Eating while touring.
 

I plan on going on a 1500 mile tour this summer. I'm going to be riding about 65-115 miles per day. I plan on spending buying pretty much the cheapest food I can(Grocery stores, gas stations, etc.). That being said, how much should I expect to be spending per day on food? What's a good estimation/price range?

What do you spend on groceries each day now? Estimate slightly higher than that.


And ... if you don't know the answer to that question because you don't do the grocery shopping, then I'd suggest going along with whoever does the grocery shopping and pricing out what you might eat. Explore the grocery store ... find out what's available.

dang! how the hell should i know what you wanna eat?

why don't you try eating the cheapest food you can find for a week.
buy from gas stations and grocery stores and dumpster dive, keep
a detailed record.

double it for touring your estimated distance.
add in another 25% to cover buying water and
all the extra snacks you'll need before bedtime.

hmmm....i bet there's an app for this.........

Tools like a calculator and/or very simple Excel spreadsheet would work.


The things is, actually going shopping for food every day for a week could be a very eye-opening exercise. The OP, and others who are wondering the same thing, might discover things like that traditional rolled oats run about $1.06 / 750 grams ... but Kelloggs Fruit Loops are about $8.34 / 500 grams*.

Get the traditional rolled oats, make them for breakfast for a week ... and see how they work for you. Will you be able to cook them on a tour? Would you prefer to get something you don't have to cook? Go for a ride after breakfast and see how you feel. Many people find that the rolled oats provide lots of energy (they work well for Rowan) ... but a few of us feel ravenously hungry, and a bit weak and shaky, about an hour after we eat them. You won't know until you try. How much you want to cook up for breakfast may vary too ... your 750 gram bag might last a few days or a week or more. Again, you won't know until you try.




*Woolworths Online - Buy Groceries Online

Well you'll eat as much as you do normally when you do 100 miles. Figure a good breakfast of something like oatmeal, energy gels or snacks like trail mix during the morning, a sandwich, fruit, greens, maybe chips at lunchtime, more snacks and then pasta and some protein for dinner. You'll be drinking water and maybe energy drinks or soda too.

I really just need an estimation. Just what an average person would spend on food per day or what you do or whatever? $10? $20? $30?

Well ... it does depend where in the world we are.


If you're cycling the Icefield Parkway between Jasper and Banff, and in the surrounding area there, you're going to pay a whole lot more for food than if you were to do a tour through Taiwan or Manitoba.

And if you're a US American coming to Australia, you'll want to estimate really high ... but if you're an Australian going to the US, a lot of things will seem dirt cheap.


My estimates have been based on what I know from experience I spend at home in my local grocery store + a bit because food in small towns and convenience stores is more expensive + a bit if I'm touring in Europe or a National Park.

What do you spend on food each day now?

Eating while touring.
 

I'm probably somewhere at the lower end of food budgets. My menu is simple but fuels me well:
Breakfast: Oats, apple juice, banana, coffee
Day: PB and jam sandwiches, banana, trail mix
Evening: Beans, rice, olive oil

Under $10/day and (fwiw) vegan.

I broke it down, and my single most expensive food stuff was my daily three bananas.
I stock up at big supermarkets. Not drinking beer or wine will save you a lot.

If you stick with supermarkets, and stay away from prepared meals and things like energy bars you can get by quite nicely on less than $10 a day.

The thing is that people vary really widely in their choices. One persons number can be WAY different from another. I will say that your $10-30 range takes in a good bit of the touring community so you are probably on the right track.

I if I had to pick a number I'd say that it is not super hard to get by on $15 a day, that is often what I wind up spending. I am generally not trying to get by as cheap as I can though. I have heard that folks have managed on $5, but that seems like a very big stretch and I wouldn't even consider going if I didn't have at least $10 per day available.

