Most people, we suspect, have to pay attention to what a cycle tour is going to cost. It will control the length of the tour in days, and determine what kind of luxuries and necessities can be enjoyed along the way.  

For us the switch from camping to hotel/B&B has been a critical factor, as has been the changing exchange rate for the Euro. There is also the fact that restaurant meals in France are extremely costly, while supermarket foods are more reasonable.  All French costs are probably higher than what they would be in Germany, but we have not verified that on this basically France only tour.

The bottom line - over 89 days out on the road we managed to spend about 9700 euros. That does not include return air fare, which will vary from nothing, if you live in France, to a whole lot if you are from far off. How much is 9700 euros? If you are in the US, that's about $11,400 right now.  If you had bought and stored your euros in advance, as we did last March, then the cost would be $12,200.  The euro/dollar exchange can easily vary 7 percentage points over a few months.

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And if you happen to be a Canadian, that cost in March was about $15,800. To put that in perspective, for this kind of money you can buy any of a half dozen brand new cars. How about a 2018 Nissan Versa Note instead of a goofy bike tour? It a stupid question, of course. Who wants a car anyway!

Looking at the cost breakdown, the shocking fact is that 65% was in accommodation. This is a bit exaggerated, because many places included breakfast, so part of the accommodation was actually food. And to the extent that we could carry some of that breakfast along with us, the accommodation cost was further reducing the food category. 

Even with food getting "mixed in" there a bit, we saw that the average cost of a night's stay was 72 euros. I remember in the"old days", Trish Graham writing that one could figure on 50 euros a night. Times have changed! Obviously, camping would be cheaper. We have been out of camping for a few years now, and can not say just how much cheaper. I'll make a wild guess at 30 euros per night for camping, maybe cheaper for a municipal site. People who really know - what do you think of my guess?

At 30 euros and obviously no breakfast included, even camping is not exactly cheap, unless one resorts all the way back to wild camping.

We compensated for the high cost of accommodation by staying out of restaurants as much as possible. Even so, there was at least one time that we dropped about 90 euros in one, and those 14 euro lunch specials can be awfully tempting if you are tired and hungry. Even so, our food cost was just 25 euros per day on average. That's three meals for two people, plus stopping at (almost) every bakery on the route. It's a tribute to Dodie's shopping, which requires keeping me out with the bikes rather than in the grocery with the food!

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One economy measure that we did this time was to limit purchases of souvenirs, including sadly, stuff to bring back or mail back  for the family. Even so, we managed to spend over 300 euros on postage (and postcards). The main expense was in four mailbacks, including gear we decided we did not need (some of which we had to re-buy!) and maps and pamphlets that somehow we had to add to the huge collection we already have at home. The mailbacks totalled 22 pounds!

In the pie chart, the 3% for "Transport" is for getting from Paris to Apeldoorn at the start plus for ferries across rivers. This time round we used no trains during the actual ride.

In the "misc" category is a certain amount of bike servicing, like new chains. Over 6000 km Dodie managed to wear out two chains, while I did one. But generally the bikes were wonderful and had no breakdowns. No broken spokes, no flats!

Was it all worth it? Well duh!