Touring a Continent for a Year: Cost Breakdown

On the 24th April last year, we woke up in a parking bay on Dover seafront and caught a ferry to Calais with no booked return journey.  We had a vague plan of what route we wanted to take, as well as what we wanted to spend.  It’s now a year on and it seems we massively over predicted the amount of countries we could cover in a year, not quite realising how ambitious an undertaking it would be to try and fit Scandinavia and the Baltics into our schedule.  Similarly our estimate of how much we’d be spending over the year turned out to be a rather loose estimate, but the good news?  It was an over-estimate.

People in our age-group are a minority when it comes to motorhoming, and we’re very lucky to have had the opportunity to do this.  We’re certainly not rich however, and this trip was the result of a lot of time rigorously saving.  A few years ago, we spent 16 days on a 3000 mile trip down to north Portugal in a self-build campervan, a holiday in which we kept written records of all our spending.  To choose a target of how much we’d need to save for this trip, we looked at what we spent during that previous holiday, making adjustments for what we expected we’d do over the long term (such as a lot less time driving!) and extrapolating it out over a year.  This brought us to the nice round target of £10000 (£415 per person per month) excluding the van road tax and insurance, which works out as a £192 weekly budget.  We also allowed for a £2000 contingency in case the money didn’t stretch as far as we hoped or something expensive cropped up like a van repair.

Twelve months down the line, and how’s that 10k looking?

Puerto de Mazarrón, Cartagena and onto the Costa Blanca

Spain, 2nd – 5th April 2016

From our freeparking spot in La Azohia we had a day trip out in the van to visit nearby Puerto de Mazarrón and Bolnuevo. From here we next went to Cartagena then onto a couple more beach spots whilst heading for Alicante.

The main thing at Bolnuevo are some unusual sculpted sandstone rocks in the cliffs which have been formed by water and wind erosion. We parked in the area next to them to have a look before a walk out of the edge of the town. From here the road becomes a rough dirt track leading around to Calnegre passing some nice bays but we didn’t want to drive it in the camper, remembering how rough, potholed and scattered with rocks it was when going along it in a hire car with family when I visited this part of the Spanish coast some years ago on a holiday. We stayed in a house in Puerto de Mazarrón so I wanted to revisit it as it was a nice town and to see if it had changed. Finding a spot to park on a wide quiet street near two other British vans we’ve spotted three times previously while we’ve been in Southern Spain, we first had a look in a large Chinese shop and picked up a couple of bits. We had a walk along the length of the paseo (promenade) before getting some lovely gelatos from a shop on a street back and ate them sat by the marina. Mazarrón seemed about the same as before, with some improvement works to the beachside and port area, and is still a pleasant place to wander around with a large selection of restaurants.

The Golfo de Mazarrón

Spain, 29th March – 1st April 2016

After a night of stormy weather we’re currently looking out at cloudy skies from our latest free beachside location, but after days of sunshine we’ve got few complaints to make.  We’ve been in Spain for a month now, and so far it’s been proving a great place to tour in a motorhome.  Our overnight costs for the duration of March have been a grand total of €24; for anyone who is curious as to how we can finance this lifestyle, there’s your answer.  I sense this sum will be significantly higher for the duration of April as the stretch of Spain between here and the French border is known to be stricter on overnight parking and we’ll have to get a few more paying aires/campsites under our belt in order to visit some places (Barcelona, I’m looking at you!), but I still imagine our total costs will be far less than what we’d have to pay for just a few days of hotel accommodation to see the same places.

Back to the Coast: Cabo de Gata and the Costa Calida

Our spot at Playa de las Palmeras

Spain, 24th – 28th March 2016

We’re now back on the coast having worked our way east from Almeria and started going north along the Costa Calida finding some great beach parking spots to stay. I didn’t realise how mountainous this area was, in some parts all the way to the coastline, it’s clear why much of it is undeveloped. We’ve been on a lot of twisty and hilly roads to get about the area with some nice scenery. It seems beach parking is very tolerated in these parts which is good news for us, and surprisingly even “camping activities” overlooked. We’ve seen a lot of vans, including many VW campers, with awnings, chairs and tables out, and have seen Guardia Civil drive by without stopping at two of the places.

Saturday marked the 356 days on the road milestone for us. With our original plans for a year touring Europe we'd be back in the UK now, but with our efficient spending can extend it for a few more months now and keep enjoying it!

Into the Heart of the Algarve

The beach at Boca do Rio

Portugal, 6th – 11th February 2016

Since last time we’ve moved onto the more sheltered and busier south coast of the Algarve. We’ve been making our way along actually having a deadline to work to for a change, the day that my parents arrive for a holiday visiting us. In the process we’ve skipped the area roughly from Lagos to Portimão to leave new places to visit as we’ll be basing ourselves here for a week while they’re down. After a successful week free parking at beaches we encountered the Police moving us on, which happened to be in the middle of the night!

Retreading Old Steps along the South-West Coast

Portugal, 1st – 5th February 2016

Praia do Amado

It may have taken us six weeks behind our original schedule, but we’ve finally done it: we’ve hit the Algarve.  In van land, our electronics are still charged, there’s still water in the tank, and my Eat Less Meat resolution is still in place, still without complaints from Matt.  As we’ve been freecamping our important scientific research into Alentejo wine has had to be scaled back a little (in the interest of responsible drinking whilst in charge of a vehicle), but I can confirm that all bottles consumed so far have been perfectly palatable.  We’ve even branched out into a Portuguese wine from outside of the Alentejo region, because any decent researcher needs to make sure they have a control group.  That being said, €2.50 is our upper limit for a bottle and we’re still big endorsers of the supermarket wine briks, so take from that what you will.