Like everybody else says who ACTUALLY know what they are talking about. You will find food along the way, whether it is as often as you want, the right kind, and the right price will be a flip of the coin. I actually was astonished how INEXPENSIVE some country restaurants end up being while buying enough from McDonalds to fuel me would cost well over $9 each time. Also, as suggested, bring some type of cooking device. I find stoves to be a bit heavy and cumbersome not knowing whether or not you will need it.
I made out just fine with a JetBoil 2 cans of gas and making sure that I always carried plenty of water.

Water is the real issue for many parts of the country. Down south, Middle America and many places that have water but isn't good enough to drink will certainly change your priorities. I found bringing a Katadyn Water filter was one of the best purchases I could have made that kept me from spending money on bottles water in some questionable water situations. This also made it possible to always be able to find water to cook with. (Ramen and Beef Jerky go a LONG WAY)

Bring some Tea to make urself in the mornings and sometimes after you get off the bike. Tea is a great way to give your mouth some more flavor besides water and spend almost nothing doing it. (100 pk of teabags is like 2 bucks) Coffee is much more expensive, more difficult to make, and keeping milk around is a pain. I would say 20-40 dollars/day is a good guesstimate. You will clearly spend more right at the very beginning if this is your first time, until you get into the flow of being most efficient.

Most importantly. Enjoy the ride!

My reasoning is because it is the law. If the private landowner doesn't want me on their land, there are ways to make that clear. Until then, it is within my rights to use the land, and I will.

I sure hope you don't share that opinion about other people's money or bikes for that matter.

Different culture, different practices. Sweet Lou will eventually have his a$$ handed to him or worse here in the U.S., regardless of the actual law or his interpretation of it.

What do you mean? How would using other people's money or bikes be within my rights? You make no sense.

Hasn't happened yet. Why should it? I follow the law and I have never had a problem. But, you do sound an awful lot like a motorist telling me that he doesn't care what the law says and that I should get off of the road, even if it is legal. I might get hurt.

There are many legal activities that are considered in bad taste, antisocial, or offensive to others. I wouldn't hang my hat on equating legality with a good idea.

Maybe you're overstating your position in an attempt to defend it, but your sense of entitlement is the most disconcerting to me. I'd be more than happy to share my property with bicycle tourists. I'd share my bathrooms, my showers, my kitchen, and maybe even my spare bedrooms if someone asks. However, I'll boot someone down the road in a heartbeat if they act like they can have anything of mine they want unless I tell them no.

I don't see the connection. Anyhoo, I'm not trying to insult you. It's not you, it's the behavior. You're cruisin' for a brusin', mister. Just sayin'.

And you have the right to ask me to leave. If you do, then I must leave, otherwise I would be breaking the law.

I'm sorry that my "sense of entitlement" is disconcerting to you. The law says what it says. If you do some research, you will find that most states have this law or something very similar. It is not a sense of entitlement, it is the law saying I am allowed. It is the landowner's responsibility to inform people to stay off, not the responsibility of the public to get permission to enter.

If you don't like the law, get it changed. Until then, I am allowed on the land.

Looks like things are a little more complicated than just whats legal. But I would have thought that was obvious myself. After all - its not illegal to be rude or act like a moron in public either. Most people are just smart enough to realize that kind of behavior buys more trouble than its worth.

So lets cut to the chase and post some of my personal experiences making inquiries into camping in some areas where public access was permitted. Oh yeah - I like to ask questions - its surprising how helpful municipal and state and provincial police can be when you actually help them do their job - which is to deal with complaints and assure public safety. Which includes YOUR safety as soon as you decide to plant youself on a property they are responsible for. Oh-yeah - you ARE supposed to notify the people responsible for any property of your presense there.

