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.

Ill be doing a cross canada trip. Going east to west, starting in Vancouver and ending in St Johns.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/drive?state=%7B%22ids%22:%5B%221JZPUegxIbUBkVeRS-ofz6HOzO28%22%5D,%22action%22:%22open%22,%22userId%22:%22110787526498045328349%22%7D

Just keep in mind that National Parks, such as those you'll travel through along the border of BC and Alberta, are expensive. You won't be able to stealth camp, and accommodation will cost you more than $10/day. Plus food will be expensive. Fortunately, I guess, you can probably pass through that section in a day or two. Personally, I'd linger there, but you've got different goals.

Have you travelled much through Canada?

I am just curious... how much do you spend to feed yourself right now? Are you expecting to change your diet to fit a cheap budget while on tour? If so, how will you cope with that?

Further questions: How far and how fast are you intending to ride each day and with what weight? Have you given any thought to what your calorie needs will be for that riding? Is where you are riding going to have towns with stores along the way? How far apart?

This is a bad start. If you are starting in Vancouver, you aren't going east to west - you're going west to east.

$10 bucks a day is reasonable if you don't pay for accommodations. Food isn't expensive if you buy and prepare your own food, forget about energy bars and all that nonsense buy real food in grocery stores and you'll be ok. If you want to go cheap and light, look into couscous - lots of everything you need for a day in the saddle, it's easy and fast to prepare. Experiment at home and see what you can do.
BTW I don't know where you are buying oats but around here (Toronto) oats are ~$2.30/kg.

Where you're going to sleep at night will make a bigger impact on your budget than food will. I'd focus most of my energy in that direction.

If you need a hotel in a high-demand area that could easily set you back $100. Now try to imagine a scenario where food would cost that much.

Not to say that the cost of food isn't important, but it's #2 on the list.

I agree $10 is within the lower limits on a North American tour. I'm a middle-aged guy with a credit card and while I try to be somewhat frugal, my typical costs in the US are closer to $750/month, over double your goal. I spend nearly $10 on food alone every day. It's hard to get bargains in the places you may need to shop. You'll be stocking up in tourist towns approaching the National and Provincial Parks, for instance.

If you haven't toured before, you may not have experienced the calorie deficit from cycling in mountainous terrain, and the allure of $20 pizza in a tourist town where the beers are $7 (I just visited Banff on a hiking trip this fall).

Sure, there will be weeks in the heartland where you can get by on a few dollars a day, never step under a roof, etc. But as mentioned above, one day in the city can cost hundreds.

I met a crazy guy who'd been living on his bike for five years, 8000 miles per year, at a cost of $5000/year. It's hard to imagine more frugal than that (that's serious dumpster-diving freeganism), and that's well over $10/day.

Sorry, I didn't actually answer your questions. My favorite low-cost meal is muesli I mix myself in front of the grocery store, with rolled oats, walnuts, and raisins. Then a stack of tortillas and either cheese in mild weather or peanut butter when it's blazing hot. A bag of cashews and some more raisins for snacks. A pint of rich ice cream to eat while mixing the muesli. Fresh fruit and veg to fill up the bag and convince myself I'm eating healthy.

Basic food math; fat is 9 cal/g, carbs are 4 cal/g. A typical healthy mix is around 5 cal/g. To carry, say 4000 calories per day, you need about 800 g. You may need more than that. It can be a challenge to get that much food energy in semi-healthy food choices for less than $8.

For comparison, it'll take about 500g of tree nuts to get you about 4000 calories, and that'll cost $10 in most grocery stores. It'll take a kilo of oats to get there and you can get that for $4, but try eating a kilo of oats in a day! (Just kidding, do NOT try that.)

For further comparison, consider that a US gallon of gasoline contains 31,000 calories and I can buy that where I live for about $2. (When gas here hit a high of $4 a few years ago, a motorist pull up next to me and admired me for all the money I was saving on gas. When I told her, "You should see my grocery bill," she had an "aha" moment.)

I have only done a quarter of that trip.
I started out with a budget of $100/day. After a 3 week trek, I estimated that it cost me approximately $50/day all-in. One night in a motel ($100), one in an R.V. campground for recharge and internet ($20).
I fear I could not do it for $10/day meals only. Amplify that over 7000km, ouch.
As for meals. I tried to stop/shop once a day for groceries. A friend reminded me a week into my trip, don't forget the importance of fruit. It was hot across the Prairies. I developed a 2-3hr layover most afternoons. Shop, lunch asses my attainable destination for that night, etc. Bought fruit say daily, and dairy products.
As mentioned above, $20 pizza. Yes, I ganged up on one of those all by myself in Manitoba, ha-ha. Ice cream, 7000km budget some ice cream in there. A few times I would by the family box of ice cream treats, 5 in a box for $10. Eat 3-4 in front of the grocery store. Easy, and a nice feeling to share one/two with a couple of locals that stop to chat when they see your loaded bike. May gain some valuable information on local routes, or points of interest.

Enjoy your trip. Hope this might help.



-Snuts-

Freeganisim, It's another name for Dumpster Diving..

Do You Cook for yourself at Home ?

One of the ways I was able to spend $7/day on my trip was by volunteering at soup kitchens and food banks in various towns along the way in exchange for food. Not everyone has time for it but if you do you'll save a lot of money and feel great about volunteering.

Just an option!

[MENTION=291784]andrewclaus[/MENTION] - Do you know why the guy was living on his bike? Do you have any more information? PM me if you do, please! I always told myself if I lost my house I would load my bike up and live on my bike.

[MENTION=291784]andrewclaus[/MENTION] - Do you know why the guy was living on his bike? Do you have any more information? PM me if you do, please! I always told myself if I lost my house I would load my bike up and live on my bike.[/QUOTE]

PM sent.

