A full breakdown of how much our European road trip cost
Having been on 2 long-term road trips around Europe, totalling 537 days in our campervan, we think we are pretty well equipped to give you an idea of how much it costs to road trip in Europe!
On our first trip we spent 7 months travelling the Alps and the Balkans in 2022, and this is the trip we are going to provide breakdowns for.
We've also been on a longer, 10 month trip where we travelled to Scandinavia, more of the Balkans, Türkiye, Spain, Portugal and Morocco in 2023 and 2024 and our costs were pretty similar, if not a little bit less due to travelling to such cheap countries.
Although these costs are for 2022, don't worry, if you're embarking on a trip in 2024, these are still a great guide.
Table of Contents
Things to consider when thinking about costs of a road trip
- Do you have your own vehicle or are you renting one?
- Will you also be booking accommodation or do you plan to stay in a campervan?
- Will you be eating out or cooking for yourself?
- When are you planning to visit?
- How much distance do you plan to cover?
Information about our road trip
- We are a couple in our twenties travelling with our dog
- We travel from the UK in our campervan
- We rarely stay in campsites because we love to be immersed in nature
- We love being out in nature and therefore don’t often spend that much on activities
- We don’t eat out very often because of dietary requirements and we prefer to be in nature rather than in cities where there are restaurants
Breakdown of costs
This is a breakdown of our 7 months trip (220 days) travelling the Alps (Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria, Slovenia) and the Balkans (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia and Greece).
We also spent a couple of weeks driving back through Central Europe to get home to the UK. We spent a grand total of £8539, working out at approximately £39 per day.
Fuel
Overall, we spent £2,406 on fuel while travelling Europe and we travelled approximately 12,000 miles.
Fuel is always going to be one of the biggest costs but this is money you would save on flights and your campervan is also your accommodation, so when you frame it like that, it’s pretty good!
We were able to take advantage of cheaper fuel prices in some of the countries we visited like Luxembourg, Montenegro and North Macedonia.
It’s a good idea to keep an eye on fuel prices and if you are heading to a new country it’s worth look at whether the fuel is cheaper or more expensive, so that you know when to fill up.
Food
We spent £1999 on food shopping, an average of £62 a week for two people. We don’t often eat out, so we don’t skimp on the food shopping and treat ourselves whenever we want.
We did most of our shopping in Lidl because they are widely available across Europe.
Having said this, we spent 3 months travelling the Balkan’s, and the countries we visited didn’t have many big supermarkets when we were there, so our food expenses were much lower.
Activities
This one part of our trip we didn’t want to hold back on because these are the things we had saved money for, so that we could fully enjoy ourselves and make memories.
We spent £962 on activities, which we thought was pretty reasonable considering the incredible places we saw.
The majority of our activity costs were from our time in the Alps, a notoriously expensive part of Europe. We spent a lot of money on cable cars to get up mountains for hiking.
We also spent quite a bit on activities in Croatia, we were there for 6 weeks, our friends came out to visit us and it was peak summer season so entrance fees for attractions like the Dubrovnik city walls and Plitvice National Park are much more expensive at this time of year.
This is something to keep in mind with your own budget, often during the main tourist season, you will be paying a lot more than out of season for activities.
We also really like free activities, such as hiking (when a cable car is not required), visiting beaches, exploring quaint towns and enjoying our camp spots, which means that we can often keep our costs down on activities.
In fact, on our latest 10 month trip around Europe, Morocco and Türkiye, we spent less than £100 on activities because we found so many free or budget activities to do.
Eating out
We spent £658 on eating out, which works out at just under £100 for each month we were away. We’ve got to say, most of this money was probably spent on eating ice cream.
Nearly half of this cost was also in Croatia, when our friends visited and we were out eating and drinking more than on the rest of our trip. Usually we much prefer being camped out in the middle of nowhere, cooking in the van, enjoying some beautiful views.
Van maintenance
Maybe, you will be lucky and manage to get away without taking your van to the mechanic while you're away. However, judging by our own experience and other travellers we have spoken to, you should probably expect at least something to go wrong.
We spent a total of £548 on mechanic bills, we got post of our work done in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the hourly wage is much lower, if we had got this in the UK or other European countries it could have been double this price.
Dog costs (Sandy)
We rescued our dog Sandy on our trip, which meant we only had her for 2 months. These costs were for everything from vaccinations, passport, microchip, food and tapeworm treatment, to toys, bed, lead and a collar.
This might not be the best indicator of costs travelling with a dog because we had to buy a lot of things. One thing to consider when travelling with a dog is that often you might need to book a cabin or kennels on longer ferries, so that can make your travel a little more expensive.
Public transport
Because we travel in our campervan, we can keep public transport costs relatively low.
We spent a total of £516 on public transport, which was mostly our ferry and Eurotunnel to and from the UK and our ferries to the Croatian islands.
Tolls and vignettes
Overall, we spent £297 on tolls. In most countries we tried to avoid toll roads because often we aren’t in a rush and it doesn’t add on too much time. We had to buy vignettes in Austria, Slovenia and Hungary.
The most expensive toll was the Mont Blanc Tunnel from France to Italy, a whopping £64, so we would advise avoiding that if you travel that way!
Campsites and accommodation
For the majority of our time away we stayed in free camping spots, meaning we saved a lot of money on campsites. We did pay for a few campsites or motorhome areas in places where wild camping is less tolerated like Slovenia and some parts of Austria.
Overall we spent £197 on campsites and accommodation. This cost also includes an Airbnb we stayed in in Sarajevo, Bosnia, when our van was in the garage.
Other costs
The rest of our spending we’re just going to summarise below as there is less to say about each one.
Other (e.g. washing and souvenirs) = £191
Camping gas (specifically camping gaz) = £110
Parking = £98
Sim cards = £56 (we only needed to buy these once we left behind EU countries)
How much it cost us to travel Europe
This should give you a good indication of what you might spend on your Europe trip, but don’t forget to account for any extra costs you might have, for example if you plan to rent a vehicle or pay for some accommodation along the way, or if you are a bit more boujee and enjoy fancy meals!
We think this is such an amazing way to travel and one of the reasons is because of just how cheap it can be.
Whether you're wondering how much it will cost to road trip Europe for 10 days, 1 month, 6 months, you can use this breakdown as guidance for your costs.
One last thing to mention is that we haven’t included the cost of our van build in this because we have used it so much more than just for this 6 month long trip.
All of our road trip guides include a detailed cost breakdown in each country, amongst many other useful tips and a full road trip route. Find our road trip guides here.
Happy roadtripping.
