Motorhome Costs – Italy Western Coast

We keep a track of what of costs as we travel around Europe in our motorhome. Below is a breakdown of what we spent while travelling down Italy from its border with Switzerland to its toe, so you have an idea how much it will cost to travel there yourself.

Travel		Cost
Ferry		0.00 €
Tolls		19.20 €
Fuel*		416.64 €
Daytime parking		12.00 €
Train/bus/tram (all dog friendly)		82.70 €
Camping	Nights
Wild Camping	22	0.00 €
Free Aires	14	0.00 €
Paid for Aires	11	36.00 €
ACSI campsites	0	0.00 €
Camping Cheque Site	7	100.00 €
Campsites other	3	48.00 €
Other	0	0.00 €
Subsistence
Food (ie Supermarket)		552.14 €
Food (ie eating and drinking out)		150.00 €
LPG		68.80 €
Repairs		2.30 €
Laundry (and replacement clothes)		105.30 €
Contact with home (internet, phones, post)		94.45 €
Tours/Entrance fees		149.70 €
Supplies (non motoring items for Dave)		45.15 €
Souviners		10.00 €
Summary
Total cost		1971.52 €
Days away	57
Cost per day		34.59 €
Cost per day (minus repairs)		34.55 €
Total Mileage (@ approx 29mpg)		2680
Average miles per day		47

For diesel we paid between €1.63 – €1.74, but you could pay a lot more if you didn’t chose the self service pumps. Prices also changed throughout the day and week, weekends seeming to be the cheapest. When we were close to a border we filled up in the other country as it was cheaper. LPG was widely available costing just over €0.80 a litre, and slightly more expensive in Sicily.

In the north of the country (anywhere above Rome) we found plenty of sostas (Italian aires) to stop in and they were generally very good with decent facilities – one even had free electricity, but they weren’t in every town we wanted to visit. Speaking to tourist information in Piedmont region they told us that as long as we were legally parked and nothing was touching the floor other than the wheels, we were OK to sleep. Below Rome the Sostas disappeared but there were plenty of beaches to free camp on and as we were out of season no one minded (or noticed)

We struggled to find places to do laundry so generally turned up at campsites with plenty to do. While in Italy we had to buy new trainers and boots for Jay which has inflated the laundry/clothes cost – generally it was around €4 a load at a campsite and we would dry outside where possible. When you do find a laundry they have huge machines so you can get nearly everything in one load if you don’t mind mixing your wash.

The few campsites we stopped at had good clean facilities and were close to public transport – all of which is dog friendly, so we were able to get the bus/train into the main city with Charlie.

We found eating out expensive so we mainly ate our main meal in the van and had snacks (pizza or a panini) and ice cream when we were out. The few times we did eat out the food was good, if not great. We mainly shopped at Lidl, but they don’t take either visa or mastercard so we always had to ensure we had enough cash on hand to pay for our trolly full.