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One of the crucial widespread causes folks don’t journey is the excessive prices. The fee to motorhome in France is commonly corresponding to staying in lodges and even Airbnbs, with the added bonus which you could 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 street 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. All the costs embody 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 standard. Conversion charges change ceaselessly, so your prices will fluctuate 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 street journey round France, we additionally crossed into Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, Andorra and Spain. France borders eight European international locations, making hopping over the border in your RV a breeze. Once I say these had 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 international locations!

RV Rental

Our Anyplace Campers rental price about $5,000 for one month, which breaks right down to $165/evening. This is a bit more than different motorhome rental choices; nevertheless, you get slightly extra with this explicit rental firm. The sort of motorhome that sleeps 4 is ideal for households like ours, however yow will discover smaller car leases for {couples} or solo vacationers.

Value: $5000

You may watch our Anyplace Campers van tour right here for extra particulars on the motorhome itself!

Toll Roads

You will have 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 will probably be a toll street 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 once we wanted to cowl just a few hundred miles, we hopped on the toll street to avoid wasting time and have entry to aires.

Complete spent in a month: $225

Campgrounds

Earlier than I share our whole price spent on campgrounds, I need to word the variety of nights we spent tenting in France and our common nightly spend. Throughout our one-month street journey, we spent 10 nights in French campgrounds. On different nights, we camped at no cost with our France Ardour membership.

Campgrounds cost per particular person, so these charges are primarily based on two adults and two babies. Generally, we weren’t charged something for our youngsters since they had been aged three and below 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 additional {dollars} once we ordered freshly baked croissants within the morning! That may 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 may simply discover various tenting choices to economize. 

Campground charges: $350

Learn Subsequent: 5 Tenting Choices in France (Free & Paid!)

Groceries

By far, groceries had been our largest expense. We cooked extra usually than we ate out so we may camp in additional distant locations.

After 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 candies from Le Clerc. (No regrets. They had 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 sometimes small toys for the youngsters. Most notably, this contains shopping for child meals, diapers, and wipes, which are typically costly and skew our numbers a bit.

Complete spent: $900

Fuels

This contains diesel gasoline for our motorhome and propane (GPL or LPG), as we crammed up with each at gasoline stations.

As I discussed earlier, we did journey throughout borders and replenish with gasoline in different international locations. Particularly, our most costly fill-up was exterior of Barcelona, the place we returned our one-way motorhome rental. Fuel was a bit dearer in Spain in comparison with France, however it’s a good illustration of a month-long street journey. We coated greater than 2,500 km or over 1,600 miles. I used to be shocked that this quantity was so low!

Value: $600

Eating places

We didn’t eat out usually—in all probability each couple of days. However our meals had been at all times extraordinarily inexpensive in comparison with consuming out in America. Monaco, Andorra, Switzerland, and Spain had been all considerably dearer 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 had 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!

Value: $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 should you don’t tour the Champagne area, you’ll doubtless spend a fairly penny on wine. It’s Europe, in spite of everything! We bought a number of bottles of champagne and some tastings throughout our two-night keep in Epernay.

Value: $150

Experiences

We frequently bought admission tickets to family-friendly adventures like zoos, an aquarium, a cog practice tour of the Alps, and meals excursions. We additionally opted at no cost experiences as usually as potential, like strolling the double-walled fortress in Carcassone and mountain climbing within the Pyrenees.

Value: $400

Public Transport

As soon as within the camper, we solely used public transport just a few occasions. In lots of instances, bus tickets and shuttles had been included with campground charges. Nonetheless, we purchased practice tickets to go to Monaco whereas we had been tenting on the Côte d’Azur.

Value: $20

SIM

I paid a one-time $100 price for my Airalo eSIM. This coated me in France in addition to bordering international locations. Nonetheless, it’s data-only and doesn’t embody calling.

My husband bought an Orange SIM that included calling for $40, however it solely lasted for 14 days and needed to be reloaded a number of occasions, totaling round $100. This SIM additionally didn’t work in bordering international locations, making it a much less enticing possibility should you plan to enterprise exterior of France throughout your street journey.

Complete 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.

Complete 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 prepare dinner our personal meals and had been in lodges each evening for a month, our prices can be a lot larger! After all, if we simply purchased an RV in Europe and didn’t must spend 5,000 bucks on a rental, RVing overseas can be far more inexpensive… 😉

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