aside £200 per month from our salary, which gave us a decent start with £2400 after 12 months. Tim was on a comparatively low income during that year (£20,000 before tax), but still managed to put this much aside by making cutbacks elsewhere – it is possible if you are determined.
We saved the rest of the cash in a variety of ways. We made about £1000 each by selling some of our old bicycles (before this trip, we owned nine bikes between us), furniture and other items using Gumtree and Ebay. We were renting a flat in London and left this as soon as we finished our jobs to move in with our parents for the last few weeks before we left the UK, saving us a month’s rent (a whopping £600 each). We also applied for refunds on boring things like car insurance, which netted a couple of hundred quid, and Tim took on a bit of work alongside his usual job (such as writing articles) for a bit of extra cash.
Having a separate bank account for this money was very important to us, to see the total creep up and to avoid spending the money on the usual detritus of life.
Costs so far – cycling across Europe
Over three months, we spent approximately £700 each, or about £9 per day. This includes absolutely everything from food and accommodation to bicycle repairs and the cost of a ferry across the Channel.
This is exactly what we had budgeted. We kept track when on the road by having a wallet with our daily allowance in. Anything unspent at the end of each day was kept separately, for use as a slush fund.
We kept costs down by wild camping and cooking for ourselves on a stove almost every night. We rarely spent money in cafes or bars and did not visit expensive tourist attractions or museums. This may have been different if we had been less lucky with the weather: we had fewer than five days of rain in three months so were happy to be outside most of the time. It did not at all feel like we were missing out on anything – most of our daily budget went on food so we ate very well and we managed to see everything we wanted to, including hanging out in Milan and Venice, notoriously expensive places. Luckily, we both agree that you do not need to spend money to have a good time – on the contrary, pay-on-entry packaged tourist attractions tend to be the most sterile, and the most memorable times are usually the free ones.
We should also point out that this budget could have been much lower. We know of cycle tourists who will happily eat jam sandwiches and noodles every day for months on end but we (Laura) refuse to do this. We also spent about £150 on new chains and rear cassettes for the bikes in Greece, which pushed costs up significantly.
Looking ahead
We are now in Asia, where daily living costs are cheaper, but we face bigger one-off expenses such as visas. At the moment, we are hopeful that we have enough money to do everything we want to do, and we will update this blog post as the journey goes on.
To see how our budget compares, have a look at this article that Tim wrote about the budgets of different cycle tourists.
How did you save for a big trip? How do you save money when on the road? Let us know in the comments below.
12 Comments
sean newall
Yasss cant beat living off the jam sandwiches! Agree with you on the tourist attractions usually being some of the least interesting part of a journey.
Enjoying the journey and videos you have been posting. Its now going to get all the more interesting with you two starting the Asia section of the trip!
Kip
I have saved up 7500 US to go on a three months cycling trek, starting off in most like Nice and down South to Cartagena; where I have to be in Ibiza for work for four days. Then I am going to fly from Ibiza to Amsterdam, and after work there for four days (work for a concert promoter), I am going to go Amsterdam to Prague through Germany (with many stops along the way). From there my intentions are to most likely either go to Italy or take a hopper to India, though I’d not be opposed to biking through the Balkans. My intentions are to eventually end up in Rio for the Olympics, My budget, though I am bringing 7500 US, is 2 Euro a day, and of course 50 each time, one night, in the bigger cities, to enjoy some good wine and food, or what’s the point. I can do snails and grass and ramen 10 days straight, but in Rome, or Prague or Venice or Rio, I want to go see a few locals hangouts and by the bar locals a round; im surely not going to invite them back to my tent free grazing in some wooded area and talk about my urine color from all the biking Ive done.
Do you think I am taking too much, too little?> How much would you bring?
Tim Moss
Thanks for the question Kip. As you can see in the article, we spent £700 (~$1,000) in the same time/place that you’re taking $7,500 so you should have plenty. If you’re taking too much then perhaps you’ll come home with enough change to plan another trip.
You might like this article: How Much Does It Cost To Cycle Around The World?
