If you wanted to do RAGBRAI the ride costs $160 for the week. That includes transportation from town to town for one soft sided bag that can be up to 50 pounds and includes you tent and all your gear/clothes/etc that you do not take on your bike. In addition to that you have to get yourself to and from Iowa somehow and you will need transportation across Iowa at the beginning or end of the ride. You budgeted $240 for transportation to the ride, bus rides across Iowa at the beginning or end add another $150. What do you want to eat per day and spend on showers, etc? A lot of people say around $40/day so figure $320 for the ride plus one day at the beginning. That comes to $870 with you doing most of the work.

If you want to be pampered by a charter service that does most of the work then it can run up to $405 more to the charter if you bring your own tent and another $420 on top of that if you want to use their tent and you sign up before they are all taken. Now you are at $1700.

Or, you can sign on with a team or club that will provide some of what you need for less money. I do RAGBRAI with a few buddies in my own motorhome and we can typically do RAGBRAI for about $150 each in gas money, plus $160 for the ride, plus $320 (or whatever you figure) for food, etc. So that comes to $630 which is bare bones and depends on my personal generosity to my friends to a large extent. To keep the cost that low we either have to find someone willing to drive the MH for us for free, or split the driving among us which means we don't get to do the whole ride. If we want to hire a driver we would be lucky to get one for another $150 each for a week.

I don't know what to say, life is just expensive!