What does a sabbatical cost?

How can you take so much time off work?

How do you finance a big cycle touring trip?

Is cycle touring expensive?

Questions I get asked a lot. This morning I got another one of those “How do you do it?” emails from a blog reader. Now almost 18 months since I had my last day at work and more than €15,000 poorer, with a hint of work on the horizon, here’s a rather woolly look at how I do/did it.

(Disclaimer before we start: I was lucky enough to finish an apprenticeship years ago, had a good job before Africa and had worked 18.5 years of the last 19.  I’m not afraid to spend money on flights or gear I think best for a trip)

How can you take so much time off work?

Simple, I quit my job 18 months ago.

How do you finance a big cycle touring trip?

The bottom line is for the last 18 months I’ve lived mainly on hard earned savings.

Before: Saving, working, selling, begging

It all started in November 2009, only weeks after returning from my USA coast to coast trip though not knowing what it would be I was sure I’d be going on a huge trip within the next year or two so got down to some serious saving, each month putting aside what I thought I could miss.

Six months later my plans became more concrete so I stepped things up a notch. I set a goal of a sabbatical budget of €20,000, 15 for the trip (which at that time was open ended) and 5 for start up costs on my return.

Rather impressively I achieved this target within the next 18 months despite buying last minute gear, €950 travel insurance and a flight to Cape Town.

How? :

• Choosing 10 years ago to have a painful operation to make sure I don’t have any kids.
• Going back to working full time rather than 4 days a week, working bank holidays where possible for the extra little bit of cash.
• Selling just about everything I owned that wouldn’t being going on the trip (the hardest being my bikes).
• No more eating out or buying fancy whiskeys.
• Sold my car just before the trip(€5000).
• Learning to think about money as if already on the trip. Every time I considered buying something I thought “Will this be going with me? Do I need this? Can I live without this.” (Apart from clothing for trips I haven’t bough many new clothes since about 2006, same goes for just about every other department of junk most people aquire in a house, electronics, books, dvds, bikes)
• Every time someone asked what I wanted for Christmas or Birthdays I said cash or a specific item I needed for the trip.
• Took almost no holiday so when I left work the first month of my trip was still on full pay.
• Approached a few small companies about discount/sponsorship. For Africa this saved me about €150, for the Lapland trip about €500.

During the trip….

I think the key to any long trip is living as cheap as your comfort zone will allow. For some this means living on €5 a day for other €50-100. For me that point in Africa was between €10-30 a day(very rough estimate) depending on the country.

During a trip I :

• Wild camp where possible, pay for campsites when I have to.
• Use a hotel when I need to or want to for whatever reason.
• Eat local as much as possible but pig out when I hit a tourist food area (our western bodies need junk food, salad a coffee now and again)
• Drink a beer or two at the end of most days when not wild camping.
• Sometimes splashed out on special things like a Microlight flight over Victoria falls.

Income during the trip (last 18 months):

• Donations from family and friends -about €1000
• Donations via a pay pal button – about €200 (now removed)
• Advertising, affiliate links and google adds on my sites – about €100-150 (site costs €40 per year, time put into site  500+ mhrs) Cue google add for you to click on and make me 2c richer :)(not more than once though or they block it…)

Naturally after having so much freedom the last 18 months I’m unlikely to survive a standard job with 4 weeks holiday a year so have made many choices as to the future, mainly to save money so I don’t have to work most of the year to pay for day to day things like most people. It’s all about choices. :

• I now have a Brompton folding bike which I bought for €550 to use together with public transport to get around. Though petrol costs about the same as public transport I have no car insurance, tax or maintenance to pay for and more importantly no initial cost and depreciation. Public transport isn’t always as fast as a car, but once you accept that time in the bus/train with a book is also free time then all is well. 
• Because I use a bike for just about everything now my basic fitness is much better so I don’t need to spend money to go to a sweaty gym and sit on an uncomfortable bike and look at wankers trying to impress the girls with their inflated ego’s.
• Rather than get my own house or flat, I’m renting a small room in a girlfriends house.
• Still making the same choices about “do I need to buy this….?”
• Doing well paid temp work rather than a perminent possition (well thats the plan anyway).
• Find a balance between work, travel, relationships and finance.

Is cycle touring expensive?

I think its generally accepted that cycle touring is a cheap way to travel. You can buy good second hand bikes and gear fairly cheaply. If you can wild camp a lot and if you buy food at the local markets generally you can live cheap, many cycle tourists also avoid the costs of flights by starting and finishing at home.

I don’t really fit into this category. Up until now I’ve been able to buy the gear I consider best for each trip and have no problem with getting a flight to my preferred touring location each time. This too is pure a question of choice. I know some cyclists even claim to have lived on $1 a day in West Africa (I spend more than that on coke and beer each day, not to mention my mobile internet costs!!) Each to their own, but I would rather have a fun 18 month trip rather than a miserable 3 year trip on the same budget (big generalization…don’t shoot me…).

So just to blow any theories about how cheap cycle touring is here are my costs for the last three years.

Bike and gear for Africa                    €6000

Travel insurance 18 month              €950

Flights to and from Africa                 €1000

Money spent 12 months Africa        € 8500

Replacement gear sent to Africa      €1000 (mainly new camera)

New gear for Lapland trip (3wks)        €1500

Flights and costs in Lapland                 €1000+

Long weekend touring Europe             €300

Yup that’s about €20,000 without even mentioning loss of earnings.

BUT had I wanted to do the same in a 4×4 it would probably of cost me 20,000 just for the car, insurance and gear…….

Is it worth it?

Despite what your accounting department at work thinks, not everything can be brought down to numbers.

I’ve just had an 18 month roller coaster journey of a life time. Experiencing every human emotion, meeting awesome people, living adventure to the bone. Putting skeletons to rest, experiencing more of life and getting to know myself better than most people do in a life time.
Value of that roller coaster ride =

Priceless!!