Originally Posted by
birvine
When I tour I use a rough rule of thumb at $100 per day for a tour. Thus, a three-week tour will cost me about $2100. Depending on various factors this may or may not include airfare.
$100 per day sounds pretty steep to me unless it includes airfare and you are not camping. I guess that it depends to a large extent where you are, where you stay, and where/what you eat. I have a hard time imagining myself spending anywhere near that on tour though. What percentage of the time did you cook and what percentage of the time did you camp?
For fun, I just perused one company's tours and I found one that sounded interesting... for 7 days it was about $4200... or $600 per day. No airfare included. How often do you do the organized thing? What do you pay compared to when you go indie?
I've never done an organized tour, but I did a 73 day TransAmerica for a lot less than $4200 including airfare, a new bike, a lot of gear, side trips to do stuff like rafting, shopping at outlets and sending the stuff home, and all of the day to day expenses. We did stay for free more often than we paid to stay. I could spend more, but $15 per day is possible for a long tour across the US, $20 is quite do-able, $30 would allow a lot of extras and splurging, and $40 would be a luxury tour.
I don't have any experience with doing a motel type tour, so I won't speculate on the cost.