Anyway - on more than one ocassion I was warned away from some supposedly public areas altogether. Sure they were inviting, remote, mostly deserted - but they were also apparently areas where the police apparently had some serious challenges addressing some of cigarrettes or liquor or drug shipments that changed hands in those areas. And I was told quite bluntly that if I was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - that I would probably simply dissappear. Gee! And I`ll bet a lot of you guys thought that stuff only went on in the city! Wrong! In the rural areas there are fewer police with more territory to cover and that means a lot less risk for many transactions.


Course there`s average people too, And I`ve generally found that if you treat most people with respect - they`ll treat you the same way.
And I`ve been INVITED to stay with some people and INVITED to camp in their back yard, and been given guided tours of towns and shown where the locals go to have fun on numerous ocasions. But I`m pretty sure the reaction would have been very different if I had simply camped in their field because there was no sign or used the shower because the front door wasn`t locked. I know my reaction would have been pretty hostile if someone pulled that on me.

I don't have a lot of experience with bike touring, but I do know a thing or two about land use law. The notion of private property does not denote that one can do whatever they want on their land, nor that by virtue of their ownership that others are automatically excluded from using their land. It is completely within a landowner's rights to put up a fence, signage, or other means to exclude others from their property. Generally, in the U.S., if they don't take the step of advertising that they want to exclude others, they have to tell squatters verbally that they are trespassing. Otherwise, they aren't trespassing. It's pretty simple. The comparison of stealing money or bikes to LNT camping on private property is absurd. We're talking about someone very temporarily using unimproved land, not building a house or stealing your daughters and horses. It's pretty sad that the concept of private property has reached such an extreme among my fellow Americans, because these trespass rules are rooted in about a millennium of English common law. So really, if you have a problem with it, you might want to take it up with the Founding Fathers.

For those of you so quick to talk about people "stealing" the use of your land, please put up fences and signs and start monitoring your property. Why this is such an issue on unimproved property seems to me more symptomatic of a greedy disposition than any sort of realistic reading of American laws. I'd like to think most landowners have more to worry about than touring cyclists spending 7 dark hours on their unused property. End rant.

For one, if it's a field in land use (i.e. grazing or cropland), it's generally treated as trespassing automatically. And comparing stealth camping on unimproved land to B&E someone's house is not only ridiculous, but completely different in terms of legality.

I used my LHT for my coast-to-coast tour. It's equipped expedition style so I can ride back-roads which i enjoy.

I use the CC for fast-n-light camping and other travel rides. My other bikes are used for fun rides.

Actually, I don't see the cost being signiifcantly lower. If we both cover the same 50 mile distance, eat the same breakfast, lunch, dinner, sleep in the same places the only difference is our mode of transport. My car gets 29 MPG. With gas at $3.50/g my gas cost to cover that distance is $6.03. Other wear items on the car, tires, brakes etc add up another 12 cents per mile. So, to cover 50 miles my all up Direct Operating Cost is $12.03. And, because it only takes about an hour, I don't need anything to eat or drink.

What about doing the distance on the bike? There are two costs- fuel and wear. Wear, direct operating cost, I'd put at 6 to 10 cents per mile. Tires alone are 4 to 5 cents per mile. Tires, chains, cassettes etc all wear out. As does the riderwear, gloves, shorts helmets etc. This doesn't take into acct extraordinary maintenance. Then there is fuel. that is, fuel for the rider. How much does the rider drink, in water, power dirnks, milk etc. How about those little energy snacks? From Hersey bars to power bars, not free, but necesssary over a four to six hour ride. The DOC for the bike is $3 to $5 to cover that 50 miles. So, hands down it's cheaper than a car. However, when we add in fuel for the rider, not so simple. It is easy to spend 5 or 6 bucks on water, Gatoraid, and and an energy bar at a gas station. So, the all up cost is $8 to $11 to cover the same distance by bike.

Still the bike wins but not by much. And when you add in the extra cost of the larger meals needed by the rider to maintain stamina the advantage might flip flop. So, even on a head to head basis, bike touring not as cheap as it seems.