There are a few things that can run the number up a good bit. Sport drinks and soft drinks add up fast if you drink them. Alcohol even more so if you drink that. Another thing to consider is that part of experiencing an area is eating the local cuisine. It would be a big shame to ride the ST and not eat a good bit TexMex, Barbecue, Cajun food, and gulf seafood.

What ever you decide, it is smart to have more money and time available than you need. Restrictive budgets and schedules can suck much of the joy out of a trip. If I thought I needed $15 a day I'd make sure I had at least $20 per day available.

You might need one and a half times to twice your normal amount of calories, but it all depends on what your "normal" calorie load is based on normal activity. Also varies if you are more likely to be on the 65 mile side or the 115 mile side of the range. And flat ground is quite different from hills or mountains. Etc., etc., etc., etc.

I would do what Matchka says, go to the grocery store, look at how much you spend in a day for normal conditions.

Figure double that for the extra calories you will need.

Then add 50 percent on top of that since you will sometimes be shopping in higher priced stores like convenience stores instead of supermarkets.

If you go to a restaurant, assume it will cost 3 to 4 times as much as the food would have cost to just buy it and make it yourself - except beverages other than a glass of water are much more than 3 or 4 times as much.

On my last tour, we carried two days of freeze dried foods as an emergency supply in the bottom of our panniers, the emergency supply allowed us to relax and just keep pedaling until we found another store on our route. Never needed the freeze dried, but it made our life a lot easier when we did not have to obsess about where the next grocery store was when we were running low on food.

Isaiah, serious question-do you do your own groceries and do you cook/prepare your own meals at home? As others have said, this will give you an idea of what you eat/spend now, but really the issue here is that a lot of people who don't cook or buy prepared meals are going to spend a lot more per day than someone who has experience preparing meals that use less expensive ingrediants but still are healthy, filling foods that give good energy over a longer period (as opposed to lets say, eating cookies and chocolate bars--the far end of the spectrum but perhaps you know what I mean)

eating a meal at a restaurant sometimes will also be a money factor. There may be times you arrive somewhere and there are no grocery stores around, only a mom and pop restaurant, you are pooped, hungry, so eating at the restaurant is handy for getting a meal in and getting to bed faster.

That may not always be the case. I am not sure I could even come close to duplicating a subway $5 foot long loaded with veggies (they will put on a ton if you ask) for anywhere near $5. Then there are diner breakfasts, prices vary all over the place. On one tour, I had a yummy steak and eggs breakfast including hash browns, salsa, and toast for $3.99 one morning and the next morning ate at a place with way less and much worse food for ~$17 (I should have gotten up and left when I saw the menu). Interestingly the service was great at the $3.99 breakfast and terrible at the $17 one. The key is in picking and choosing well.

I agree that the drinks can really add up. Water is usually free though. If you want sports drinks and don't mind the weight, carry powdered gatorade.

The concept is a reasonable one and I do somewhat the same, but I pretty much hate most freeze dried meals. So for me it is typically a couple packs of instant oatmeal, maybe some trail mix, probably some ramen noodles, and maybe a foil pack of tuna. What is in reserve gets rotated out during the trip and depending on where I am there may be more or less of it in reserve. Most of the time I think one days worth over and above what I expect to use is plenty.

BTW, I do like some freeze dried items, just hate almost all of the backpackers meals. I don't take much food from home on tours, but for backpacking I use a lot of stuff from Honeyville.com

If traveling internationally It Is Almost A Crime to not have a meal cooked in the local Cuisine ..

Sticking to the US .. the Franchise food chains make all the states tediously similar ..

though once again A Cafe Serving The Local, Regional Traditional Cuisine is something to Enjoy.

Subway and diners are the restaurants I eat ate most when touring. I like Subway because you can load up on the veggies and it's a pretty healthy fast food option and you get some carbs for the pedaling. I'll usually eat half of a foot long sandwich and save the rest for dinner.

I like diners for breakfast because of all the people you can meet in them, they are local and the antithesis of the chain restaurant......the food is very variable, but you often come on some well cooked stuff at very reasonable prices and a bottomless coffee cup is great.

