Famo Adventure Motorcycling Guide

I’m sometimes asked by people how much the trip cost me. The question usually gives me an acute case of financial vertigo. Way too much. I budgeted kinda poorly in the early stages of the trip – booze costs a lot! This means that by the end of the trip, I was in debt. Aborting the journey half-way through would have been oh so painful. Like my good friend Billy Gibson always says “beg and borrow off whoever you can while you’re on the journey, you may never again get the chance to ride a motorcycle around the world in your life.”

Okay, enough of the disclaimers about under-budgeting. We learn by experience and the opening post of this Adventure Motorcycling page is to give you some of the knowledge that I have gathered from my experience, so that you and I can do it better.

Below is a list of what I consider to be necessities of an overseas motorcycling jaunt. Obvious things like the bike, flights and documentation.

Item	Low Cost (AU$)	High Cost (AU$)
Bike	4000	7000
Carnet	800	1300
Shipping (twice)	1600	2600
Flight (twice)	800	1600
Insurance	500	1100
Rego	200	400
Int Driving Permit	20	20
Total	7920	14020

Rego and International Driving Permit

Rego is another easy one, pretty cheap for a bike. The InternationalDriving permit costs about $20 from your local motor vehicle club.

Carnet

The Carnet de Passage en Duane is a booklet issued by a world motoring organisation that guarantees you will not sell the bike once you have entered a country. This is to ensure that all bikes that are brought into a foreign country without the payment of import tax are eventually taken out of that country. It requires either putting down a large deposit (a percentage of the bike value, determined by the import duty percentage of the highest-charging country – in my case it was Iran, import duty was 500% the value of the vehicle). This may sound very difficult, and it generally is a hard ask to put aside 5 times the value of your machine as a bank guarantee, but the issuing agencies generally provide a facility where you can pay an insurance premium to underwrite the fact that you won’t sell your bike… This means you pay something like $1200 for the Carnet on a $7990 bike instead of $56000.

Please note that the insurance company doesn’t pay the money if you come back without your bike, you still have to give them $56,000. Anyway, that’s the Carnet. If you have your bike stolen in another country, you need to go to the nearest customs agency and have them write out some kind of document guaranteeing you haven’t sold the bike on. The police will be involved.

Shipping

Shipping cost is very variable. It depends on how you want to receive your bike (at the port or at the airport), how long you are willing to wait for it, and what your budget is. Freighting the bike by air is more expensive, so the smaller the bike and luggage, the cheaper. Shipping takes longer and is generally more stuffing around at the port when reclaiming it. Both methods generally ask for the bike to be crated, so factor that into the cost. You can either buy a crate from a motorcycle dealership (did this when I flew from Darwin to Kuala Lumpur) or you can have your own crate built (did this from Bangkok to Nepal). The cost of building materials and doing the job yourself is probably cheaper than buying a Harley crate from the local bike shop. You can make the crate exactly the size you want and you can ensure that the sides are sturdy and no prying fingers can get in and steal stuff. In the end the shipping cost will be dependent on the volumetric weight of the crate, very rarely do they use the actual weight, only for shipments under maybe 150kg.

Some quantitative info on my shipping cost soon to come.

Flights

Flights are easy, just choose the cheapest flight to wherever you’re going on a carrier that you believe won’t crash or blow up in mid air. So I chose Malaysia airlines to Malaysia and Royal Nepal to Kathmandu.

Next are some approximate prices for luggage.

Item	Low Cost (AU$)	High Cost (AU$)
Luggage Rack	200	300
Panniers	200	300
Duffel Bag	60	100
Tank Bag	100	300
Total	560	1000

Tools and spare parts are an essential part of every journey.

Item	Low Cost (AU$)	High Cost (AU$)
Tools	100	200
Spare Parts	200	400
Total	300	600

Clothing Items and Sundries

Item	Low Cost (AU$)	High Cost (AU$)
Clothing	200	400
Helmet	200	400
Boots	100	300
First Aid Kit	50	300
Vaccinations	20	800
Total	570	2200

Many things are dependent on where you go, how many countries you pass through, what kind of accommodation you stay in. In any country you can basically stay in dirt cheap dorm or basic rooms, right up to Hilton-style hotels for the rich and famous. I can quite happily get by on accommodation that has clean sheets, an attached toilet if absolutely necessary (i.e. if I’m feeling sick) or a clean shared bathroom. TV and hot water are optional luxuries that are often forfieted for better prices.

Lets just say that we’ll be keeping to developing countries, fuel is either relatively cheap or the same price as Australia. The cost of living can average out to between $10,000 and $12,000 per year.

So, basically the cost of one years travelling can be split into two parts:

Cheap and nasty, everything budget, watching your wallet comes in at only $19,350

Expensive, best bike, beautiful rooms, treated like a king comes in at only $29,820

Okay, let’s put this into perspective. A years living, including the cost of a bike, flights, accommodation, food and sundries can cost as little as $20,000 and up to $30,000 (realistically you can do it as expensively as you wish, but $30,000 would be my absolute limit). When you compare the amount of money the average person can earn in one year in Australia, and the way many people live from hand to mouth, spending their entire pay packet each month, it’s astounding that you can live reasonably well on a huge, life changing adventure for much less than staying at home and going about the daily chores. Saving up the money to take this year away is a big challenge, however not impossible…