This submit might include affiliate hyperlinks. See our affiliate disclaimer right here.
One of the crucial frequent causes individuals don’t journey is the excessive prices. The associated fee to motorhome in France is usually akin to staying in resorts and even Airbnbs, with the added bonus which you can get away from the touristy spots and head into small villages and nationwide parks.
I went by all of our bank card statements to place collectively a tough estimate of how a lot our one-month highway journey throughout France price. The reply: costly. And price it!
We’re a household of 4, with a one-year-old and a three-year-old. The entire costs embrace meals and meals for 4, plus further prices that we incurred touring with a child. (Like diapers, wipes, and child meals!)
Disclaimer: Throughout my final go to to France, the US greenback was stronger than the Euro, making the nation extra inexpensive than typical. Conversion charges change ceaselessly, so your prices will range primarily based in your foreign money on the time of your go to. Each greenback quantity right here is predicated on the USD charged to my bank card. I particularly use a card with no overseas transaction charges—an absolute should earlier than touring.
Disclaimer #2: Throughout our highway journey round France, we additionally crossed into Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, Andorra and Spain. France borders eight European nations, making hopping over the border in your RV a breeze. After I say these have been my prices for RVing in France, it additionally contains shopping for meals in Monaco, groceries in Italy, and tolls for crossing borders. I discovered it unattainable to parse these particular bills out of our information with out making our month-long journey numbers appear inaccurate. So this contains RVing throughout six nations!
RV Rental
Our Anyplace Campers rental price about $5,000 for one month, which breaks all the way down to $165/evening. This is a bit more than different motorhome rental choices; nonetheless, you get a little bit extra with this explicit rental firm. Any such motorhome that sleeps 4 is ideal for households like ours, however you’ll find smaller automobile leases for {couples} or solo vacationers.
Price: $5000
You’ll be able to watch our Anyplace Campers van tour right here for extra particulars on the motorhome itself!
Toll Roads
You will want a line in your price range only for toll roads as a result of, holy moly, they’re costly. And ubiquitous. The equal to an interstate or freeway within the US shall be a toll highway in France. On our most costly day, we paid over $60 in tolls. This concerned taking the tunnel by the French Alps and into Italy to flee an early-season snowstorm.
We used the “Keep away from Toll Roads” characteristic on Google Maps to avoid wasting on tolls. On days after we wanted to cowl a couple of hundred miles, we hopped on the toll highway to avoid wasting time and have entry to aires.
Whole spent in a month: $225
Campgrounds
Earlier than I share our whole price spent on campgrounds, I need to be aware the variety of nights we spent tenting in France and our common nightly spend. Throughout our one-month highway journey, we spent 10 nights in French campgrounds. On different nights, we camped without spending a dime with our France Ardour membership.
Campgrounds cost per particular person, so these charges are primarily based on two adults and two babies. Most often, we weren’t charged something for our children since they have been aged three and underneath throughout our go to.
We spent, on common, $32 per evening. So, particularly in France, we paid round $350 for tenting charges. It’s value noting that typically these tenting charges included paying for laundry (round $10 a load 😬 ) and some further {dollars} after we ordered freshly baked croissants within the morning! That could be the most important perk of French campgrounds.
The quantity you spend on campgrounds relies upon totally on how usually you plan to remain in campgrounds. You’ll be able to simply discover various tenting choices to save cash.
Campground charges: $350
Learn Subsequent: 5 Tenting Choices in France (Free & Paid!)
Groceries
By far, groceries have been our greatest expense. We cooked extra usually than we ate out so we may camp in additional distant locations.
Once we journey overseas, my grocery retailer mindset is that if I need to strive it, I purchase it. This included shopping for a lot of macarons and connoisseur goodies from Le Clerc. (No regrets. They have been at all times scrumptious and half the worth of visiting a pâtisserie!)
Right here, our grocery invoice contains meals and toiletries for our household of 4, in addition to wine, cooking utensils for the RV, and infrequently small toys for the youngsters. Most notably, this contains shopping for child meals, diapers, and wipes, which are usually costly and skew our numbers a bit.
Whole spent: $900
Fuels
This contains diesel gasoline for our motorhome and propane (GPL or LPG), as we stuffed up with each at gasoline stations.
As I discussed earlier, we did journey throughout borders and replenish with gasoline in different nations. Particularly, our most costly fill-up was exterior of Barcelona, the place we returned our one-way motorhome rental. Gasoline was a bit costlier in Spain in comparison with France, however it’s a good illustration of a month-long highway journey. We coated greater than 2,500 km or over 1,600 miles. I used to be shocked that this quantity was so low!
Price: $600
Eating places
We didn’t eat out usually—in all probability each couple of days. However our meals have been at all times extraordinarily inexpensive in comparison with consuming out in America. Monaco, Andorra, Switzerland, and Spain have been all considerably costlier than France and Italy. We ceaselessly discovered multi-course meals in France for round $15 USD per particular person. A visit to the bakery for coffees and pastries for the household price about $10 every morning.
Naturally, our most costly French meals have been in Paris earlier than we picked up our motorhome. However I used to be nonetheless pleasantly stunned on the affordability of eating places as a complete. My private favourite meal was roasted duck salad with champagne dressing, cassoulet, a conventional Toulousian dish of pork and white beans, and ice cream. $16 for all three programs and one thing I nonetheless take into consideration and crave!
Price: $400
(This whole price features a meal of $100 in Geneva, Switzerland! Cheese may be very costly there.)
Champagne
Oh sure, this did want its personal line merchandise!
Even in the event you don’t tour the Champagne area, you’ll doubtless spend a fairly penny on wine. It’s Europe, in any case! We bought a number of bottles of champagne and some tastings throughout our two-night keep in Epernay.
Price: $150
Experiences
We frequently bought admission tickets to family-friendly adventures like zoos, an aquarium, a cog prepare tour of the Alps, and meals excursions. We additionally opted without spending a dime experiences as usually as potential, like strolling the double-walled fort in Carcassone and mountain climbing within the Pyrenees.
Price: $400
Public Transport
As soon as within the camper, we solely used public transport a couple of instances. In lots of circumstances, bus tickets and shuttles have been included with campground charges. Nonetheless, we purchased prepare tickets to go to Monaco whereas we have been tenting on the Côte d’Azur.
Price: $20
SIM
I paid a one-time $100 payment for my Airalo eSIM. This coated me in France in addition to bordering nations. Nonetheless, it’s data-only and doesn’t embrace calling.
My husband bought an Orange SIM that included calling for $40, but it surely solely lasted for 14 days and needed to be reloaded a number of instances, totaling round $100. This SIM additionally didn’t work in bordering nations, making it a much less enticing choice in the event you plan to enterprise exterior of France throughout your highway journey.
Whole Prices: $200
Abstract of Prices
Oh, I so don’t need to add up all these numbers! Touring for a full month was an costly journey.
Whole spent: $8,595 or $277/day.
I at all times love breaking down these numbers by day as a result of I do know that if we didn’t cook dinner our personal meals and have been in resorts each evening for a month, our prices could be a lot greater! In fact, if we simply purchased an RV in Europe and didn’t must spend 5,000 bucks on a rental, RVing overseas could be way more inexpensive… 😉
Was this quantity greater or decrease than you thought? Share what you assume within the feedback!