How much money I spent on two cycle touring trips in 2023 | France + UK

Ever wondered how much other people pay for their vacations? In this video, I’ve broken down all the expenses of my two 2023 cycle tours, an 8-day trip in northern France and a 3-day trip in North Devon, UK. I’ll tell you how much I spent on food and accommodation and a horrifyingly expensive ‘other’ catergory, so you can see how two very different trips affect your expenditure.

I didn’t try to be frugal on either of these holidays, FYI. You could have done both cheaper. This is just what I happened to spend. I hope it’s helpful!

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Have you ever wondered how much your neighbors spent on their holidays well I can’t tell you that unless you’re my neighbor I guess which would be weird but today I’m going to talk about exactly how much I spent on the two cycle tours I did in 2023 I’m hoping

That it will help you get an idea of how much other people are spending how much you might spend if you’re going on your first ever cycle tour and the kind of different options you have and how they affect your expenditure during that trip so let’s get started I went on two trips in 2023 that were cycle touring trips uh the first one I went in June and I took the ferry to Britany in northern France and I spent a week I think it was seven nights in total cycle touring around from rosoff

The um ferry port town at uh on the North Coast I spent cycling around the coastline there’s a video somewhere I don’t know how these things work I’ll put it in somewhere so you can watch that and then the second trip I did was in

November in the UK so it was in the county that I live in although the county I live in is really big as evidenced here can you see that this big County really big County down in the South oh I feel like a weather presenter oh and you’re going to get showers

Coming down from the North Sea across the anyway so I live down here in the southwest I went cycle touring like around this kind of Coastline here and that was in November it was really really cold it was a very different type of trip and that trip was only oh three

Nights it was three nights so to give you an idea of how much I spent on different types of things I’m going to break this down into food costs accommodation costs and then other because I’m an accountant luckily I have pre-planned this video and so I’ve actually already got all the numbers you

Don’t have to sit here and watch me go through my bank statements so France 2023 let me consult my notebook also before I jump into this the this all these costs are for two people because I went with my partner so it was the two of us so all these costs are technically

I guess you can divide them in two to get how much it cost me personally but obviously had I have gone alone it would have cost me more than half of this because in so many places accommodation costs don’t actually have if you’re one person rather than two you know food

Costs don’t have if you’re one person rather than two because the way you buy food so I’ve done this for I mean for actually what happened um which is two people so the way France broke down was we drove not very far to the ferryport in Plymouth where we drove to Plymouth

And then we parked the car in Plymouth using a just Park parking space just park there are probably other companies that do this too they allow people to rent out their own personal private parking spaces and I found that that is quite a cheapish um and I feel like I

Trust leaving the car in someone else’s parking space better than I do in a public car park that may allow you to park for long term if you know what I mean also it’s a lot cheaper than I don’t know if the Fairport in Plymouth

Even has a car park long stay maybe it does but this is probably cheaper I should know that so we drove to the Fairport parked the car in Plymouth unloaded the bikes everything like that cycled to the ferryport which was like a mile away um and then we took an

Overnight ferry from Plymouth in the UK okay to rosov which is opposite on the French Coast it’s quite a long this is where the channel is really at its widest um so it’s quite a long Ferry you can’t it doesn’t get short you know the

Fastest you can do it is probably like 6 hours or something so we we did the overnight Ferry which meant that we had to have a cabin so it pushed the price up I guess um and it the this fair is really expensive because I guess it’s

Such a longdistance one you have a cabin and so you arrive late at night so we didn’t have to take that Thursday off from work we finished work on Thursday then drove down to the fport boarded at like 10 p.m. or something slept overnight and then the ferry arrived in

Port for a like so you could get off the fery about 8:00 a.m. in the morning and that meant we could just get on our bikes and start cycling without having sort of wasted a whole day of travel anyway so after that we spent another seven nights cycling and camping around

The North of Britany essentially because we camped every single night the campsite fees range from like €6 €23 €19 that kind of thing and that was for no electricity but just a camping pitch like we have a very small tent and I love the campsites in northern France

I grew up cycle touring around those kinds of campsites or the municipal campsites which are even now like so they’re so good they have everything that you could possibly want some of them even have pools in a municipal campsite it’s absolutely insane but they’re always really really really cheap they’re really affordable and

They’re always in like beautiful places like literally Beachside campsites of the municipal campsites like it’s amazing anyway so for that seven nights of camping accommodation we spent €1 133 and at the end I’ll total this up in pounds but I haven’t actually done that conversion yet but let’s say I don’t

