I would have a lot of difficulty making campground reservations in advance. I rarely know where I'm going to be by nightfall, and especially not nightfall several days in advance! On my tours, the closest I've ever come to making advanced reservations was for the first night in London on Rowan's and my Europe tour in 2007, and calling the hostel in the next town at about 2 pm, to see if they had space for when we got there in a few hours on a Friday night during my Australian tour. And I only did that 2 or 3 times. Otherwise we wing it!

And $36.11 sounds about right. I estimated (educated guess) that my 3-month Australian tour cost me about $30/day, including a cruise out to the Great Barrier Reef, two flights within Australia, a 3-day car rental, and a few other tourist things, but not including the flight to and from Australia.

We ate inexpensively ... usually from grocery stores. Although during the last month there, we changed the eating pattern because of the heat. We'd get up and leave camp at some unearthly hour of the morning (on a bowl of cereal - $0.50), cycle for several hours until it got hot (with some stops for fruit either from the trees that lined the road or inexpensively from fruit stands ($1)), then hang out at the beach for a while, and then go into a town for an Australian burger. Australian burgers are complete meals that can keep you going for the entire day, and at that time, they ran about $6. And then we'd head for the nearest rest area or whatever for the night.

We were also able to stay for free in a few places because of friends and family, and camp for free in quite a few places. Australian rest areas have a 48 hour limit, and there are several free campgrounds. But even when we paid, it was usually only about $5 each for a campground, and about $15 each for a bed in a hostel (about once a week).

Amusing story ... in one place, we were looking for a campsite, but had gotten to town a little bit late so most were full. We found one who was willing to give us a teensy patch of grass for our tent, and we'd be let in to use the toilet once that night, but that was it ... all for $30 ($15 each). We asked about a hostel in the area and were told that there was one but that it was full and would charge us a fortune. However, we opted to leave and check the hostel. The place was immaculately clean, new-looking, virtually empty, and we got beds for $20 each. We lucked out with that one!!


Touring Europe, on the other hand, adds up to more than $30/day ... mainly because of the exchange rate.