How likely is that? I guess it varies from person to person, but I personally am almost certainly going way fewer miles per day on a bike trip (where the riding is likely to be the point of the trip) than on a car trip (where the drive is just a means to get from place to place). For example if I was doing the Sierra Cascades on a bike I might take 8 or 10 weeks and ride shortish distances every day. I'd stop for the day in little towns that I wouldn't even slow down for in a car. In a car I'd jump from one national park to another and even when there probably drive to trail heads and attractions every day racking up as many miles around base camp as I would while actually traveling on a bike.

There there is the fact that many of us tour in places far from where we live. So for those who like me are just touring in the US we world probably fly there in either case and then need a rental car if driving, that or drive out west in a few days racking up big miles in the process. Either approach adds a lot of expense.

Another big assumption that would likely not be the case for me and probably most others. I typically keep room/camping costs low by staying in hiker/biker sites (no cars allowed), staying with various hosts who offer hospitality because we are on bikes, staying in churches, and camping in town parks. I probably would not be staying in any of those places if I was in a car and would be paying much more.

Well, that's what this thread is about, right? How much bike touring costs per day. I took issue with your initial statement because you changed the conversation to whether or not it was cheaper to bike or to drive across the country, which was not the actual conversation.

Your new set of numbers takes it more into the spirit of the question, but it's still not very realistic. The main point, for me at least, and I'm guessing for a lot of people, of taking a car is that you can go farther faster. Sure, you could limit yourself to 50 miles of driving a day, but it's not likely.

The point you seem to take issue with is where safariofthemind feels that bicycle touring and backpacking are two of the cheapest vacation options. That's fine. You don't have to agree. I also believe that there are cheaper ways to spend your vacation days. You can fast and spend your time in meditation. You can just stay home. You can hop a freight train and dumpster dive for your meals. None of that sounds particularly "vacation-y" to me, but you could do it. I'm not arguing that there's nothing cheaper you could do with your time. But you seem to be arguing that a car vacation is cheaper, but you're arguing it with unfair comparisons or unrealistic scenarios that still don't show vacationing in a car being cheaper. Can you finagle the numbers to make it cheaper? Easily. Better question is: Why would you? This is a forum about bike touring. This is a thread about daily bike touring expenses. You don't have to agree with safariofthemind that bike touring is one of your cheaper vacation options, but that's not really the focus of this thread.

It is unlikely that one would only cover 50 miles a day by car. However, you have missed the point which is, when stripped down to the lowest common denominator, mode of transport, on a per mile basis, the bike isn't a hands down low cost winner. There is a cost to turning the wheels on a bike. That's all the example I gave is about.

As for other costs being higher when traveling by car, who says? While you are paying to sleep in a no car biker hiker area The car driver is sleeping for free in their car at a rest area or truck stop. i did that very thing on my recent trip to Florida. Look at my food cost for four days on the road, $41.00. it just doesn't take a lot of expensive meals to drive. And, just as there are frugal bike tourist, there are frugal car travelers.

I've done the math on this stuff for years. We own one of those big Motorhomes. So, the math, cheaper to fly six people to the dream vaca location and stay in a hotel, or just load them in the motorhome and use it for accomodations? Depending on the length of the trip it could go either way. And, if time is a factor flying wins every time.

Not sure how the point that you say I missed is relevant to the topic of "Average cost per day biking across the US". The discussion was not about which costs more per mile "when stripped down to the lowest common denominator".

That said, I too have done some very inexpensive auto travel, but the car part of the trip was just the means to get there. The actual recreational activity was white water kayaking, cross country skiing, mountain biking, or back packing. I will say that in the cases where I have done that the car was cheaper per mile and it would have been next to impossible to get all my gear there by bike. I just don't think the comparison carries over very well when you try to apply it to a coast to coast or other long bike tour.

