How to calculate the costs for a long-distance hike in Western Europe

Excellent information, Thank you Christine

Christine
Thank you for taking the time to share your information, and writing summaries like this that are so useful to others..
And congratulations for completing your recent hike. You are an inspiration!
Amy

Great post!

As I suspected, the only country that makes sense for my kind of backpacking is Scotland. Guess I need to go there soon.

Thanks, Christine.

Nick, why only Scotland? Are you deterred by the stealth camping problem in other Western European countries? Don't let that deter you from hiking there. Although technically illegal you won't encounter any problems if you are discreet.

Ah… Christine, you are correct. However, being bi-lingual you do have a great advantage over me.

Edit: I think you are multi-lingual :)

RE health care. If you're covered through a EU, EEA or Swiss health care scheme, getting an EU health care card might be an interesting tip to add. When travelling through the EU, EEA and Swiss, it's your prove you're covered in your home country. Advantage: you're entitled to the same health care @ the same cost (providing you're travelling for other purposes than medical reasons). Yep, EU legislation is not always a bad thing 

E.g. I 'm covered through the Belgian scheme. If I have a heart attack in France, I will get the same care @ the same cost as persons covered through the French health care scheme. Without the card, the French hospital might demand a huge deposit beforehand, even with private health care insurance and even begin an EU citizen.

Yet again, Christine wins our award for "Most Informative Trip Reports". This post is an example, as is her summary of the GR7 in Spain. She is our role model of how we attempt to write our trip report — with an emphasis on what is useful to the reader who might want to consider the destination, instead of a simply a travelogue of our own experience.

Jim and I hiked for 30-40 years of hiking in North America before we took our first European hike in 2002. We've now taken 11 ~month long walks in England, Wales, Scotland, France, Spain, Turkey, and Australia, and we have ideas for dozens more. There is a whole world of diverse hiking opportunities. We're sorry we didn't start earlier, and we encourage others who have a few weeks off and who haven't yet hiked in Europe to give it consideration.

Stealth camping is not the same there as it is in the US, and it's more accurate to call it wild camping, at least in the countries where we've hiked. The sense of private property is just not the same. On our first couple trips we frequently used B&Bs or pensions, but on our past 6 or 8 trips we've wild camped nearly every night. I'm going to elaborate on this a bit, since I think many Americans don't have a good handle on what this is like when hiking in Europe.

On our HRP trip in the Pyrenees the route rarely passes through towns. We wild camped all nights but three, and on only one of those occasions did we attempt to be stealthy (we were camped ~200 meters from a commercial campground at the edge of town, so we hid our tent behind some big hay bales so as not to be obvious). More often we just set up camp at some five-star spot with a fabulous view, or set up five minutes away from a staffed refuge after eating a great hot dinner.

In the UK, if we were in a village and wanted to stop for the night, we simply asked the bartender, postmaster, shopkeeper, or somebody working in their garden or walking their dog, where might be a good place to set up a tent for the night. Or, if we were outside a village and nobody was around we'd just set up in a sheep field or on top of a hill, attempting to be discreet, but not particularly hidden from view of anybody out walking the trails. In all of the times we've asked, we only received a "no camping around here" response once – and that was in Scotland where ironically it is codified into law that walkers can camp in rural fields anywhere.

In Turkey we would just set up wherever we landed, and on numerous occasions had local people offer to serve us oranges or tea or meals or beds. On several occasions we were within 100 meters of the village mosque – nothing stealthy about it.

In Australia we took a coastal walk, so we usually just camped on the beach. We once walked into a small town with an intention to shop, eat, and spend the night. Just as we arrived in town we saw a cop, so we asked him if anybody would mind if we camped in the town park, and he said that a more pleasant place would be next to the river, and he proceeded to tell the proprietor of the adjacent VFW resort hall that we would be there and not to worry about us.

One evening in Spain we asked the cook at the restaurant where we should camp, and she sent us to the plaza next to the Civic Center building. We got a good laugh about setting up our tent in the center of the town, directly beneath the window of the Mayor's office.

Stealth is just the wrong word. Opportunistic Flat Spot is a better description.

And on a different topic, we have one minor addition to Christine's suggestions for saving money. The caravan parks (commercial campgrounds) will often let you use their coin-operated laundry facilities and showers for a very modest fee, without spending the night. It's a very convenient and cheap way to get all cleaned up for just a few dollars. We much prefer to wild camp instead of staying in a pension because it's nearly always quieter and we sleep better. So we'll stop in town mid-day, shower and laundry at the caravan park, buy groceries and eat a restaurant meal or two, and then walk out of town before setting up camp.

Amy, thanks for clarifying the concept of stealth camping in Europe. I find it very sad that this topic is apparently keeping some Americans from hiking in Europe – although it is not a problem in reality.
Please keep in mind that European forest laws guarantee access to forests for the public. If you are a private forest owner you HAVE to allow people access to your property for recreational purposes. You cannot just fence in your forest property and say "Keep out". Although free camping is legally not included in this access right forest owners are so used to people on their property that you won't encounter any problems if you practice LNT.
Also keep in mind that almost all European forest is commercially exploited. There is not much pristine wilderness that you could disturb by your camping activities. Just keep out of special protected wilderness areas.

