Originally Posted by
mymorningjacket
Been trying to to research for an upcoming bike tour next year.
I've been trying to come up with how much I'll be spending a day. I heard $10 is a very possible and very cheap goal to shoot for. Or is that way to extreme?
As for accommodations, I plan to couchsurf, use hostels or stealth camp as much as possible. Only using Hotels when I'm desperate.
Food is something I'm very curious about. I know of some easy recipes with oats or lentils in them. Also heard powdered cheese or milk can be very useful. Still don't know how much this will cost me. For example you can buy 1 kilo of oats for $4. Not saying i'd carry 2 pounds of oats around for me, so lets half it and say $2 per 1 pound. That lasts me about 3 meals. 1 of these meals a day for a month, thats $4x10 So thats $40 a month for one ingredient for one meal of the day.
Am I on the right track for calculating all this or am I all wrong?
How did you go about doing this?
What are some of your favorite recipes? Most tasty, cheapest?
What are some must need ingredients I'll need to always have stocked with me?
How much weight should I be carrying in food?
Thanks in advance guys
$10/day is very doable. I averaged $7/day on my tour this summer. Spanning May 1-August 5. I used WarmShowers, had some friends along the way and camped in various places. Fire stations and churches were a favorite place of mine to camp for free. I stayed in 3 hotels along the way but only paid for one. The other two were paid for by good samaritans.
To this question:
How much weight should I be carrying in food?
That depends on a lot. You haven't provided us with enough information to answer it accurately. Where is your tour? Does your route pass by a lot of stores? How much do
you eat?
If stores will be common on your route then there's no need to carry much food. If I'm on tour and there's a store every ~30 miles I'll only carry some snacks and not much else. A few times while on tour I went a few days without seeing a store. I carried a few Cup Noodles and a few boxes of granola bars. Otherwise I ate a lot of junk food. Donuts, ice cream and chocolate were some of my favorite foods. Cheap and full of calories. Dairy Queen is my favorite restaurant while on tour.
I can burn a lot of calories and not replace them all and still be fine. This is where how much
you eat comes into play. I can burn 6,000 calories a day while only eating 4,000 calories and survive fine. Another person burning 6,000 calories may need to eat 8,000 calories to survive.
Hope this helps a little. You'll need to provide more information before anyone can help you more though! Otherwise your questions are pretty open ended and you'll get a lot of responses like mine.