We usually set out the costs of each tour to give people an idea of how many dollars or euros it could take to do a similar trip. Of course, no one travels in exactly the same way. Lots of cyclists are way tougher than us, and will use fewer motels, while avoiding pastry treats or restaurant meals. On the other hand, lots seem to camp not at all, and to eat only in restaurants. So these cost pages are definitely in the "for what it's worth" category.

A winter trip in Florida such as this was is also not much representative of anything but itself. In Florida, and particularly in Key West and anything south of Tampa, both motel and camping costs seem grossly inflated. Also, camping is not too easy to find, since State Parks are always booked up (and not exactly cheap either) and RV parks often do not accept tents. On the other hand, there are branches of the good grocery chains Public and Winn Dixie everywhere, so reasonable food is available, more than in other states.

For this trip there is also a big distinction between Days 1-35 and Days 36-45. Getting hit by a truck certainly throws a big "kink" into matters. Suddenly we were not camping at all (!) and paying more for motels, plus unaccustomed charges for taxis, pain meds, car rentals, porters, airflight change fees, etc etc. It would be strangely comforting to take the position "Oh yes, on tour anything can happen - broken spoke, broken back - just lump it all in". But no, let's stick to 35 days. A later page could talk about costs after the accident, including what insurance ended up paying, or not.

For travel in the US, we usually target $100 per day all told (but excepting air fare). This time, 35 days cost $3117, or $89 per day. So maybe Florida was not so costly after all?

The breakdown looks like this:

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Motels and Restaurants handily beat out Camping and Groceries on this trip, at least in terms of costs. In fact, we spent 35% more on the first style of touring (motel/restaurant) than we did on camping and cooking. On the other hand the split between camping and moteling based on nights spent each way was basically 50/50. (It's a little tricky, because of friends, warm showers, and hostel nights in there, somewhere.) Because the weather was always warm enough to camp, those 50% of nights spent in motels can mostly be "blamed" on the lack of available camping in Florida.

When we did stay in motels, the average cost was $84. The most costly motel night was $164 and the cheapest was $56. (After the accident, the average motel cost went to $110, maybe an indication of the effect of being more or less able to choose.)

As usual, we spent quite a bit on tourist type things (admissions), souvenirs, and mail backs of souvenirs. That's just what we do!

Looking back on that $84 average motel cost, it's sort of not that bad. In euros, that is 60, which we would think of as cheap, say in Germany. On the other hand, in Germany the cost would always include a good breakfast, and places to camp would be easier to find when the cost of guest houses was starting to pinch.

Overall the US, Florida that is, came out slightly more expensive than western Europe, particularly with the high US dollar figured in. The $US 89 per day is about $CAN 113, while we figured it was $CAN 104 for our tour "By the Books" through Europe last year.