Need to budget for ice cream.

How could any of us know what the "average" person spends? Even if someone could, in the end you need to base a budget on your needs. And no one can definitively say that you can eat for no more than $X and be satisfied without knowing you.

If you are sort of person who can (and is willing to) get by with a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, a small sandwich for lunch and some boiled rice and beans for dinner, then your food costs will likely be lower than someone who needs and/or wants something more and/or different.

Personally, I am all over the place. One day my food expenses may be relatively low. The next day, I may drop $50 on a steak dinner out, plus breakfast, lunch and snack costs. If I had to guestimate, I would say I spend a minimum of $15-$20/day for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, not including adult beverages.

Huh, I thought I was the only one who needed something with oats to make breakfast.

You really do just have to see for yourself like everyone is saying. No one can tell you what it's going to cost. I guess a good estimate is that you can do $10/day in the US if you never get prepared food and don't mind eating the cheapest repetitive crap you can find day after day. It will often be the same, like Ramen noodles. Peanut butter is another solid option for it's calorie content(~2500+ cal. for ~$3 of name brand stuff). Works great on crackers or veggies.

I would Highly recommend doing a week or so tour, or at least getting out and doing 50 miles/day for a week and see how you eat. Some seem to be fine eating what seems like a normal days meals. Others like myself for some reason seem to suddenly become very hungry all the time on tour if we don't constantly stuff calories into our faces. I think I ended up ~4000+cal/day on my last tour and I could have eaten more, riding 50-60mi/day. I was constantly hungry if I didn't get at least 4000cal in, which sucked some fun out of touring before I got on the right track. It was a surprise to me since I'm usually under 2000cal/day in my daily life.

I'm glad to see others not diggin the oatmeal. Even the higher calorie flavored stuff is only ~130-150cal/packet. At least for me, that means I'm trying to stuff, like, 5+ packs into my stomach for breakfast. That's just too much to eat. I also found that I get hungry not far into the day if I eat oatmeal. When camping, it's kind of messy for cleanup compared to other options too. I started out touring trying to do oatmeal because I read about so many people on here eating it, but quickly decided it wasn't a good way to go to get in the calories I needed. Ramen for breakfast tends to keep me going better. Pop-Tarts(generic if cheaper) are a good, cheap, high calorie late-morning snack.

It's hard to compare eating on the road to eating at home, because the circumstances are so different. It's not a question of the volume of food or the calories needed, but the difference in buying patterns, types of food eaten and availability of fresh vs restaurant/fast food.

Why don't you go on a "road diet" for a week, shopping and eating as if you were on the road. That'll give you a sense of what you'll actually do, then you can scale it for the added intake.

That is why we have 2nd breakfast :)

BTW adding nuts, butter, and powdered whole milk (Nido) adds calories and makes it both more tasty and more filling. I typically eat two packets of the stuff if I am eating a hot breakfast in camp. Lots of times though I eat a granola bar or some fig newtons in camp and stop a a diner later for eggs or waffles or something.

What about those riding the Paris Brest,Paris this summer who subsist on Ensure and Clif bars? In France!!!

Go for it Stud-Muffin, a Self induced problem.. I, not a Type A, cannot relate to ... I'm one to take a 9 day ride from Brittany, To Paris ..

(say The Plymouth to Roscoff Ferry to start) , not 90 hours .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41t23WGvEUM

certainly agree on Subway, eating a good balanced diet of veggies and fruit and everything else is even more important doing extended physical exercise day after day, and a Subway sub is certainly better than only eating hamburgers or other fast food stuff.

also very much agree about what you say about diners, going into small places are always so much more interesting than a chain restaurant and makes going through small towns fun.

If you can get by on $10 a day in Sweden, that's pretty good. Beer is a heck of a lot cheaper in the States though so I'm not crossing it of my list of essential touring foods, ;)