Car vs Bicycle depends on how you define your goals. One is faster than the other so is that time money, as in will you have to take unpaid days off of work to cover the time you lose, or is that time just down time, or is it vacation time. Will you pay to exercise if you aren't biking? Either way, you should subtract the base cost of food from the analysis because you are paying for that either way.

Minus say $100 per week of food/daily living expenses that you pay no matter what you are doing, bicycling is pretty close to free. All your marginal expenses are bike repair and extra calories to cover cycling. If you choose to camp for free, then your living expenses are covered.

True, but you do eat more when riding 80 or whatever miles per day. There is a pretty good chance that you are also buying a lot of sport drinks. Then there is the fact that you are likely to be buying food snacks and drinks in convenience stores and or small town general stores where the prices are inflated.

Also there is stuff that is actually consumable like tires, brake pads, bar tape and so on. For example lets say that you buy 2 tires for $43 and they last 4000 miles. If you ride 80 miles per day that works out to $3.44 per day just for tires. That doesn't even take into account tubes and patches. In practice I gave generally paid more (due to buying tires on tour from a local shop) and gotten less miles than that out of a set of tires.

I don agree with Tom Cotter's premise, but he does have a point that is isn't always as cheap as we tend to say it is.

It is the same with many of our hobbies and sports. I was appalled when I added up what my trail running costs me per year or per mile. Even running shoes work out to $.25 per mile assuming $100 per pair and a 400 mile lifespan. At least my bike shoes while more expensive last quite a few thousand miles.

All that said bicycling, running, and similar activities are well worth the expense IMO and are much cheaper than a lot of other activities that I might do if I wasn't doing them.

I'm not really arguing. Just responding to a statement i don't believe is fact.


My original post responded to a statement that bike touring is one of the cheapest forms of vacationing. There are too many variables to make that statement fact. On a short tour of a few days it might be true. However, the longer you stay out the more the numbers start to even out. That's because there is a cost to being out there that has little to do with the bike. These costs have nothing to do with your mode of transport. Bike tourist and car travellers sleep at everything from rest stops to five star hotels. They eat at everything from fast food to five star restaurants.That it takes a cyclist more time to cover a set distance increases their overall cost regardless of how low the daily cost.

Finally, there is a direct operating cost to riding the bike. parts wear out. Some of you may say there is no comparison to be made here, but there is. It costs me $800 dollars to buy tires for my car and only $100 to reshoe the bike. Yet, the bike tires are done in 2 to 3,000 miles while the car tires will go 80 to 100,000 miles. The actual cost per mile for the car tires is less than bike tires. It little things like that that add up to even the cost.

My purpose here isn't to derail the thread, only a short detour to address the How cheap is it question

I wouldn't make it encumbent on a property owner to do so regardless of the law. I would ask first. That's how my parents raised me.

It is an interesting topic. It is hard to define though. What you count and what choices you make in touring style will push the numbers all over the place. Your point that riding a bike has costs beyond what is usually acknowledged is quite valid though.

I agree that bikes are not as cheap as they might appear to be. That said, the summer that I did the Trans America, I probably spent less during the tour than I would have in the same period at home. A big part of the reason is that if I was at home I'd have been driving my car 500 miles per week and gas prices were through the roof at the time. So I consider bike touring a cheap activity.

In 2008 I spent 3 and a half months living and traveling around by bicycle. I spent something over $3000 dollars total I think. I figure that I spent about $500 getting myself equipped with panniers, camping gear and whatnot. I spent another $600 to replace a stolen bicycle along the way. The rest was day-to-day costs.

Good point!!!

years ago i owned a helicopter business. The profits were slim and the Direct operating cost of rotors in motion made all the difference.

As for the car versus bike thing. We agree, perception doesn't exactly line up with reality.

And the bike trip vs car trip is the same as the sailing vs power boat debate. With the power boaters it's all about the destination and getting there as fast as you can. For the sail boaters it's all about how you get to the destination, the destination is secondary.