After a few basic questions that everyone asks – I call them level 1 FAQ – people move to the next series of questions, a bit more practical and philosophical.
One of them is undoubtedly the money question. Many tend to think that to be touring on a bike you need to be rich. While I am sure that rich people tour too, the majority of tourers give little significance to the budget.
There are certainly things that you need to account for like visas, medical travel insurance, necessary transportation (for example crossing between the continents), telephone bills and national park tickets. Next come accommodation and food.
Your choice of accommodation is huge and so are the expenses. It ranges from 100% free wild camping and community hosting to luxurious hotels every night. In the middle there are campsites, hostels, motels, hotels, airbnb, guesthouses etc.
For example, I wasn’t prepared to camp below 5°C, neither were the campsites open in March when I started, so I used the help from the Warmshowers community and found cheap hostels when there was no host available. Later on I tried to camp when possible, but preferred a guesthouse when I wanted to leave my bike in a safe place and go hiking. And sometimes I was hosted by friendly locals.
My first Warmshowers host in Holland 
Camping in Slovakia 
Guesthouse in German Alps 
Guesthouse in Romania
Camping at Warmshower hosts in Austria 
Youth hostel in a medieval castle in Germany
Then food. Even more than the accommodation, the choice is yours. From restaurants to the grocery stores and foraging. And most likely you will end up with a mix of it all, together with the treats from passer-by’s and hospitable locals.
Gift from a passing car in Georgia 
Warm & cheesy langos on a cold day 
German food from a grocery store
I also decided to share with you my actual expenses for the 99 days of my journey. When planning, I had in mind a daily average budget of 5 euros for food and 10 euros for accommodation. Of course, every day was different but on the average it turned out to be pretty accurate. My average daily spent was 16 euros accounting for all kinds of expenses such as bicycle repair and spare parts, ferry crossing, park tickets and internet & phone.
Assume that you are prepared to wild camp every day and eat only what you make, and your costs can be very very low! But of course sometimes it’s nice to try local specialties, invite friends for a dinner or get into a hostel and explore a city.
All in all, you can see that it’s not an impossible venture, but rather a well thought and tried way to travel the world for little money or simply to explore your own country 🙂