These are available free on Bing Maps – dropdown option top left.

Dave

Interesting to see a 'how much Europe costs' when you live there; pretty good summation too.

There are a few bothies around in England and Wales – some even run by the Mountain Bothies Association; also a lot of climbing huts – but unless a club member these might be more hassle than it is worth to stay at.

Mountain refuges in a number of countries will often let you camp nearby and eat in the hut without having booked; I've done this a fair bit.

Christine,

This is incredibly useful information – thanks for posting. The fear of astronomical costs and limited camping have kept me from mainland Europe (is that a term?), but I think I'll be adding it to the list now. I've visited your blog numerous times over the past couple of years, and it has been very, very inspiring. Thanks so much for sharing. Ditto Amy – your trips reports are excellent reading and also very informative.

You know … when you comapre the cost of a holiday walking in the mountains with most any other sort of holiday – it's real cheap!

Cheers
PS: from Oz, the air fare to Europe kills anything else!

I've now gone on four long-distance trips (3 one-month-long walking trips, 1 six-month-long bicycle trip around northern Europe) in Europe. In Japan I've done countless long-distance trips. In all my years of such travel… camping 85% of the time (both wild camping and staying at town campgrounds)… I have never once encountered a time when people outright refused to let me camp or told me to leave if they discovered me. In fact, in quite a large proportion of the times when I asked about places to set my tent down, people went out of their way to either help me find the place, or even went so far as to invite me to their homes. Many times people would come by to the place I was camping afterwards with trays or bags of home-cooked dinners, sometimes just concerned that I wasn't eating right, or else curious about my travel stories. I once had a fisherman here in Japan race away from the camp back to his house, and return a few minutes later with four huge mackerels, one octopus, and three squids in a bucket that he offered me to eat for dinner. There was so much fish there that I invited him and his family over, and we cooked the fish while he brought out bottles of beer and sake and we sat telling tales and laughing most of the night. Didn't get much sleep, and riding my bicycle the next day was a chore, but it is a memory that I will never forget.

In 2012 I walked the western half of the Pyrenees (yes, I know I have to finish the trip report!!! ), for a month. In the Pyrenees themselves I camped and stayed at the refuges, just as Christine and Amy described. The rest of the trip… staying in towns and cities along the way from Geneva, where I came in from Japan… I stayed at youth hostels and sometimes gîtes. For one month of travel… eating well, but not extravagantly… and including two long-distance train rides (but not including the plane flights in and out of Europe), I only spent about $700. Lunches were nearly all picnics with food from grocery shops. Communication was with WiFi on my iPhone wherever I could find it. I stayed away from outdoor shops (worst temptation in the world, after book shops), and only ate at restaurants to pick up my spirit or be with other people. Europe is set up for people traveling like this. You have a lot of company and will meet people everywhere who are traveling on a budget. I fell in love with the Pyrenees (though I love the Alps, too) and definitely will go back.

Thanks Christine and Amy for both of your always very informative posts. Makes me want to get out there TODAY to travel again. Can't wait for this summer!

Great post Christine, and great thread!

Cycling across/around Europe by bike in 2011 for four months, I can concur with the 10 Euro figure per day for food. We routinely spent about 20 Euro between us (myself and my mate Stephen) each day for our supermarket shopping. And we were eating well. Plenty of good bread etc for lunch along with cheese and sausage, some fruit, ganola etc for breakfast, and simple meals for dinner. Later in the trip we'd often do soup (from simple vegetables) and bread with cheese for dinner for a change up.

Never had any problems stealth camping in any country we went through in Europe, though Turkey and Romania were harder to find sites (we were travelling along roads and had to get our recumbent trikes off them…in Turkey there are few forested areas near the highways so you are very exposed, and in Bulgaria people tend to build their towns and houses along the main roads, so you can ride for a long time before you find a small break between houses). Walking in those countries Stealth Camping would also be easy.

A few times were were spotted camping on the edge of fields or forest in Europe, but each time the people (eg farmers) just waved.

I can't wait to get back to cycle tour there with the family, or maybe, walk :-)

We wild camp for free most nights, but we eat in restaurants without regard for costs, including big meals at essentially every available opportunity. I'm sure our per person food costs are at least 2x, maybe 3x what Christine spends.

All costs below include the books and maps purchased in advance and all in-country costs. The costs do not include getting to the stated city, but do include bus and train tickets from the stated city to the start and end of the walk. I'm listing a bunch of trips to benefit anybody trying to decide if they can afford a trip like this.

2013 Scotland. 34 days from Glasgow. 2 nights paid lodging. $2600 ($38 pppd).

2011 Australia. 39 days from Sydney. 1 night paid lodging. $2400 ($31 pppd).

2011 Turkey. 41 days from Istanbul. 6 nights paid lodging. $1758 ($21 pppd).

2010 HRP France/Spain. 45 days from Madrid. 6 nights paid lodging. $3250 ($36 pppd).

2009 Wales&England. 35 days from London. 7 nights paid lodging. $3207 ($46 pppd).

2007 France. 27 days from Brussels. 7 nights paid lodging. $2929 ($54 pppd) [trains were expensive, and we ate really well!]