How much does it cost to travel around Europe for 1 year?

Writer: Helena Bergström

What does it cost to travel around Europe for 1 year? This is the most common question we get about our European trip. We haven't kept an exact financial diary, but we know how much we've spent and we've done the maths to work out how the money has been allocated between different items. We will now do our best to answer - what does it cost to travel around Europe for a whole year?

How much does it cost to travel around Europe - here's the answer

Our 1 year long trip around Europe cost just over 300 000 SEK excluding the motorhome, which we already had. A similar trip can obviously be both more and less expensive, depending on how you choose to live and what priorities you set. We will try to describe approximately what costs we had and what was included in this.

Note that we have included exactly all costs we had during the year. We haven't just included diesel, camping, food and entertainment. We also included insurance, doctors' visits, medicines, repairs and maintenance, clothes we needed to buy for a whole year, books we wanted to read, new things we needed to buy for the motorhome, etc.

Diesel and LPG (€35,000)

We drove about 2400 miles and the diesel cost on average about 12 SEK/mile (2400 x 12 SEK = 30 000 SEK). We bought a brand new LPG tube (1500 SEK), changed the tube about 5 times (5 x 500 SEK = 2500 SEK) and refilled LPG tubes about 6 times (6 x 150 SEK = 1000 SEK). We used LPG for all cooking including the oven and for the fridge and heating when we were not connected to electricity.

Bridges, tolls and ferries (€30,000)

We crossed several bridges with tolls (1000 kr) and paid a lot of motorway tolls (10 000 kr). We travelled on many different ferries, including Sweden-Denmark, Denmark-Germany, France-Corsica, Corsica-Sardinia, Sardinia-Sicily, Sicily-Italy, Italy-Greece, and domestic ferries in Sardinia and Croatia (approx. €18,000).

Motorhome insurance, repairs and maintenance (€16,000)

We paid for full insurance, motor insurance and roadside assistance for the motorhome (6000 SEK). We drove into workshops about 5 times to look for faults, had various small faults repaired and bought some minor things for repairs ourselves (6000 SEK). We also bought an awning (2500 SEK) and various interior improvements such as wardrobe hangers, oven moulds, sheets and kitchen towels (1500 SEK).

Personal insurance, dental care and medicines (€5000)

Travel insurance was included in the home insurance for the first 45 days, then we travelled without travel insurance. However, we each had accident insurance (1500 SEK). Peter visited the dentist three times in Portugal (650 SEK x 3 = 2000 SEK). We also bought different types of painkillers and migraine medication (1000 SEK).

Overnight stays and laundry (€60,000)

We spent about 135 nights camping without ACSI discount (135 x 220 kr = 30 000 kr), about 90 nights camping with ACSI discount (90 x 160 kr = 15 000 kr), about 100 nights on pitches (100 x 100 kr = 10 000 kr) and about 40 nights free camping or staying with friends (0 kr). In addition, we used washing machines on campsites for about 5000 kr.

Please note that some over-winterers who stay in the same place for a long time may benefit from lower fees. We travelled frequently and were therefore unable to take advantage of long-term discounts.

Internet (£23,000)

We bought SIM cards for several countries from Holiday Phone before departure (€2,500), which we supplemented by buying SIM cards locally in each country (€10,000). We also bought WiFi on campsites where it was not included (10 000 kr).

The internet became unexpectedly expensive because we moved around a lot and therefore often got unfavourable deals. Another reason why the internet became expensive is that we consume a lot of internet - we don't just surf, we upload pictures and films, and manage a website.

Update: This was before the days of free roaming.

Food and consumables (€60,000)

Throughout the trip we bought food, wine, cigarettes, toiletries, cleaning products and consumables such as rubbish bags, plastic cups, candles, etc. This item is difficult to calculate, but if we look at what is left over from what we consumed, it is about SEK 60,000.

Restaurants, entertainment and attractions (€43,000)

We ate in restaurants in Albania and Macedonia very often because it was cheap (in total about 5000 SEK). Otherwise we visited restaurants for dinners 4 times (4 x 1000 SEK = 4000 SEK) and for lunches about 30 times (30 x 400 SEK = 12 000 SEK). We also ordered beer or ice-cream out a few times (SEK 2000) and went out partying in nightclubs a few nights (SEK 6000).

We hired a motorboat twice, a pedalo or canoe three times, and a car once (€5000). We visited two national parks (1000 kr), went on three different organised boat trips (1500 kr) and visited about 20 castles and museums where we had to pay admission (20 x 200 kr = 4000 kr). We also travelled by bus and metro occasionally to get into towns and cities and paid parking fees outside places of interest (€2,000).

Shopping (£35,000)

We shopped for clothes, shoes, bags and bath towels (around €20,000), wine in Italy (€5,000) and spirits, beer and Christmas sweets in Germany on the way home (€4,000). We also downloaded a lot of books to our tablets for around €3,000.