Michael
I’m hoping to do something similar when the weather warms up. I am an Australian currently working in England trying to save money for my own European adventure and am hoping to do on the cheapest budget possible in order to get the full experience and see everything I want to. I see that you wild camped throughout your voyage. I’m hoping to do the majority wild camping then bits and pieces in hostels or in paid campgrounds.
How did you find the wild camping aspect of the trip? Did you have any difficulties in terms of being caught or finding places to camp? Were you camping in tents most nights or just setting up under the stars?
Tim Moss
Hi Michael, thanks for the message. Great to hear that you are thinking about going on a big bike trip.
In answer to your questions:
Wild camping was great and we never had any real problems. Unless we were out in the countryside with no buildings around, we asked someone for permission first.
We would find somewhere that looked suitable – a park or patch of grass – then find the nearest house/shop/petrol station/farm and talk to them. We carried a letter translated into the local language to help with this (“Hello, we are Tim and Laura. We’ve cycled here from the UK. Is there somewhere safe we can camp?”).
Our default was to camp in our tent but, if the weather was nice or we were somewhere where it paid to be a bit more subtle, we slept under the stars.
You can see a breakdown of where we slept each night here: http://thenextchallenge.org/map/
And we have a database of hundreds of other long-distance cyclists here: http://longdistance.bike/
I hope that helps.
Tim.
Hiten
Hye Tim ,I am Indian and I have been planning about my trip of Europe from Lisbon to Saint Petersburg at the end of this year .i want to know is it safe for a person going alone and how much per day did you travelled .
Tim Moss
Thanks Hiten. Great to hear you’re planning a trip across Europe.
As mentioned in the article, it cost us an average of £9/day across Europe. You can see more details about the costs of long-distance cycling in my article: How much does it cost to cycle around the world?
As for safety, I suspect hundreds, if not thousands of people travel across Europe on bikes every year without having any trouble.
Have a great trip!
Tim.
Hiten
Thank you sir. It’s really helpful. I will plan my trip as soon as I save enough .best of luck for your future journey. ?
Loz
Bike importance and luggage weight
Hi I’m thinking of doing a coastal ride from Greece, Croatia around coast line of Italy and ending in Barcelona and if I can go the length around Spain to Gibraltar and Portugal.
I have a few questions firstly the importance of a quality bike ? It may sound obviously that a better bike would be of greater comfort and durability. But I wonder as I can pick up an average relatively cheap bike in Greece would this do the distance?
I was looking into hammocks, has anyone tried to sleep in these for long periods as they seem much more light weight and practical.
What essential items did you take or wish you had in hienzsight?
Tim Moss
Hi Loz
Thanks for the message. Great to hear that you’re thinking about doing a big bike ride.
I think you’re right that the most important things in a touring bike are comfort and durability. They don’t necessarily coincide with being more expensive though.
I have no idea about bike availability/costs in Greece, but if a bike is rideable for half a mile then it’s probably going to be rideable for a few hundred miles.
For the question about equipment, you can see our full kit list here. And there’s more information in the following articles:
What we wore when cycling around the world (and at -20°C)
The electronics we carried on our ride
Anatomy of a wet weather cyclist
As for hammocks, I’ve not used one but loads of people do use them for extended periods. I think the main issue is having to find things to tie them to every night.
Best of luck!
Tim.
Felix Bystedt
Hi guys!
Great post and thanks for all the info regarding costs and such!
Me and my partner are looking to do a trip around Europe starting next spring starting from Sweden. We were wondering how well trained you suggest to be for such a trip? We are both in our early 20s and cycle to work every day, about 6 KMs but have considered started doing some longer distance cycling as a bit of training a few times a week to get ready for such a trip.
Any answer is appreciated!
/Felix
Tim Moss
Hi Felix
How fit you should be before starting on a cycle tour depends on your expectations.
If you have limited time, want to cover a lot of ground and would prefer not to be tired and achey all of the time, then it would pay to do some training beforehand. Perhaps a couple of weekend rides of the sort of daily distances you hope to do on your trip, ideally with panniers or whatever luggage you plan to take.
If, however, you are happy to just pootle along then stop when you’re tired and/or are happy collapsing in a heap at the end of the day, then you might not need to do any training at all. You’ll soon get fit on the road.
I am very much in the latter camp!
All the best,
Tim.