August 26th marked 31 days on the road. I’ve been keeping track of expenses, so I thought I’d just put them here for later review.
Fuel: $168.21 ($5.42/day)
Food: $384.34 ($12.40/day)
Lodging: $596.05 ($19.22/day)
Miscellaneous: $143.23 ($4.62/day)
Overall: $1291.83 ($41.67/day)
The miscellaneous category includes everything from park admission fees to a spare SD card I bought to download maps for my GPS and replacement parts for the bike.
I did not add the $230 I paid for two weeks of Spanish school ahead of time, although this probably should be factored in as well.
After this luxury of staying in a house for a couple of weeks, I’m hoping to reduce my lodging expenses as I’ll either be camping or staying in hostels for most of the rest of Central America. I don’t think I can reduce my fuel expenses much more, and while I could probably reduce my food expenses a bit more, I really enjoy eating, so I’m unwilling to cut much off of food. I will need tires in the next couple of weeks, and worse yet, the cost of the sailboat to South America is going to kill my daily average. Oh well. I’m still living cheaper than I could if I were just sitting on a couch at home, and I’m experiencing a whole lot more.
How does that compare to your predicted budget?
I’m a bit over budget, as I was hoping for closer to $30 to $35 a day for food, fuel and lodging, but not bad. As I leave Antigua, the lodging will go down, the food will likely go down a little, and fuel may go down some as well. Which usually means I’ll find a nice place to stay or eat once a week and wipe out the savings.
Pat: Still loving following along. Love the stories, and photos. The candle in the cave was crazy. But it was beautiful there.
Scott
What’s the cost of the sailboat run? I heard from someone the other day that there are boat owners there that do this for a living. Still – $1200/mo is cheap living. Imagine if you had your own housing (i.e. sailboat).
Ah, the sailboat run is an interesting topic of much discussion…
There have been many large boat owners doing this run for profit. Unfortunately the Panamanian and/or Colombian governments have from time to time (including this past May) shut them down as they are conducting a commercial business without license. Yet some still do it without problem. The boat I am booked on (the Stahlratte) is a non-profit foundation, so it gets around this problem, so far at least. The cost is around $1000 for bike and me, but includes two and a half days in the San Blas islands (re: party time) before the long crossing to Cartagena.
There have also been people who find even cheaper ways to get there (cargo ship — lots of days, undetermined arrival, undetermined route, undetermined departure); even one guy that built a raft and he and the bike hugged the coast on a raft for a good portion of the trip.
There is also just now a small commercial ferry operating for much less cost, although based on history, it’s questionable whether it will still be running when I need it. About nine months ago there was a huge (cruise ship size) commercial ferry operating for about two months, but at times it had one motorcycle and 20 people on board, so it didn’t last long (other problems contributed to its’ demise as well).
I also have my own housing (tent, cooking equip, etc) on board, but choose to use it sparingly at this point, primarily because I can find housing relatively cheap in many places. It will become more necessary later in the trip.
Enjoy the San Blas! We’ve been invited to go with friends on their sailboat next year to the San Blas. I’ve heard plenty of amazing things about them.