Year One Tour - 11 months on the road

In November 2016 we took early retirement and on 27 December 2016 set of on our motorhome tour around Europe and North Africa.

Countries Visited: 20

Days away: 329

Miles Travelled: 12,897 Miles (20,635.2 Kilometres)
Vehicle: 2014 Sun Living Lido S42DF (Adria)

Cost: €16,717.90 (£14,926.70) - €50.81 (£45.37) a day.

Countries we visited, and days/nights spent in each: 
France (9), Spain (86), Portugal (7), Gibraltar (5), Morocco (39), Andorra (1 - didn't stop overnight), Italy (43), Sicily (21), Greece (16), Bulgaria (22), Romania (6), Serbia (3), Croatia (24), Slovenia (7), Hungary (9), Slovakia (3), Austria (4), Czech Republic (4), Germany (16), Holland (5)

Our Route in Red 

We didn’t have a set route or how many days we would spend in each country.  We just travelled and stopped where the mood took us.  It was an idyllic 11 months and we enjoyed sunny days for just over 90% of our time away.

Apart from an initial long stretch from the UK down to Punta Umbria (1,666miles/ 2665.6kms), in just under 4 days so we could see the New Year in with our son who lives there, we tried to kept our journeys between places to under 60 miles, with only a few journeys exceeding 100 miles.

Countries Visited

We started off by spending quite a few weeks in Spain with our Son, as we hadn't seen him in a long while.  From here we popped across the border into Portugal and sauntered around the Algarve for a week.  Then it was back into Spain and we headed east around the coast.  We spent a few days in Gibraltar before catching the ferry from Algeciras to Morocco.  We followed the west coast as far south as Essaouira before turning east into the Middle Atlas Mountains and across to the Sahara Dessert and the fantastic dunes of Erg Chebbi (Merzouga) - where we spent an amazing night under the stars!

A night in the Sahara Dessert

We then spent another couple of weeks heading north back up to Tangier Med Port.  In total, 39 fabulous days in our favourite country so far visited.

It was then back into Spain, with plenty of wild camping inland and by the sea.

Wild Camping at La Isleta, Spain

We headed North, across the Andorra pass, into the south of France and along the coast towards Italy. We didn't bother visiting anywhere else in France as we had already had 4 fabulous motorhome holidays travelling around all over France (2012-2015) and there was so many other countries we wanted to see. Once into Italy, we spent just over 3 weeks following the west coastline down near to Calabria where we caught the ferry to Sicily.

Wild Camping on Mount Etna, Sicily

Temperatures in Sicily regularly got to 40°C and became a bit too hot for us, so after 3 weeks we got the ferry back to Italy and made our way around the boot and to Bari.  From here another ferry took us into Greece, where we toured the mainland for a few weeks and made the most of all the wild camping you can do here on the beaches and one of our favourite spots, Lake Kerkini - the wildlife here is amazing to watch!

Wild Camping at Lake Kerkini

Leaving Greece we spent 3 weeks in Bulgaria, including a fantastic week with our daughter and boyfriend on the Black sea.  Then it was across many borders travelling around Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany and Holland.  You can click on any of the countries down the right-hand side of the blog (under Labels) if you would like to read more.

We would have liked to go into Bosnia and Herzegovinia, Montenegro, Albania  and Macedonia but our vehicle insurance for these countries is not included on our policy so it would mean buying further insurance at the borders.  Maybe year 2 we will get insurance cover and visit these countries and fill in those spots on our motorhome sticker map.

Countries we visited in Sonny (our motorhome)

Our Budget

Before setting off we calculated what our daily/weekly spend would be, based on our income received through private pensions and renting out the house.  It gave us a set yearly budget of £16,000, approximately €17,900 (€49 a day).  Some days/weeks we went over, and sometimes under, but we didn’t let it dictate whether we would eat out, go on campsites or pay to go into places.  After all this was an adventure that might not come around again, and we wanted to make the most out every opportunity we had (within reason!) and if needed we are fortunate enough to be able to dip into our savings.

Number Crunching

Below is a Pie Chart of where our money went :

As you can see most of it was spent on eating and drinking out and in the supermarket, with fuel a close second.  Our cheapest diesel purchased was in Morocco/Andorra €0.90 a litre, and the most expensive was in Italy at €1.39 per litre.  We averaged 31.8 miles per gallon (too tricky to work out in litres!).

There is a category you will notice as ‘other’, these are expenses that didn’t slot into the other categories, such as purchasing of: cooking utensils (chopping boards, electric whisk, glasses, knives) a few bits of clothing (T-shirts/jumpers), postcards home, haircuts, a couple of sessions of physio and massage (for Mel who suffered in the early days with a trapped nerve in his shoulder) and a couple of other minor bits and pieces.

Where we spent our nights:

The campsites we stayed on were reasonable. as we were able to use our ACSI discount card – prices ranged from €13 a night to €19 plus tourist tax, which varied from country to country.  In Croatia we didn’t have a choice, as wild camping is prohibited, and it was mostly campsites in Morocco, as they were so cheap.

How we rated countries 

We had a great time in all the countries we visited but for a bit of fun we did a comparison rating of countries based on:

Scenery, architecture, motorhome facilities, friendliness, cleanliness, value for money, safety, road conditions, food, wild camping, campsites.

10 being high and 1 being low.

Top country was Morocco, followed by Slovenia, Austria, Greece and France.  Sadly, Italy was at the bottom – let down by its roads, cleanliness and safety but the architecture and scenery were amazing!

Thank you for following our blog and hope you enjoy our adventures in 2018 (year 2).

Sally and Mel x