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! :)