78 Day Motorhome Tour of UK, France and Spain – Costs and Stats
After 78 days on the road we’re tucked up in the Cooler and Zagan’s stood in his secure storage up the road, waiting for us to get up there and wash the grime of thousands of miles from him. He’s booked in for a cambelt change, service and MOT early Jan ready for us to take to the hills again in six or seven weeks. Looking back on those 78 days, this is the summary of our motorhome tour costs including where we went, and a few statistics:
- We travelled from 1 Oct to 16 Dec 2015, and the weather was generally warm and dry
- Initially the road took us north to Scotland, but we quickly swung south and after a couple of weeks we left the UK
- Down Zagan went through France, along the Loire and Dordogne before popping up against the sun-spilled French Atlantic Coast
- Scooting around the western edge of the Pyrenees, pinxtos awaited in San Sebastian!
- Via occasionally hair-raising roads we ambled across Spain keeping the high hills in sight to the north
- Finally more rest stops along the Costa Brava before heading back up into France
- Up into the Central Massif we climbed before falling back down onto the Champagne plain, across the Somme and home via Dunkirk, sweet!
This is where we found ourselves – click on any of the flags to go look what we got up to there, where we stayed and get the GPS co-ordinates for that location:
[travelmap-map height=300 numbers=”false” first=”496″ last=”1000″]
Excluding one-off costs (travel and vehicle insurance, MOT and servicing etc) our day-to-day running costs came in at £28.16 per day (€38.47) for the two of us (see errata at end). This compares with €46 a day from our 2 year trip (which was actually 701 days: cost summary for that trip here).
The pound has strengthened to the Euro since then by approx 10%, so in theory we should be spending less, but as-ever it’s difficult to compare the two periods exactly. Our two year trip costs included about €3000 of repairs, but we had similar daily repair costs this time too. All-in-all costs are comparable between trips, which is what we’d expect since we’re travelling in much the same way on both occasions. We frequently use aires or free camping spots, eat out maybe once a week and buy whatever food we want from the supermarket – it’s really not all lentil soup for us three! We tend to move frequently too – usually staying only one night, maybe two.
The 2015 tour cost breakdown is given at the end of this post. If we extrapolated the costs out to a full 365 days, we’d be getting through £10,278. Please note again: this doesn’t include yearly one-off costs. You’ll need to include at least these costs in your own budget (but on the flip side you could also reduce your costs by eating out less, driving a shorter overall distance, sticking to cheaper countries and choosing cheaper foods). We’re working to a £15,000 a year budget, covering all of these costs.
- Motorhome Insurance (cost for this will increase significantly if you’re full-timing)
- Motorhome Breakdown Cover (option of course – we use ADAC which costs around €100 a year)
- Motorhome Service
- Motorhome Road Tax
- Motorhome MOT
- Motorhome Depreciation (to get a true figure you need to have a guess and include this)
- Travel Insurance
- Contingency (a safety net in case something goes a bit wrong – like Dave’s clutch going pop in France)
Zagan, our 2001 Hymer B544 with a 2.8JTD engine supped diesel at 26MPG over 6243km (3879 miles). Dave, our 20 year old version of the same motorhome with a 2 litre non-turbo engine managed 30MPG. Zagan is a 3.5 tonne vehicle though, and Dave was only 3.1 tonne. Although we did plough over a fair few big hills on this trip, we did last time too, so I suspect my naughty right foot’s used the additional power rather too much – must re-read my own free-beer hypermiling post!
On the income side of things, we’ve set up investments and lowered our at-home costs, to cover the entire cost of travelling. This includes various safety nets but I’ll write about that good stuff another time. This is the breakdown of our latest tour costs (note we only travelled for half of December). I should point out Ju tracks these costs, not me – she has the dedication to do it diligently and persistently – what a fab wife eh?
