# Our six month trip. Statistics!



## barryd (May 9, 2008)

I know that some of us like to read statistics about Motorhome trips so as I'm at a loose end today I have finally put together some figures for our recent six month trip into Europe.

Might be useful or interesting to anyone contemplating such an adventure.

We set off early June and came back at the end of November.
Route ended up being France (Alsace), Germany (Black Forest and Bavaria), Austrian Lakes, Slovenia, Italian Alps, French Alps, South of France, Spain for about half an hour, Brittany, Normandy and home.

So here are some stats

*Mileage and travel costs*

Miles travelled in Van 5973
Miles travelled on scooter 2096
Cost of fuel for van £1484.77 or £8.68 a day
Cost of fuel for bike £169.04 or £0.99 a day

*Tolls*

Vignette Austria 25/6/12	6.50
Vignette Austria 16/7/12	6.50
Tunnel Austria 16/7/12	8.13
Toll Road Italy 17/8/12	4.39
Toll Road Italy 17/8/12	9.67
Toll Road Italy 17/8/12	1.14
Toll Road Italy 17/8/12	1.06
Toll Road Italy 18/8/12	5.53
Pont De Normandy 21/11/12	4.88
Toll Road France 21/11/12	1.06
* 
Total £47.80*

*Camping / Overnighting stats and costs*

110 different overnight locations
Average stay of 1.55 nights
22 wild camping spots and the rest were nearly all Aires / Sostas or Stellplatz with a handful of campsites
32 nights by ourselves
Average cost per night for camping £2.96

*Gas usage*

120 litres in six months
Cost £84.06 
Average daily usage 0.71 litres a day (more like 1.5 to 2 litres in winter though)

Total cost of trip including all ferries, food, drink, eating out, site seeing etc. £4998.30 which is about £29 a day for everything. This worked out at less than £850 a month. Its normally nearer £1000 but we had much better exchange rates this year.

Yellow Belly (our stupid yellow inflatable dinghy) Usage
Just over 100 miles rowed (est) on 13 lakes, 3 rivers and 1 canal.

*Stupid Stats*

90 chickens died to feed us at a cost of about £400.
Michelle went through 84 jars of tea
I drank 500 bottles of Leffe Blond 
The amount of French Cheese gobbled is not available but was lots.

*Top 10 highlights of the trip in no particular order*

1. The Austrian Lakes in particular Halstatt and Wolfgangsee (free Air show)

2.	The Dolomites Italy. Some superb scenery and superb Sostas

3.	Driving Hank over the Col de Bonnette in the French Alps (highest Alpine pass in Europe at over 9000ft)

4.	Spending nearly a week at Lake Lauzours in the South of France. Great Aire and own private beaches

5.	Seeing Mutters and Natters in Austria where Michelle's mum and dad honeymooned over fifty years ago.

6.	Flying down the largest Alpine coaster near Mutters (twice). Flipping brilliant

7.	Wilding on the River Tarn in our favourite wild spot in France

8.	South Brittany coast in November. Deserted and fabulous

9.	Finding the winter festival at Quintin, Brittany by accident. Superb

10.	Verdon Gorges (again)

*Top 10 worst bits*

1. Michelle getting ill and having to be rushed to hospital in the Italian Alps in Hank.

2.	Me having to chase an ambulance through said Alps to Trento in Hank when they transferred her

3.	The brakes setting fire on the way down the other side of the Col de Bonnette (French Alps)

4.	Snapping the drive belt on Pig our scooter in Austria and having to walk back to the Van!

5.	Lake St Croix. One of our favourite places in Europe, spoilt by the Mistral and noisy Belgians!

6.	The brakes failing on the scooter coming down a steep single track road high up in the Dolomites and it's an automatic! Mrs D elected to walk back down.

7.	Weather in Slovenia in July. Not great although the Slovenian People were lovely

8.	Having to eventually put Jeans on again late October

9.	Nearly losing the Awning / sun shade in a massive storm in Austria

10.	Missing Venice due to Michelle being ill and then stuck on a Sosta just north of there in 40 degree heat.

Some photos

Driving over the Col de Bonette in the French Alps. The highest alpine pass in Europe at over 9000ft. 









