Its Good to be back over there

Mainly because of COVID, we had not crossed the channel since 2018 and apart from 2022, we had not toured for any length of time. We had confined ourselves to short trips away until 2022. In 2022 we still lacked confidence that life had returned sufficiently to normal to tour on the Continent, but we did tour the Scottish Borders for a month. Our total expenditure from the time we left home to our return from this Scottish Border tour worked out at £81 per day. With the rises in prices and knowing that better value for money and more freedom to tour can be obtained on the Continent, I wondered how we would now fare touring there. This year, 2023, driven on by a couple of factors, we returned to touring the Continent.  With so much focus on costs lately, these are my findings

Our tour

The only firm plan we had was we needed to be in Prague for Easter for a family gathering and the site in Prague, Camping Sokol, was the only site we booked. We also booked fixed Channel crossing dates giving us 6 weeks on the Continent. Apart from the above we only had vague plans on where we would go after visiting Prague. However, I had purchased an ACSI card for the trip and prepared driving notes about speed limits, emergency numbers and how to pay for  tolls. We also had subscribed to a couple of site finder Apps, Search4Sites and Park4Night. We travelled 3050 miles through 10 countries.

We found the roads far better but busier than previously encounter on the routes we had used previously. Sites were only busy on public holidays otherwise there were no problems obtaining pitches. We used a mixed bag of 19 sites, some we favoured more than others, but I would use all of them again. Search4Sites proved to be the most useful App.

Cost

I compared the cost of this tour of 43 days with that of our UK one of 30 days touring the Scottish Borders in 2022. The only fair way to do this is to compare the daily cost of items which most would incur. Here are my findings for our style of touring:

Per day                                                   UK Tour                    Continental Tour

Fuel                                                          £19.27                      £20.18

Expenses                                                 £26.52                      £25.03

Sites                                                         £24.77                      £23.15

Travel/Insurance                                      £0.00                         £ 7.72

Food                                                         £10.8                        £11.30

Daily Total                                               £81.36*                   £87.38

*Note these costs were those incurred in 2022 and if you allow for inflation of 10 percent, a tour in the UK would cost £89.49 per day and be the most expensive in spite of the additional costs of travel insurance and crossing the channel when going to the Continent.

I was surprised that the fuel costs came to more than the UK (perhaps because the UK price is a year old?) but the cost of food did appear more expensive. The average I paid for a litre of diesel was £1.481. Some of my cost would not be incurred by others e.g. tolls for a vehicle over 3.5 tons. In this respect Austria worked out at 50 cents per mile. Italy had the cheapest tolls but the most expensive fuel. I am sure others can and do tour more cheaply. We used the Tunnel both ways, the ferries maybe cheaper. We also do eat out, on average a couple of time a week An average meal for two with a drink each came to about £50. Possibly cheaper than the UK. However, these were our costs and I have tried to be fair in making the comparisons and for me it confirms my suspicions that you can tour over there for similar costs to the UK, if not cheaper and you definitely get better value for money.

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