Trip Costs

I'm not sure that anyone else will care, but Ive done some more calculating and got some estimates on what the trip actually cost.

The Original Plan:
Before I set out on the trip I had a basic plan of spending about $1000 per month for the journey. This works out to about $33 per day on average.
I also figured that I would spend about a month in USA, a month in Mexico, six weeks in Central America...

Beyond that I had no plan... Just an end goal of getting to Panama!

So, now the trip is over and while I still have the interest, Ive looked at the numbers:

The Actuals:
Number of Days Traveling 182 days (6 months)
Number of Days in Meditation 122 days (4 months)
Trip length of Sep-21-2007 to Jul-21-2008 (10 Months)
Total Trip Days 304 days

Mortgage Expenses $26100
House Expenses $4260
Rental Income $15600
Other Non Trip Expenses $1250

Special Trip Expenses $3130 (Bike Parts and shipping/flight costs)
General Trip Expenses $13200

Average Trip Cost $53 per day
Average Trip Cost - excluding "Special Trip Expenses" $43 per day

So, It looks like I "blew" my budget quite badly :)

I was not actually expecting to hold to the $33 per day for the USA portion of the trip since the USA is expensive for food, fuel, and activities (note though that I camped throughout the USA so accommodation costs were $0).
I was hoping to stick to the rough plan for Mexico and Central America of $10 per day for food, $10 per day for fuel, and $10 per day for accommodation. What I think I actually achieved is more like $12 per day for food, $20 per day for fuel, and $12 per day for accommodation.
Reasons are:
1) Fuel prices went up considerably during the trip and I also rode more Km than expected (roads are very steep and windy down in those mountains!).
2) Accommodation is cheaper South of the USA, and I did spend a couple of months sharing rooms. However, a room in a cheap hotel usually costs about $12-$15 for a very basic place (I could not have known this before I set out though, so "what can ya do"?) Also, the rooms that I shared were often more expensive (and nicer) than I would otherwise have chosen.
3) Food could have been managed for about $10 per day south of the USA, but it would have been totally "street food" and that's not much fun if you do it for ten months straight (and not that healthy either). Again I could not have known this before I set out so I don't mind the over-run.

Conclusions:
I'm glad I went and am happy with the spending choices I made. So, on the whole, it cost me about one and a half times my planned restricted budget for the trip.
My house expenses were only half covered by my rental income, and this really ate into my cash and limited my choices.
It turns out that my trip expenses were only half the size of my house expenses - that's a bit of an eye opener!


The old adage of "Take twice the money and half of the gear" that you think you will need proves to be very true again! :)

My Other Ride

The registration/insurance on my motorbike ran out yesterday. Ive done all the work on the bike that I need to get done now (just need to change the tires for winter riding) so Im not going to reinsure it for the moment.

Instead I will reinsure my other bike that has been sitting unused in my garage for over a year. It is physically much smaller sport bike (Suzuki SV650) but it has the same engine as the bike I took on my big toure.
This bike however is all fun, and is far from practical... but to my eye it is beautiful, and fun to ride.
The riding position seems very cramped to me at the moment (after so long on the big touring bike) but Im sure I will get used to it.

Its so clean and shiny compared to my other bike that I was almost afraid to take it out on the street.... somehow I managed to overcome the fear :))

A Wing and a Prayer

Today was a good day in Vancouver.

Yesterday was a lovely warm blue sky day here in Vancouver and I really enjoyed being in the garden. Today was going to be another beautiful day, and I decided that I would ride my motorbike out along the freeway for an hour and go to one of the main local sites for paragliding – and fly my paraglider.

The ride out was fine, and it then took me about an hour to get a ride up the 4wd trail to the launch site (about 600m above the landing field). There were about a dozen other pilots there and most of them were new to me but I recognized a couple. The air was not yet warm enough and the thermals (rising pockets of air) were not yet strong enough or frequent enough to keep a paraglider up. This means that everybody stands around at the launch site and talks. This is known in the sport as “para-waiting” and can take up the better part of your life if you are not careful :)… Im sure that there are plenty of pilots who have spent more time flapping their jaws on the ground at the take-off site than actually flying! – Youd think that this behavior would create enough hot air to keep a brick aloft! - lots of talking :)

Anyway, eventually one of the pilots decides it might be worth trying to fly and he sets up and prepares to launch. The very chatty crowd has now become deathly silent and all eyes are on the intrepid pilot preparing to launch. This first pilot of the day is referred to in the sport as a “wind dummy” since they are the only way the other pilots can really tell if conditions are flyable. If the poor wind dummy has read the conditions incorrectly then there will not be enough rising air for them to stay aloft and they will “sink out” and have a very short flight before they land at the base (referred to as a “sled ride”) and have to wait for another ride to the top.

So, todays wind dummy was indeed unlucky and didn’t stay up.
But, after about another half hour, I decided that I thought conditions were better and that I could stay up. So, I decided that I would be the second wind dummy and give it a go. I managed a clean take-off under the massed eyes of all the other pilots – pheww!
And then started to fly around and try to find some lift to stay up. It was there but was light and in short bursts so I had to work quite hard to try to not loose too much height. I lost about 100m over a period of about 15 minutes before things started to get better. It then took another 15minutes to climb back up to the height of the launch field. Then once the other pilots saw that I was still up, they all started to launch as well - They often seem to have the behavior of sheep to me :)
The lift was still not strong and was very localized so we had about five pilots flying in the same small bit of airspace. I hung around for about an hour and then decided Id had enough for the day so I headed away from the lift and glided down to the landing field.
Landing was OK but a little further from the target than Id like but hey, it was a good launch, a good flight, and a safe landing – Good enough.
I packed up my wing and then wrote in my log book – and realized that its been about two years since I last flew!! – So, now Im very pleased with the good flight :)

Then it was back to the city on the freeway. But it’s the Monday afternoon of a long weekend here in Vancouver, so the freeway is very crowded and slow moving in places…. Not to worry, I just break out some of my “tropical driving techniques” and find my way forward by whatever means are available (lanes, what lanes?) and pretty soon Im back home.
A quick stop for some supplies before home, and half an hour later Ive got a steak on the BBQ and a red wine in my hand as I watch the sun setting over the bay and the mountains from my back deck…

Ahhh the life that I lead!

Home Sweet Home

I got possession of my house a couple of days ago and Im now living in my own space again.

My furniture is however still in storage and I wont get that back for another couple of days, so I’m sort of camping out in my empty house. The garden and lawn of the house have basically been neglected for over a year now but I’m pleasantly surprised that its all still in pretty good condition. I’ve been pottering around the place for a day or so and have got the worst of it dealt with. Gardening, by the way, is one of the tasks that I consider a pleasure rather than a chore.
The plants on the large back deck are also in pretty good shape – I lost a few in the winter but that was expected. The rest seem well enough including the Lotuses, Water Lillys and Bamboos.
I thought I’d post a couple of pictures of the place for those of you who don’t live in Vancouver.


The weather is great this week and its definitely BBQ season:
– your all invited whenever you get the urge