Somewhere along the way a long time ago, I came across a tip from a guy who I think ran organised motorcycle group tours in Europe, though it would work just as well for those going solo etc. To project likely costs he set up a spreadsheet for the trip. A row for each day and columns for daily mileage, average fuel consumption, (local) fuel costs, any ferry, toll or other similar costs, site fees, food, and so on. To allow for deviations and errors he added 10% to the mileage. The bottom of each column gave a total, producing a likely overall figure. Obviously, adapt to your own needs.
Thanks for this Richard- really love this breakdown of the categories- it also makes analysis post trip so easy. We love a good spreadsheet👍 Thanks for the tip and the comment🙏
Hi from my little campervan in coniston. I was amongst the people that asked for this so thank you, I’ve found it extremely helpful. I’ve got to say the amount you spent is comparable to some week long package deal holidays (not my cup of tea). I think the amount you have spent is amazing and personally would rather spend that amount on 5 weeks exploring than 1 stuck in a hotel complex. Well done and thanks so much 🙂
Thanks for this! We are both teachers and want to buy a van for the summer holidays and spend them in France Spain as we are languages teachers. So this really helps! Glad you liked northern Spain, I lived there for four years and loved it.
The van just opened up a whole new world to us as teachers with Europe at Easter and in the summer and wales and Scottish adventures in half terms. Can’t wait to get back into northern Spain
Hello. We've used Camping-car park for sometime now. They are excellent and provide a secure camping area. We used them quite extensively this summer but never bothered with the pre booking as there always seems to be a space and you can monitor your destination on the app. Probably the only place you may struggle to get in is on the coast during the summer but otherwise excellent. Otherwise it's been park4night all the way. Also some toll routes are more expensive than others. Love your channel its very well done
Thanks for all the work that has gone into this episode, very helpful. It’s a thorough breakdown which shows clearly how you can tailor an exciting, long adventure without ‘breaking the bank’. There are so many apps and systems to get to grips with for places to stay, it’s great to find out about them now from your channel. We found that the French Atlantic Coast had installed many more height barriers at carparks close to the beaches than we had experienced several years ago, I imagine they want to control numbers wild camping. So the information about the aires is so useful. Keep up the good work, I look forward to hearing about your next trips. In Northern Spain there are many community festivals (as in Brittany) some around Easter which are amazing to experience, if you were going back there and keeping out of the dearer summer holiday period.
Yes we were surprised at the amount of height barriers which also doesn’t help just parking up to go to the beach. We could have stayed at more aires but decided that they were still glorified car parks, many of which were between €8-€15 so it was just as cheap to be on a campsite
Yeah, good info. Ferry and fuel are big items. We found that staying off the motorways saved fuel (and tolls). But just thinking… If you’d gone for 12 weeks, the ferry would have cost the same. So the longer you go for, the less the ferry costs as a percentage of the trip overall. When we retire, we’re hoping to go for 3-6 months at a time, depending on our finances.
We would love to go for longer but had to get back to check on both mums. It would certainly help with fuel costs too as we use a tank from Yorkshire to Dover! We do find it easier to stick to our weekly budget when travelling in the van than when at home strangely enough! Thanks for watching
Very interesting. Funnily enough, when I was trying to work out the costs of van life for my wife and i (we don't own one yet!) I came to a figure of £70 a day as a realistic but frugal amount. Yours was just below that. Really useful video. Thanks.
Although we were really apprehensive at the start of the whole planning process, we actually found it really exciting to start moving things forward. We reassured ourselves that we had an A, B and C plan that covered most eventualities. We absolutely loved our jobs, but we love retirement and the adventures we are having more. 😉
Hi, newly subscribed to the channel and been binge watching for the last few days. Loving your sense of adventure. Out of your total here I'd even be tempted to take off the £600 you'd have spent if you'd just stayed at home for the 5 weeks anyway and that really puts into perspective how cheap a 5 week adventure cost you 👍
Hi. Very informative, as the other videos. In the camper van, do you have a composting toilet or how do you deal with middle of the night runs to the bathroom... we were wondering about that...
Hi guys . Love your vids 👍. Have you made a video discussing what a month / year of early retirement is costing you? If you have could you point me to which one . I’m working around the £30k to £36 k mark a year ,with no debts just home bills …..Many thanks 😀🇬🇧👍
Hi- we haven't specifically done a finance video as we are in no way experts and every ones needs are different. We generally work on having £2000 a month which we break down and take £200 cash a week out which hopefully covers all food, petrol, campsite fees and other day to day expenses. We do it in cash so it is easy to keep tabs on and we feel we have to justify spending extra to that. It also covers all our monthly bills and any expensive extras that always come up and are unavoidable such as car and van MOT and service, Different insurances that we pay in full to avoid paying interest, birthday, Christmas, septic tank emptying... anything spare goes into a travel pot along with a small income that we have from freelance travel writing and you tube - this pays for all our flights, ferries and other travel costs when needed. Our big US trip last year was obviously an extra out of our savings but most other things are covered in our budget. Hope this helps.
Somewhere along the way a long time ago, I came across a tip from a guy who I think ran organised motorcycle group tours in Europe, though it would work just as well for those going solo etc.
To project likely costs he set up a spreadsheet for the trip. A row for each day and columns for daily mileage, average fuel consumption, (local) fuel costs, any ferry, toll or other similar costs, site fees, food, and so on. To allow for deviations and errors he added 10% to the mileage. The bottom of each column gave a total, producing a likely overall figure. Obviously, adapt to your own needs.
Thanks for this Richard- really love this breakdown of the categories- it also makes analysis post trip so easy. We love a good spreadsheet👍
Thanks for the tip and the comment🙏
Hi from my little campervan in coniston.
