Last night we took a walk down to the twee little harbour at Plaka, It’s everyone’s picture of Greece. Lovely harbour with crystal clear turquoise water, upon which float a few traditional fishing boats. Around the quayside are arranged 3 or 4 tavernas and that’s it. Perfection. We had a pleasant dinner at one of the tavernas, which would have been peaceful was it not for the numerous cats teasing Mabel, followed later by a safe* of ducks, accompanied by one confused goose, waddled round the harbour, setting off Mabel’s chase instincts all over again.

Plaka Harbour, with the climbing walls in the background

It was a warm night and for the first time this trip we heard the song of the cicadas around Camping Semeli, which is infinitely preferable to my friend Mr. Scops Owl!

Wash Day at Camping Semeli

Today has been perhaps the laziest of the trip so far. Sarah has taken the dogs for a walk on the beach, we have done the laundry and Melek has had the third tick of the trip removed. Other than that we have sat around and read. I have also done a bit of planning for the Bulgaria and Romania sections of our journey. Our campsite books do not cover these countries, so I have been making use of the excellent wifi at Camping Semeli to find as many campsites as I can and plotting them on Google maps. Later I will transfer them to paper, since I do not know what data coverage I can rely on in the EU’s two poorest nations.

Camping Semeli’s Beach

Today I am going to briefly touch on the subject of costs for undertaking this journey. We have kept detailed notes of every cent we have spent since we left the UK and also divided these up into major categories. After 69 days of travelling our average daily costs are as follows:

So far we have travelled just over 4,000 miles and Basil, despite his big bones, has averaged 25.9 miles per gallon. That’s better than I was expecting, with cities, villages and mountain roads thrown in.

Also the above figures do not include our cross channel ferry costs, nor our ferry from Italy to Greece, which was €302. Neither have I included the cost of insuring Basil, our health insurance or breakdown insurance, which for Basil is still free because he is less than three years old. These are all costs which will differ from person to person. For instance you may not bother with health insurance and instead rely on the E111 card. Other than that all our costs are included.

Clearly anyone wanting to do this at less cost, the cost of meals out can be reduced to zero. We have discovered that our budget allows us to eat out from time to time, so we are! Likewise campsite fees can be reduced considerably. I have read blogs of people who virtually never stay on campsites and likewise rarely eat out and their costs come in at less than €30 a day!

The big expense which I have not mentioned is of course buying the motorhome in the first place, but this will vary enormously from person to person.

Anyway I hope this gives you an idea of the costs of travelling around Europe in a motorhome. I will probably do an update in another two months or so. I would anticipate our costs will reduce a bit as we travel through eastern Europe, but rise again in Scandanavia. Norway is an extremely expensive country, but wildcamping is completely legal there so our campsite costs should be reduced and compensate to some extent.

* A  “Safe” is apparently the collective noun for ducks when they are on land. If they are on water then it is a paddle of ducks. Don’t say this blog isn’t educational!