Swimming at over 7000ft in the Alps. It was flipping freezing but I had an audience of German and British bikers on the pass so I had to pretend it was lovely!









Me at the top of the Grand Ballon in the Alsace. I would like to say I walked all the way up but we drove up most of it!









Rowing the Austrian Lakes which are simply stunning









*** break in the one traffic jam we suffered in six months when there was a crash in one of the big tunnels in Austria. They still had it cleared in an hour.









Slovenia. Triglav National Park lake Bohinj. Beautiful and IMO better than Lake Bled









Early bath on the River Tarn









Wilding in the French Alps









My long suffering wife Michelle who will go Ape if she finds out I posted her picture on the forum!


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: ha ha ha ha ha :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: 

Great Barry.!!!!

Ray.


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## 747 (Oct 2, 2009)

Great post Barry.  

I have copied Michelles photo, so where do we start regarding hush money?


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## eurajohn (May 9, 2005)

Top Man.


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

747 said:


> Great post Barry.
> 
> I have copied Michelles photo, so where do we start regarding hush money?


Your stuffed. Im like the queen. I dont carry any. Mrs D is the only one with any money and just gives me pocket money if she feels I have earned it. Its a hard life.


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## 113016 (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks Barry for sharing the information. Your best post to date.
Thanks again  
When and where next :?: 
have you got itchy feet yet :?:


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## Bob45 (Jan 22, 2007)

Great feature Barry.
It both brings back memories of my trips and nudges me to start planning for ths years trip.
Thanks

Bob


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

Grath said:


> Thanks Barry for sharing the information. Your best post to date.
> Thanks again
> When and where next :?:
> have you got itchy feet yet :?:


Thanks Grath. Well we are away in the van now so it feels like home!

Good question as to where next. Unfortunately this is the first winter I have come back to without any work or a winter project lined up and Im really struggling for work. My own fault I guess. So do I knuckle down and take a year off motorhoming and get stuck back into the rat race or say stuff it and rob Mrs D's pension for another trip? 

As far as destinations are concerned I think we have done France to death and a good bit of western Europe so I would say eastern Europe and maybe down to Greece and Turkey.


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## 113016 (Jun 5, 2008)

barryd said:


> Grath said:
> 
> 
> > Thanks Barry for sharing the information. Your best post to date.
> ...


Barry, I can't fault your choice of future destinations. If I could do a long trip, that is where we would go as it was so long ago when we did it with a tent!
I know what you mean about doing France to death, it's a comfort zone for many of us.


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## stevethebeekeeper (Jan 23, 2011)

Very interesting reading. It is nice to see costs laid out clearly and certainly gives people an idea for planning their own trips.


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## peejay (May 10, 2005)

Thanks Barry,

Couldn't agree more about No8, after wearing shorts for ages theres nothing worse than putting the jeans on again, feels like your legs are in a straight jacket.

I always get the >Page 2 blues< as well. :wink:

Pete


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## 113016 (Jun 5, 2008)

peejay said:


> Thanks Barry,
> 
> Couldn't agree more about No8, after wearing shorts for ages theres nothing worse than putting the jeans on again, feels like your legs are in a straight jacket.
> 
> ...


Yea, agree, It's bl**dy horrible putting the jeans back on  
Orible with a capital O


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## Kev1 (Apr 4, 2011)

Brilliant
Love the lake pics and the pass

Kev


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

peejay said:


> Thanks Barry,
> 
> Couldn't agree more about No8, after wearing shorts for ages theres nothing worse than putting the jeans on again, feels like your legs are in a straight jacket.
> 
> ...


One of the things though that I feel grateful about is that we got to wear ours for five months where most of the poor buggers back home never got into theirs all summer!

Neither of us knows what our futures hold but If I dropped down dead tomorrow I think I can say at least we got out there and did it.


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## Annsman (Nov 8, 2007)

Excellent trip Barry. Why not combine your love of living in the van, (and in your shorts!) and get a job on a campsite for a season? Have a look on UKsites or Caravan jobs websites for lists of sites hiring. 