I'd say you are concerned about a bunch of nothing.
Are you going to do this bike touring thing every month of your life or only once a year....or ...only once?

This is a vacation the likes of which you probably won't have the opportunity to repeat that often. (maybe I'm wrong but I'm assuming you are like the rest of us. )

Why worry about how much food will cost? Take some cooking gear if you want to save money. I'm sure you can figure out how to use it without the solicited advise here. Otherwise, enjoy yourself and eat a lot.
The map will show you the next food source. Plan accordingly.

as a Warmshowers host to many folks through-out the touring season, i have concluded that i am pretty much turned off by the tourists who plan their tours with the goal of using "free" services as much as possible (warmshowers, couchsurfing, etc....). (now, i wouldn't lump free (i.e., fire station, church) / stealth camping in that regard, that's just being efficient). In comparison, i much more respect those who choose to be as independent and resourceful as possible (as in camping most of the time), and who avail themselves of the very occasional "splurge" of a warmshowers stay and truly will appreciate that cozy bed, hot shower, and hot meal as a real treat rather than the norm. really don't mean to sound judgmental, but i really don't look respectfully upon those who go out on a tour with the goal of intending to rely on the generosity of others as a prime resource.

on the main topic of this thread, i cannot imagine trying to eat on $10/day, much less survive all-in per day on that little. what kind of fun could that be ?

I agree and and I was going to post something very similar to this. It irks me beyond belief when folks travel, unprepared, expecting the good natured folks (like yourself) to fill in the gaps, be it food or lodging.

It's one thing to be self reliant and get gifted a meal or stay, it's something completely different to put yourself into a situation where an average person couldn't say no. It is a very passive aggressive way of asking for a handout, while not asking for a handout.

Was reading this journal on CGOB yesterday and thought it was on point, this guy has toured more than 99% of folks on the planet:

https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/...id=473032&v=1M

"Budgeting: Just trying to do everything as cheaply as possible, all the time is a bad idea, especially if you tend to party hard and then blow it anyhow. Make sure you have enough to eat well and not stay in bad places and avoid wasting too much in bars. It seems a bit of an ego thing with younger riders to not spend any money, but then spend big on the latest Surly frame and new gadgets. Also, if you are constantly living on other people's generosity, consider what the differences are between you and a scammer."

Cmon Ty, this is a bit disingenuous. I've heard you throw $7-10 around in several threads, while I'm not questioning that figure, the amount of free stuff you apparently received is really skewing what the actual cost of touring is for the masses. Any idea what the relative cost was without freebies?

I did a NY to LA tour

$40 a day would be normal.

Depends on what your tolerance is for comfort! I don't enjoy eating poor quality high caloric food, refuse to eat jars of Pbutter days on end and don't care for fast food. I try and stick to a diet similar to what I eat at home, which doesn't need to be expensive, brown rice, quinoa, fresh fruit and veggies (road side stands), home made oatmeal (prepacked), water, camp coffee, etc. I try and be pragmatic as possible, if it's lunchtime, I'm hungry and have a big ride ahead, I'll do what I need to do and find someplace quick and splurge $$.

I've never done the math, but between campgrounds (average $5-15 a night), oatmeal for bfast, lunch on the road, dinner at camp....I probably spend on average $25-30. No cities, no hotels, no nice dinners out.

I'd spend less on my bike setup and lodging before I'd skimp on food. One thing I learned years ago while training and racing is never go hungry on the bike. You can give up a few calories a day here or there, but if you are in a caloric deficit multiple days, your going to grind yourself down, get sick, have little energy and generally feel like crap. It's not sustainable and depending on your 'goal', generally not much fun.

Easy dinner option: cup of quinoa, dried lentils, dried veggies, broth/bullion cube and some coconut oil, mix it all together and cook. Quinoa and lentils cook about same time.

As far as oatmeal, I prefer the little packets when I am backpacking. Two of them make me a decent breakfast. Cost a bit more that bulk, but pack easier, and if you are quibbling over a couple quarters for four breakfasts, you're probably underfunded. Not to mention, you can get the flavored packs and change it up every morning, so it doesn't get too redundant.

Always had a couple packs of ramen with me in the backpack. Quick and easy, and definitely take care of your sodium intake. Doubt it applies as much to a bike trip, but instant potatoes make a nice accompaniment to fresh caught fish, for adventures that involve fishing.

OP, ever fish, forage or live off the land? Just something to supplement. Fresh fruit in season is great, often just growing wild such as apples, berries and grapes.

This guys claims to eat (at home) on $36 a month.

I can vouch for oatmeal, raisins, bananas and eggs. Cheap, nutritious, keeps well.

I've survived days at a time on GORP. Cheap but surprisingly difficult to resupply. Small groceries rarely have convenient pack sizes.

In North America, peanut butter on bread/tortillas is quite convenient.

Pasta is cheap but requires a lot of fuel (and water). Rice is more economical -- pour boiling water (1 third more water than rice) and wait for 15 minutes. Search the Internet to build a list of recipes you like. I have personally never bothered shopping for dried veggies. A can of tuna mixed with rice is good enough. Fresh fruits/veggies when possible.

Tea is cheaper than coffee.

---

Lots of accounts of people stealth touring, so this is most certainly a viable option. Done this myself on occasion, but it raises the question of sanitary facilities.

The amount of free stuff I get on tour is irrelevant. My cost would still be ~$7/day. If I'm not staying at a WarmShowers host eating a home cooked meal then I'm camping for free behind a church eating a pint of ice cream for dinner.

Any freebies along the way are luxuries and not something I'd pay for and therefore not counted towards my budget.

I grew up poor so living cheap comes naturally to me.

That's a lot!

Is your map from TravellersPoint?

First Lunch in CA was $19
Copied the map from another rider on the tour.