2015 Motorhome Tour Cost Summary
Cheers, Jay
Errata: the eagle-eyed have spotted a couple of errors (thanks guys):
- Internet costs are not shown. They are actually included in the totals above, but the screenshot didn’t capture the ‘Communications’ line: the cost came to £106.19 for two mobile phone PAYG SIMS and an Internet SIM.
- The ferry was paid for before the tour started, so was missed off the costs. It came to £136, taking the overall total to £2320.19, or £29.75 a day.
Hi
Thanks for such a detailed post on the costs for your latest trip. It really helps us plan for ours and know that we are being realistic with our budget which will basically be similar to yours😀 We’ve been following along with your latest trip! We will hopefully be departing in April or May next year. Have a great Christmas and New Year! Jane
Hi there
Been following your blog for a few months now with great interest as we are in the process of selling up/downsizing etc and planning a similar life in our motorhome next year. Just a quick question: Why have you decided this year to do shorter trips rather than full-timing again? Cheers. Robin
Hi Robin
Good question: why full-timing to not full-timing?
Flexibility. We came up with an approach where we can travel when we want, and be in the UK near family and friends (and work opportunities should we need them). Full-timing has its challenges around lack of address, not being on the electoral register and potentially not being classed as a UK resident. There are ways around all of these of course, but we’ve side-stepped them for now by keeping a house in the UK and letting bedrooms out. It’s not really about doing shorter trips – we’re looking to be away for most of 2016 – this last tour was intended to be short to get us back on the road but be here for Xmas and in Jan for a friend’s wedding.
Cheers, Jay
Hi Jay, I was only just discussing budgets for us half an hour ago as we are also downsizing and preparing our life and van for full time travel. . . and then this blog post came up. Hurrah.
We did a few weeks this year in Spain and I kept a record of costs and we spent a lot more per day. Mind you, we did stay more on campsites, and we did buy some rather lovely local wines. . . oh and we did eat out more than you. But it is all down to keeping an idea of budget against what funds are available.
What I do know, is that is push came to shove we too could live on £30 a day plus an allowance for the fixed costs and something aside for emergencies. It is great to find other travellers who are sharing their knowledge, like you, as it really helps to know what can be done.
So thank you both for keeping records and letting us all know :)
Cheers
Steve
Excellent work – as always!
Many thanks,
Simon
p.s. Once more I’ve stopped getting emails to alert me to new posts so again I’ve ticked the box to subscribe. Not a prob, but thought you’d like to know.
Hi Jay, Thanks for this very detailed info which will help us to also live the dream in the not too distant future. Much appreciate. best regards and have a great Christmas & New Year. Dave
You need to get that laundry budget down. have you considered alternatives to using public launderettes? I don’t know if the do-it-yourself budget option would fit in with your sight-seeing schedule but it would save you money which could be better spent on ice cream and wine.
Yeah man, you’re dead right, we could have it larger on the ice cream and wine, I’m liking this thought a great deal! The flip side is likely having wet jeans and jumpers hanging in the van for hours/days on end. It’s not about the time needed to wash stuff, it’s the time needed to get all that stuff dry. It drives us both insane if our perfect living space gets made imperfect by sheets hanging across the living room, bathroom, bedroom and kitchen. WAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!! :-) We stay on aires and free camp a lot, so hanging outside is likely to annoy the locals, and in winter result in it getting wetter/frozen/stinky. Being honest: we’re geared up to be able to spend this amount of money, probably more if we pushed our luck, and although I hate waste and inefficiency, I hate washing days more. Hate ’em! Any thoughts on an alternative way to wash and dry our stuff without having it hanging in the van would of course be welcome – send ’em over guys – always on the look out for new ideas. Cheers! Jay
Fantastic information as always , looking forward to hearing about all your plans for the next trip in 2016
Happy Christmas to you both
Greatly appreciate your time and effort on this as well as all of the useful tips throughout your blogs. Helps the rest of us from learning too much from our mistakes.
