Day by day Dodie uses a little book to record what we are spending, in broad categories. We pay no attention to the little book, rather spending what feels right, feels necessary for mental health, or is necessary for (mostly rail) transport or repairs. Only when we come home does the little book come out, and then we say "Whaaa?".

This time around, honestly, the total cost seems quite significant in our retiree's budget. Even when we were camping, airfare, insurance, and food were not exactly cheap, but at least we could say things like "Even at home we would still have to eat, right?"  But now, staying in hotels, we are still maintaining our place at home, and hotels are costly.

Despite all this, we used to think that the daily cost for us in touring should be about 100 euros a day (not including airfare or insurance). Then we bumped it to 120 euros. Last Spring, it came out to 125.  But this time?  It was 129.

That 129, it must be said, was comprised of 140 for England and 119 for France. England? Dammit, we knew there was a problem about England!

It's tempting to finger hotel costs in England for the higher cost, but there was a really wide range of hotel cost for us in both countries and anyway it's confounded by whether breakfast was included or not. When breakfast was included, food cost for the whole day would be dramatically cut, but hotel cost could be higher.

Generally, just eyeballing the whole range of hotel fees paid but not actually doing the arithmetic (because of the breakfast included glitch) we would put a typical cost at 110 euros (with some sort of breakfast typically included). Does that mean that in France, for example, we would typically spend on average only 10 more euros for a day? Yes, guess so.

Looking at food costs, we would normally stick to bakeries or grocery stores. In a grocery store, coming out having spent 15 euros would be normal, and the pile of food would feel large. But in restaurants? 40, 50, 60 euros would be typical! In France, the common  "Plat du Jour", formerly known to us as 14 euros was now 22 euros! (That's each, eh!).

Other European cycle tourists - do these numbers sound right or whacked out to you?

The other costs of the tour are the ones that do not closely depend on the number of days - airfare and health insurance. Airfare for us was about the same, compared to the Spring, and health insurance also. Yet these two seem a lot higher than in pre Covid times. 

Certainly, as we get older, the health insurance people seem more skeptical about us. They ask more medical questions, want to sell us policies individually rather than as a family, do not want to sell 90 day trip one year policies, and so forth. We understand, we are skeptical as well! But health insurance figures as a fairly major expense. This is also a barrier should we go for a long stay visa. Europe does not want to get stuck with our health care costs should we decide to collapse on the trail.

Taking England and France together, and including airfare and insurance in the mix, here is how the costs of the trip broke down:

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If we put airfare and insurance aside, and look at the costs just for France, here is what we get:

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With costs like 120 euros per day, extended cycle touring in Europe might seem untenable for sort of average North America retirees. But is it? That daily cost works up to $CAN 60,000 per year. $60,000 is a believable retirement income, and if not, one can also burn up some savings. So it could be possible to tour in Europe all year long, at least in terms of money, if not strength or interest. The trick would be to not be paying for heat, insurance, maintenance on a house or car(s)  back home. This is all an area that the Andersons would be better qualified to speak to than us. Our model right now is to tour about half the year, while keeping the house and car(s) going as well.

Finances aside, we still have lots of ideas for places to tour. We have now also forgotten enough places that we can go around for another shot at them. So we'll be out there. Watch for us!