The stats

I had planned to put all our cycling routes on one map, but that requires every ride in RWGPS to be switched to a route and our internet here is pretty slow so I'm not sure if that will ever happen. But I did sit down a few weeks ago and look at the stats for our trip overall.

Budget wise we came in well under budget, spending about €10,000 less on accommodation, food, activities, and travel than we thought we would, even though we were on the road for 8 weeks longer than I expected. The only things that came in over were our one way flights back to NZ which cost almost €3,500 for the 3 of us and the extra things we needed to buy like jackets, a new cycle computer, and new nappies which I didn't really account for. We didn't use nearly as many trains as I thought we would, but in hindsight that makes sense because even with 2 people and 2 bikes they are awkward. Adding Tobias and all his luggage made it a nightmare. Overall, without rent and childcare, we were spending almost €1,000 euro less each month than we were in Utrecht (although its obviously not sustainable since we didn't have an income!). We've talked a bit about having a wedding one day, but when we can do this kind of epic trip for cheaper than most weddings I'm not sure when we will be ready for that.

In terms of where we travelled, we probably could have called this a tour of France, rather than of Europe. We spent 40% of the whole trip there. When we think back over the trip it is kind of broken into 3 parts - first Albania to Slovenia where we were really just figuring out what the heck we were doing (and getting drenched doing it). The Italian section next felt odd and disjointed with the trains and thunderstorms. Then we finally made it to France and found our rhythm with great food, great people, and great weather. It's no wonder we hung around.

We biked more than I thought we would - almost 60% of the days, not including the "vacation days" in the alps where we actually rode far further than usual. We had a fair few rest days, what worked out to be a good system was having at least 2 nights in the same place about once a week so that we could catch up on washing, planning, and Tobias could catch up on sleep in a bed. The travel days usually included some biking, but usually involved mostly trains or boats.

We stayed in apartments for most of the first part of our trip. It was only once we got to Slovenia and it started getting more expensive and warmer that we started using the tent. We stayed with 11 different warm showers hosts, mostly in France, which we really enjoyed. In France there were so many hosts on warm showers that it was easier to find someone to stay with.

This is the summary of our bike trip, distilled down into numbers in a table. Everyone bike tours differently, and every tour is different. We biked far less, and spent more money, than we did when we rode in South East Asia. We also dragged a 2 year old along which changes things. We could have camped more and spent less, or very easily spent far more money, but we think we found a good balance for us on this trip. We feel so lucky to have been able to have had the time, money, energy, and a relatively chill relaxed child that made this whole adventure possible. Here's hoping for more (probably different) trips in the future!

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