Thanks for the detailed figures. It all makes our own ideas for roaming Europe in our B564 seem affordable. When you have time I would love to hear your feedback on the modifications you made to Zagan that you did not have on Dave. How did you get on with the SOG? What about not having the dinette? Was it an issue not having a drivers door, I would hate that. The gas cost was quite modest , do you think the refillable cylinders are cost effective? I want to install either an under floor gas tank or refillable cylinders but the payback period is several years so I am unsure if it is worth it.
Hi Tim
No worries. Those costs are about right – from what I can tell, folks normally spend between £8k and £20k a year, with the majority somewhere in the middle. Comparing like for like is hard though – not everyone includes van depreciation for example.
Feedback on mods:
Not having a driver’s door wasn’t a problem. We knew it wouldn’t be though, as we only used the one on Dave when the wind ripped the main habitation door off. Our preference is for no cab doors, as Dave’s was stupidly easy to break into. Personal preference of course. Our only concern was fire in the kitchen next to the only door, but we had two fire extinguishers at opposite ends of the van, and could get out of a window as a last resort.
Erm, that’s it I think. :-) Cheers, Jay
Hi Jay,
I can’t see the costs for your internet or the ferry. Was this deliberate?
Cheers
Steve
Hi Steve. Good spot. The ferry was £136 and I just missed that out, I didn’t mean to, my mistake. Internet and phone came to £106.19, but those costs are included in the totals shown, they were on the top line in the pivot which I missed from the screenshot. Comms costs would normally be lower but we had some related to work we were doing on the road. Cheers, Jay
Thanks! I am really looking forward to lower internet costs in Europe, staying connected costs far too much.
Cheers
Steve
Chaps, that’s a great breakdown, thanks. I’ve just checked a few of our figures and ours is comparable to yours in all but two areas in over 100 days, eating out= €30 and laundry=€28, but to be fair, we used more campsites, so we could hang it out to dry 😨 and there’s a permanent line up in the bathroom. Have a great Christmas, Wayne and Angie.
Great work, thanks to Ju and to you too, of course! It’s great to read that one can live the life of travelling and not spend a fortune! I should compare our travel costs to yours and see where we can cut on costs. But then again, our costs are “holiday” costs, shorter trips, closer to home, short period, so I think one tends to spend more then because there’s always the excuse: we should really treat ourselves because next week is “back to work”. …
But still some calculations to do before we hit the road.
Marry Christmas.
Hi Chris
Yep – hard to compare short to long trips. We tried when we did our first year on the road and got it completely wrong – we’d budgeted around double what we actually spent (wayhey!). Check out Adam and Sophie’s numbers too, very handy:
http://www.europebycamper.com/2012/03/touring-europe-for-year-what-does-it.html
Cheers, Jay
Yes, had already come aross their blog! But thanks for eminding!
Merry Christmas this time! ;-))
Hi Jay,
Thank you for great work documenting your tour, it is inspiring and valuable for the ones whom want to hop in and all others. We’ve just bought a 1986 Hymer on fiat ducato named Ikiru. He will be taking us on our first tour of Europe (1 year duration). Any advice on full timer abroad Insurance. ( 1st car ever we own in Uk) Thanking you in advance. Lila
Hi Lila
Happy days! Cracking vehicle, fun times ahead.
Full timer insurance is much more expensive than 365 day insurance. Weird, I know. If you don’t have a UK address which you’re on the electoral register for, you need full time insurance though. Ours was over £1000 when we had zero no claims discount, but hopefully you can get it much cheaper.
If you plan to visit countries outside of the EU check they will cover you, and whether there is any additional cost for a Green Card for those countries.
If they include breakdown cover, check it includes your age and size of van. If it doesn’t, I’d suggest you get cover from ADAC by calling them in Germany.
Ju wrote a post on insurance on this blog – if you search for ‘insurance’ using the search on the right you should find it.
Cheers! Jay