Know what’s that £10 or something that’s 7 nights of accommodation okay for £110 pish the food when I total this up this is quite funny the food food is like it’s part it’s as much a part of a cycle tour as the cycling is like for me really you’re just cycling from Bakery

To Bakery from Supermarket to supermarket and that is the utter Joy of it I love French supermarkets I like I have so much Nostalgia from being a child cycle touring in France and going to these absolutely massive French supermarkets and loving it and that has not worn off

The food that we spent the money that we spent on food so just to so the way we bought food and ate food during France we never once ate out we never went to a cafe or a restaurant or anything like that it was hot so we’re talking like

25° every day and that means that you know we just ate picnics every single day we ate picnics and cold food um for dinner as well so we were buying baguette we were buying Sal salads we were buying all sorts of delicious stuff hummus that kind of thing and then we

Just live off that every day so it’s all cold food it’s all supermarket food all peer food bonger food I should say and that is what we ate every single day we did have a little stove with us but that was our jet boil and that is for coffee

Only because that’s very important in a week um 8 days we spent €1 14543 which I guess again £1 1220 I’m not sure but again I’ll T this up at the end in pounds so we actually spent more we spent uh 12 more over the week on

Food than we did on accommodation which I feel says a lot it’s still hardly any money really when you think about it that’s a very cheap week of food and it’s brings such Joy like eating and cycle touring those two things go together so well okay so camping uh oh

The camp also included the camping also included One Night in a hiking cabin which is still in a campsite but it was like this little wooden cabin that just had space for two people to lie down in and it had some electricity plugs in that one as well actually and that one

Cost €37 for the night which I guess it’s like £32 or something so that €1 133 for the accommodation includes One Night in a hiking cabin um because I thought it was going to piss it down with rain and it was the first night and

I just wanted to be bougie in the other category is the ferry and the car parking space so this car parking space in Plymouth cost for8 days I guess 48 £ 4859 and then the fairy cost £340 return with a cabin outbound I don’t we didn’t have a cabin

Inbound um because it was during the day so that was one night of accommodation I guess you could say and then the return fairy Crossing so that’s £340 which is horrifyingly expensive and that was with bicycles as well like we didn’t have a car that would have cost

So much more but this is a really expensive ferry route because it’s long if you got a ferry from do Cal for instance you could take an you know an really early morning one or a late night one and you could get across for like 60

Quid or something I don’t know less than that maybe it’s so much cheaper over there because it’s 20 M but it’s quite a long way from where I live and it would be much harder for us much more expensive to drive from Devon all the

Way over here to just get a f to France in total that French holiday cost us 626 67 over half of which was the ferry itself so if you can find a better way of getting to France a cheaper way of getting to France if you’re not in the

Southwest for a start um port bouth pool uh and DOA or I guess the channel tunnel maybe um those are all going to be much cheaper ways to get to France I would imagine and you could save a lot of money by not taking the Plymouth Rosal fairy which is horrifyingly

Expensive but so when it comes to food and accommodation we spent I mean what is that €270 €280 so like £260 or something £250 I don’t know on food and accommodation for over a week okay that like that was a cheap holiday and that was great now moving on to

November’s cycle tour this was in the UK it was during November so really the offseason I mean uh I live the whole Southwest is a tourist region so prices can get massively high in the summer and the Easter holidays and things like that but in November those prices come down

Hugely because nobody comes here in the winter for good reason because it was like minus two that cycle tour was three nights so we drove and parked our car for free at a friend’s house so obviously that canceled out loads of uh you know potential car parking fees yeah

Drove to like the middle of the county and parked for free and then we cycled to a B&B which was a really really beautiful Boutique B&B it was absolutely incredible this was a really bougie cycle tour okay so we didn’t Camp because it was incredibly cold and dark

And obviously unless you’re cycling in the dark until the evening which I didn’t want to do then you finish quite early when you’re cycle touring in Winter because it gets dark at 4:00 and then I didn’t want to be in a freezing cold in a tent for hours before I would

Even then go to sleep so it just made no sense to me to Camp I’m sure lots of people like camping in the winter in the dark but I don’t that doesn’t sound very fun so we decided to stay in hotel/ BNB accommodation for those three nights and the first night cost us

£95 the second night cost us £79 and the third night cost £ 78.75 so the total accommodation for the November cycle tour was £ 25275 which is more than all the camp all the accommodation and food for the French cycle tour just these three nights uh of accommodation and these

Weren’t like fancy hotels or anything these were the literally the cheapest b&bs that I could find in November in the UK they were really nice but they were literally the cheapest that I could find and then food we um you know it was really really cold so we couldn’t really