I was amongst the people that asked for this so thank you, I’ve found it extremely helpful.
I’ve got to say the amount you spent is comparable to some week long package deal holidays (not my cup of tea). I think the amount you have spent is amazing and personally would rather spend that amount on 5 weeks exploring than 1 stuck in a hotel complex.
Well done and thanks so much 🙂
We definitely know where we would rather be!
Thanks for this! We are both teachers and want to buy a van for the summer holidays and spend them in France Spain as we are languages teachers. So this really helps! Glad you liked northern Spain, I lived there for four years and loved it.
The van just opened up a whole new world to us as teachers with Europe at Easter and in the summer and wales and Scottish adventures in half terms. Can’t wait to get back into northern Spain
Hello. We've used Camping-car park for sometime now. They are excellent and provide a secure camping area. We used them quite extensively this summer but never bothered with the pre booking as there always seems to be a space and you can monitor your destination on the app. Probably the only place you may struggle to get in is on the coast during the summer but otherwise excellent. Otherwise it's been park4night all the way. Also some toll routes are more expensive than others. Love your channel its very well done
We only discovered the app this summer and will certainly make more use of it when we are on our next European travels 🚐
Thanks for all the work that has gone into this episode, very helpful. It’s a thorough breakdown which shows clearly how you can tailor an exciting, long adventure without ‘breaking the bank’. There are so many apps and systems to get to grips with for places to stay, it’s great to find out about them now from your channel. We found that the French Atlantic Coast had installed many more height barriers at carparks close to the beaches than we had experienced several years ago, I imagine they want to control numbers wild camping. So the information about the aires is so useful. Keep up the good work, I look forward to hearing about your next trips. In Northern Spain there are many community festivals (as in Brittany) some around Easter which are amazing to experience, if you were going back there and keeping out of the dearer summer holiday period.
Yes we were surprised at the amount of height barriers which also doesn’t help just parking up to go to the beach. We could have stayed at more aires but decided that they were still glorified car parks, many of which were between €8-€15 so it was just as cheap to be on a campsite
Thanks for a really informative and inspirational video. Great job.
We are planning a trip down to Spain in our van Dougal so we found this very helpful
Have a great trip 🚐
Yeah, good info. Ferry and fuel are big items. We found that staying off the motorways saved fuel (and tolls). But just thinking… If you’d gone for 12 weeks, the ferry would have cost the same. So the longer you go for, the less the ferry costs as a percentage of the trip overall. When we retire, we’re hoping to go for 3-6 months at a time, depending on our finances.
We would love to go for longer but had to get back to check on both mums. It would certainly help with fuel costs too as we use a tank from Yorkshire to Dover! We do find it easier to stick to our weekly budget when travelling in the van than when at home strangely enough! Thanks for watching
Very interesting. Funnily enough, when I was trying to work out the costs of van life for my wife and i (we don't own one yet!) I came to a figure of £70 a day as a realistic but frugal amount. Yours was just below that. Really useful video. Thanks.
Thankyou. We certainly had an amazing trip without feeling like we were scrimping all the time 😊🚐
Great video guys, really informative - amazing budgeting! Thanks so much.
It was a fab trip and the ACSI card was our saviour 🚐
What a great vLog. Many thanks.
Really useful video. Thanks 😊
Thank you - hope you have a nice trip planned 🚐
We’ve just put our house on the market. You’ve inspired us to start making a move towards early retirement. My husband works in a school!
Although we were really apprehensive at the start of the whole planning process, we actually found it really exciting to start moving things forward. We reassured ourselves that we had an A, B and C plan that covered most eventualities. We absolutely loved our jobs, but we love retirement and the adventures we are having more. 😉
Hi, newly subscribed to the channel and been binge watching for the last few days. Loving your sense of adventure. Out of your total here I'd even be tempted to take off the £600 you'd have spent if you'd just stayed at home for the 5 weeks anyway and that really puts into perspective how cheap a 5 week adventure cost you 👍
😊even better way of looking at it!!! A bargain 5 weeks
great advice thank you, love your vids
Thank you - happy travels wherever you end up going 🚐
Really helpful thanks
Thank you 😊
Thanks for the info
Hope you found it of some use!
Hi. Very informative, as the other videos. In the camper van, do you have a composting toilet or how do you deal with middle of the night runs to the bathroom... we were wondering about that...
Thank you for watching 😊 we have no facilities so either stay near public toilets or have a wild wee behind the van
Hi guys . Love your vids 👍. Have you made a video discussing what a month / year of early retirement is costing you? If you have could you point me to which one . I’m working around the £30k to £36 k mark a year ,with no debts just home bills …..Many thanks 😀🇬🇧👍
Hi- we haven't specifically done a finance video as we are in no way experts and every ones needs are different. We generally work on having £2000 a month which we break down and take £200 cash a week out which hopefully covers all food, petrol, campsite fees and other day to day expenses. We do it in cash so it is easy to keep tabs on and we feel we have to justify spending extra to that. It also covers all our monthly bills and any expensive extras that always come up and are unavoidable such as car and van MOT and service, Different insurances that we pay in full to avoid paying interest, birthday, Christmas, septic tank emptying... anything spare goes into a travel pot along with a small income that we have from freelance travel writing and you tube - this pays for all our flights, ferries and other travel costs when needed.
Our big US trip last year was obviously an extra out of our savings but most other things are covered in our budget. Hope this helps.
Thanks so much for getting back to me 😊.That’s really helpful. Happy travels to you both 😀🇬🇧👍❤️
Can't fault ya 👍
Cheap as 🍟 😀🇬🇧👍❤