The Budget

Our overall budget was 60 CAD per day for the two of us, plus shipping the bikes (Darien and home) and major services which we had budgeted for separately. We almost succeeded in keeping our costs below this number, and we did have our costs at about 55 CAD per day before the engines broke, but we had to significantly pick up the pace to finish our key parts of the trip after we got the bikes back. I think post engine meltdown we rarely came in under budget at the end of the day because we were averaging 311.36 km/day whereas before we were averaging 171.92 km/day. If we can pretend that we weren't spending unproductive dollars waiting around for working bikes we actually spent less overall because we covered the same amount of ground in less time.

This trip can be done for less or more than what we did it for. For the most part we weren't concerned with wasting time finding the most economical place in town to stay. As long as we found a place that met our criteria we were happy. We stayed at medium quality budget accommodations and ate at relatively economical places. Though we didn't put too much effort into reading guide books and finding cheap places to eat and sleep. We just made things up as we went along.

So my advice is: make a budget that realistically fits your travel style and doesn't bankrupt you. Finding the balance is the tricky part. If you've read our blog you probably have a sense of the places we went and what we did. For more details on our costs and spending hit the Trip in Numbers tab at the top of the blog page.