115 days, 8200km and 11 countries later - Part 2 - Cost & payback

I wanted to leave this part of the analysis of my longest trip ever for later cause it is not exactly the most pleasant one but after my new Hivian friend's @mypathtofire "demand" I decided to prioritise it:

At this point I wanna remind you all that you can feel free to ask me any part or aspect of my trip that you would like me to focus on in my next posts.

Speaking of accommodation costs in general, they really have gone sky rocketing lately. I couldn't imagine that it would be so hard for me to find inexpensive places before I started booking. Inflation? Post COVID19 overbooking? A mix of both I guess which resulted in crazy listings like all these old rundown VW RVs in Germany at the price of what a medium hotel used to cost before this craziness. And while Serbia offered me the cheapest AirBnB ever (a whole apartment for 100 euros per week @ Crusevac) and Croatia was OK(ish), the rest was a challenge. Especially speaking of Belgium, France and Netherlands. These looked untouchable. Germany is more reasonably priced than them.

In general I managed to keep the weekly accommodation cost below 300euros, averaging around 200+ish. Please don't ask me to calculate the precise average because I hate to remember the shitload of money I spent since it was all self financed and unsponsored 🙂 I was renting whole units, preferably with some space for my bike cause I had to be able to repair something in case I had to.

I also don't want to remember how much I spent on fuel which reached the price of 2.2 euros/lt in Netherlands, the most expensive I've seen anywhere, ever. Not even comparable to the accommodation costs though as my bike is very efficient and reached the all time lows in consumption that I had to see since it was brand new (flirting with 3lt/100km) after a tune up I did with my mechanic. Isn't this impressive that a bike can still perform the same after 16 years and more than 155.000km? It really is.

Speaking of why I picked place A instead of B, that had to do with various factors which often made it a time consuming mind game. Convenience of location, attractiveness, proximity to supermarkets, space for my bike, OKish bed, obviously price, all these parameters where getting harder and harder to satisfy as I left the Balkans behind. And you might think of me as a bit of a drama queen but all these were important on a trip like this though of course I had to compromise at times leaving some out of the equation.
Convenience of location was (even more) important when the weather was bad (and usually it was) cause you don't wanna deviate a lot on a motorcycle when it rains dogs and cats. Mainly for safety, not to stay dry.
Proximity to supermarkets was important cause it gives you the chance to just walk after an exhausting riding day to the local store (or at least take a short ride) and buy some much needed stuff. Otherwise I'd have to carry the stuff I needed with me on an already filled to the brim bike. I was always carrying some food for emergency but couldn't carry all my supermarket shopping all the time I'd be riding several hundreds of km from A to B.

The weather dictated my choices a great deal. For example it's one of the reasons I stayed for 2 weeks outside Belgrade. The other reason I stayed so long there was because I had a super cute container home for me at a very large plot with all the space in the world to repair an 18 wheeler. And my host was one of the best I ever had. We ended up hanging out with her (as cool) friends enjoying epic food all together:

I also did some house sitting which dropped the costs dramatically, especially if you consider that I was given houses in France and Netherlands, two of the most expensive countries. The pros of being a trusty and handy man 🙂😎

I was trying to rent on a weekly basis to drop the AirBnB costs since I had such a long trip ahead. The lack of value for money places forced me to book places for less days in a few occasions. I don't mention AirBnB because I want to promote it, quite the opposite, I am more bitter with them lately but it's a convenient platform. I must admit that at some point I did something I hate which is asking a favour. I had such a hard time at some point trying to find places without getting broke that I asked them to give me a coupon since I am such a long time member with exclusively top reviews both as a host or a guest (subject of a later post). Actually in the past they used to give me coupons from time to time and this time I asked them when I had already spent a shitload of money in the middle of my trip and was about to spent almost as much on my way back. Well, they slammed the door in my face 😂. Just imagine the plus money those fuckers make out of the latest inflation since they work on percentage from bookings and the hosts had to raise the prices quite a bit.

I avoided big cities throughout my trip. The cost is higher there, the bike is less safe if you leave it out and if you seek for a safe parking the cost gets even higher while less places offer something like that. Besides, big cities were not my top priority anyway. I've spent almost all my life in one.

I mentioned before the unsponsored/self financed side of things but in no way I want to omit the fact that without Hive this would be even harder to accomplish. To be honest I didn't expect that no whales would consider stopping by the content I harvested during the longest motorcycle trip one has ever done here (with the bright exception of @appreciator which made a world of a difference), especially considering what can catch their attention. But it's more important to mention how heartwarming was to feel that some of you were riding with me, reading your comments later and feeling your clicks through all those km I did. A super thank you to each one of you, regardless what that might translate in numbers. I'd love to tag you all but I'll run the risk of leaving someone out and that's unfair. Your support is super appreciated by me and I hope I'll be able to deliver such stuff again to you on any chance given.

I hope I got you covered but please, if I left something out let me know and I'll put it in the pipeline.

Have a good life everyone!