Counting the Cost

A long expedition will always be expensive but there are a variety of ways of calculating relative costs - read on ...

My planned workstation for quite a few months this year.

A long distance ride will always carry a cost and there are a number of ways of considering this. You may have a few thousand pounds in mind - or much more given that many 2 week holidays cost this at least. When I first envisioned this trip it was quite far in the distance and it was relatively easy to imagine swapping day to day living costs (bills and running a house) entirely and directly for life on the road. In reality, although this is a valid approach, for me (for us) the logistics of planning to leave the house to exactly coincide with the start of the trip and then returning to find and then purchase a new house was too much. Buying and selling a house can’t be tied down to any definite timetable as we have sadly learned. We have decided to run the house while we are away with all the associated standing costs. However, this still leaves quite a bit of wriggle room to trade normal day to day food and travel costs for the expenses of being on the road.

At this point it is worth noting that my wife Helen will be undertaking her own epic journey from October onwards following a parallel route to me, travelling overland starting in India with the planned option to meet along the way where we can. This makes for increased costs and increased savings in that nobody will be eating or travelling at home from October onwards - we’ll both be on the road as it were. In terms of the costs I’ll detail my trip and then add on the anticipated costs for Helen’s trip to give a grand total. As a reader, have a think about your estimate for the total additional cost of both these trips when allowing for savings made by being away. My trip is from May ‘26 to early March ‘27 and Helen’s trip has the same end date but starting in October ‘26.

The best way to look at this is to estimate a daily cost. I’m aiming for £50 per day on average for 9-10 months. The most expensive leg will be Europe and Greece. Campsites will be around £15-£25 per night and I’ll buy and cook food from supermarkets. This could amount to around £60 per day which is beyond my average but there will be savings later. The Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan leg should be relatively cheap as wild camping and basic food choices will be the only options available. It’s a long and lonely leg with the odd stay in basic guest houses to charge electrical equipment and shower. India is where my budget will go the furthest but I do expect it to be quite a challenge and need to budget for the odd stop in an air conditioned room to clear my head. Southeast Asia will be well within my £50 per day budget and I’ll be making regular stops at the 7-11 and taking full advantage of the street food. I expect Malaysia and Indonesia to be a little more expensive but still affordable within my self imposed budget.

Mike cooking up a meal on a £15 total budget for the day - mainly spent on sardines, chocolate spread, bread and water.

There are still some hidden costs to be accounted for like cycle repairs and maintenance, visas and the need for an emergency dash home fund if needed but I haven’t included these below.

• £14,100 based on 282 days at £50 per day for my trip

• £7,550 based on 151 days at £50 per day for Helen’s trip

• £150 for my ferry crossing to Greece

• £300 for my flight to Aktau if the border to Azerbaijan remains closed

• £350 for my flight from Bishkek to India to avoid Iran and Afghanistan

• £150 for my flight from India to the far East

• £1,200 for my insurance

• £600 for Helen’s flight from the UK to India

• £300 for Helen’s internal flights

• £1,000 for Helen’s insurance

• £1,800 for two flights back home from Lombok/Bali

This all totals around £27,500 which seems a lot but when we subtract our potential savings from not running a car, not doing a weekly Tesco run and various other trimmings and savings, we anticipate we’ll need to have saved around £4,000 to contribute to paying for this trip of a lifetime. We think that’s quite acceptable. I suppose the basic concept at play here is that it costs quite a bit to live your day to day life at home and it is a relatively low cost to amble along on a bicycle each day with food and water needed for power and a flat surface to lay one’s head each night.

Still to do:

Route planning is still quite vague and I will be giving this some attention over the coming weeks. I’ve also recently purchased a Garmin InReach Mini 2 to assist when there’s no phone signal. I need to set up a subscription and test it out but there’s plenty of time for that. The final piece of the puzzle is choosing an appropriate insurance package - it’s not cheap and there are lots of options to choose from. That should keep me busy for a while - along with the (hopefully) imminent house move.