Eat like a picnic like food like we were doing every single day in France breakfast was always included in these bnbs so that wasn’t a problem then lunch sh I can’t even remember only 2 days we ate a CAF only 2 days oh because our our Cycles were really really short so we’d

Actually only be cycling for like 3 or 4 hours every day so one day we obviously left quite late so we had lunch with us the second day we stopped at a cafe for lunch and the third day we couldn’t find a cafe cuz it was on xmore and there’s all on a

More apart from some cows so we but we arrived at the hotel in the hotel town in doton really early so we had like coffee and cake and then we went to the supermarket and got something after that after the hotel opened in the evening we

Would then go out for dinner which was incredibly bougie and Incredibly nice and very relaxing and I enjoyed every second of it even though it cost us £ 17685 for three days of food a couple of like out tea lunches and then dinner for three nights of dinner so that’s less

Than £200 which actually isn’t that expensive it’s just so expensive compared to the French trip where we spent less less uh so much less for 8 Days compared to 3 days so in total the no and we didn’t there is no other category for that because we literally didn’t buy

Anything other than food and accommodation uh during that time so the November cycle tour cost £429 60 that’s compared to the French much longer cycle tour over double the days which cost £ 626 67 so it’s a 200 difference there um the November s was £200

Cheaper but it was only 3 days compared to eight uh and it was in November in the UK it didn’t include a fair fairy ride and so that is the breakdown of how much we spent for two people over two cycle tours in the same year in neighboring countries

Literally Britany and North deavon I don’t know what that even is 200 miles they’re 200 miles apart they’re really they’re really close and yeah you can see that the price difference is massive but it was like we were staying in b&bs for one holiday and campsites in the

Other um if you camp in the UK your prices will go up as well because camping in the UK can be really expensive and it’s hard to find affordable campsites not affordable it’s hard to find campsites at the same price they are in Britany it’s just you’re not

Going to but in the campsites are really really affordable so I hope that was interesting I hope that gave you some insight into the different ways that you can cycle tour and how that affects the cost like I’m kind of comparing apples and origes summer in France compared to

Winter in the UK but you can still see that winter in the UK is an expensive way of doing it because camping and stuff is harder and summer in France can still be a really really cheap holiday even though that’s June you know it’s not like summer holiday season but it is

The high season and obviously this whole thing includes having the bike so I haven’t included in these costs the actual equipment and clothing that I have because I just have those things I’ve accured them over many many years so I and I’ve borrowed stuff as well so my partner happens to have two

Handlebar bags both of which are about 45 years old so I borrowed one of those I borrowed my piers from my sister because her PS are much bigger than mine because she’s much more hardcore and needs them much more often than I do so I borrowed her Piers my bike is just my

Bike it’s my gravel bike and I change the tires depending on what I’m using it for I took my gravel tires um for this trip I have a bike crack that I put on then I have the tent my sleeping bag my roll M all of those things you know like

If you’ve never been cych before and you don’t have that array of stuff like you don’t need a cycle touring appropriate sleeping bag but obviously you need quite a lightweight sleeping bag and you need quite a lightweight tent and things like that so if you don’t have any of

That stuff and you want to go on a cycle tour maybe you’ll go on more but for now you just want to go on one beg and borrow those things like as much as you can because if I counted up how much money it would cost me to buy all the

Stuff you need for cycle touring from scratch you’re looking at a lot of money and all the clothing things like that as well like you obviously need bib shorts or you need you know padded shorts um cycling jerseys is great you don’t have to have a cycling Jersey uh but they’re

Useful so there are lots of things involved that Mak cycle touring itself from scratch expensive but once you have all the equipment you don’t you don’t ever need to change it people will try and sell you new cycle touring equipment you don’t need it um

Like I mean a bite crack is a bite crack is a bite crack at the end of the day and a p should like I have like my sister’s PS are all PS they’ll last and have already lasted for decades they will last for decades more you only need

To buy a lot of these things once when I was a kid and we were cycle touring we were camping in tents that were much heavier than today’s tents and my parents had already had them for 20 years you know so the stuff that you need for cycle touring is kind of of

Once buy look after forever and use forever and repair things like that but yeah like these these are cheap holiday oh well the fr the my French cycle tool was a cheap holiday because I already had all of that stuff so I hope this is useful and I hope you’re going to go

Cycle touring and I hope you already go cycle touring and you love it if you do tell me like what do you think these prices are they crazy high are they crazy low would you never spend 340 on a fairy ticket oh makes me sick just

Thinking about it but I also don’t want to drive for hours to DOA I mean like 6 or 7 hours to DOA I’m not doing that thanks for watching and I will see you in the next One