Some want you to work for just your pitch, which is actually slave labour! But many have a reasonable salary plus free pitch, and they are all over the place. Both the main clubs will be sorted for next year by now but private ones can be just as good to work for.


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

Annsman said:


> Excellent trip Barry. Why not combine your love of living in the van, (and in your shorts!) and get a job on a campsite for a season? Have a look on UKsites or Caravan jobs websites for lists of sites hiring.
> 
> Some want you to work for just your pitch, which is actually slave labour! But many have a reasonable salary plus free pitch, and they are all over the place. Both the main clubs will be sorted for next year by now but private ones can be just as good to work for.


Thanks. I did wonder about this but more if we went full timing. I was thinking tour all summer and run a site over the winter but I guess winter positions are harder to come by. I was hoping we would save enough money over the winter to tour all summer. It wouldnt need to be much as we would be renting our house out so no costs there.

To be honest though if I could pick some IT projects, even for a couple of months I would probably earn a lot more. This is what I have been doing really as well as the odd job remotely while in the van but its just got quiet this year.

All things to think about really.


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## 1302 (Apr 4, 2006)

barryd said:


> I know that some of us like to read statistics about Motorhome trips...]


Phew - I thought I was the only one  :lol:

I have painstakingly accurate costings/facts too - over our seven months!


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## rayrecrok (Nov 21, 2008)

Hi Barry.

This is our trip or the first part come Beginning of April next year of course it will be up for change as we go along. The second part will be suck it and see, as long as we end up in Portugal come February ish..

Plan to take a ferry from Greece to Italy (advise needed), then probably drive up and round the corner into Spain then down into Portugal for about February 2014, then France and home in March, we plan on being away eleven months.

We will buy a one way ticket across the cut so we can come home anytime if we get fed up..

How does that pan out with what you did?.










ray.


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## homenaway (Jul 27, 2005)

Great post Barry,

I enjoy reading other motorhomers' trip costings  

It's just frightening when I look back and compare our previous years' costs.

I think I wore shorts on about five days this year but we were in Northern Germany mostly.

We've started our planning for next year using an old (now rather tatty) Michelin map of France marked with every route we've been over the last twelve years. There are a few bits we want to visit (or revisit) at a more leisurely pace now we have more time. 

All the best to everyone for 2013

Steve


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

rayrecrok said:


> Hi Barry.
> 
> This is our trip or the first part come Beginning of April next year of course it will be up for change as we go along. The second part will be suck it and see, as long as we end up in Portugal come February ish..
> 
> ...


You will certainly have time for it Ray. Looks like a proper adventure. Some of those countries are definately on the to do list. Maybe we will meet up in Serbia or somewhere bonkers!


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

1302 said:


> barryd said:
> 
> 
> > I know that some of us like to read statistics about Motorhome trips...]
> ...


I feel I should be honest and tell you that all the stats and figures are Mrs D's doing. (accountant by trade). I just plan where to go and steer!


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## teemyob (Nov 22, 2005)

******

I noticed the Cost of Smoking those **** were not included in the price!.

If I could drop my businesses and come back to it so easily, I would insist on doing something similar to yourselves.

Good luck and thanks for the post.

TM


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

*Re: *****



teemyob said:


> I noticed the Cost of Smoking those **** were not included in the price!.
> 
> If I could drop my businesses and come back to it so easily, I would insist on doing something similar to yourselves.
> 
> ...


Actually apparently the Spanish *** booty was included. So in theory thats actually saved me a few quid as I would have paid double back here.

The bottom dropped out of our business in 2007/8 when recession saw our three biggest clients disappear and probably 80% of our turnover. 8O .

Luckily because I married someone who has squirreled money away all her life we weren't skint. When everyone went off crapping themselves and trying to make ends meet we (foolishly some might say) bought Hank and bogged off around Europe for 4 years on and off while still doing bits of work. enough to keep the wolf from the door but hardly Richard Branson stuff.

When we were busy making money I wouldn't have given it a second thought but would have spent what we spend in six months on a two week villa holiday! Now that thought terrifies me. Such a waste of money but perhaps not if your working 12 hours a day all year.

I wouldn't mind getting stuck back into work if I can find something that pushes my buttons. Will I have as much fun as the last four years? Probably not.


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