On 25th May we set off from Harwich International Port on the ferry to Holland to start our motorhoming adventures in Europe. Today, as we're sitting in the rain just south of Perpignan at the end of November, waiting for the bad weather to ease up before we start the next chapter of our journey and head into Spain, we have found some time to sit and reflect on the journey so far. It's hard to believe that it's been 6 months already as it feels like only yesterday we left our old lives behind to start this adventure.
Technically we moved into our motorhome on the 17th April 2014 when our flat was rented out and lived in the motorhome for 3 weeks while finishing up at work. After that we took a few more days to say farewell to our friends in Durham before setting off around the UK on May 8th to visit other friends and family before finally waving goodbye to British shores on May 25th.
It's incredible how quickly the days have passed and it's hard to capture everything that has changed in words. Even though the numbers only tell a tiny fraction of our story, here are a few statistics for the first 6 months of our adventure......
Overall
Days Away from the UK: 189
Countries Visited: 8 (Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Italy, Andorra, Spain)
Driving Statistics
Miles Driven: 3545
Diesel Used: 591 litres
Average Fuel Consumption: 27.3 mpg
Average Fuel Price: £1.02 per litre
Highest Altitude Driven: 2400m
Adventure Statistics
Hikes in the Mountains: 46
Highest Altitude on Foot: 3200m
Cycling Climbs: 33
Highest Altitude by Bike: 2802m
Places of Interest: 30
Click here to view all on a map...
Motorhome Living Statistics
Average Monthly Living Costs: £1229.11
Gas Usage: 35.7 kg (7 x 5.1kg)
Number of stopover points: 50
Nights on campsites: 41
Nights on aires: 148
Average nights in one place: 4
Click here to see our average touring costs
How far have we driven in 6 months?
In the 6 months since leaving the UK we have driven 3545 miles. Early on we decided that we didn't want to rush too quickly through places. We have met many fellow motorhomers on the road who move on every day or at the most it's 3 nights before they get itchy feet to move on. For us what's working is less miles and more scenery. Not only is this saving on our diesel and motorhome overhead costs, we feel it has been the right balance for us between seeing new areas and also really getting to explore an area once there. Generally we pop on our hiking boots or get the bikes off the back wherever we can instead of using the motorhome to go to places. We can think of no more than 10 long drives between regions we wanted to explore and we average around 4 nights in the same motorhome spot, often visiting several spots within the same region before the next long drive.
Since leaving the UK monthly miles traveled looks like this:
June 840 miles
July 483 miles
August 630 miles
September 380 miles
October 846 miles
November 366 miles
Click here to see our route card so far …....
MPG?
Our coachbuilt 2004 Autocruise Starfire motorhome with a Luton overcab bed has a 2L Peugeot Boxer van engine and a 3.3 tonne gross weight. We were initially a little worried about the mpg particularly as our old car – a 2006 1.6L Citroen Zara Picasso - had generally averaged 65-70mpg and also because we were planning to drive up alpine mountain passes. Our calculations, confirmed by our Garmin SatNav tracking our total miles and fuel usage, suggests we have averaged 27.3 mpg over the last 6 months.
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