{"id":1978,"date":"2010-09-11T04:31:21","date_gmt":"2010-09-11T08:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/transworldexpedition.com\/?p=1978"},"modified":"2010-09-12T11:25:55","modified_gmt":"2010-09-12T15:25:55","slug":"cost-of-driving-around-the-world-1-per-mile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transworldexpedition.com\/?p=1978","title":{"rendered":"Cost of driving around the world: $1 per mile"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The commercial face of India, Mumbai<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Not much happened in the last week. I have been really sick with the flu, which forced me to stay in bed for four days. Still now, I have low energy and still recuperating. It was the first time I was sick on the trip, and I am glad it didn\u2019t happen while I was out in the wild. As I am taking rest at Vikas<\/a> apartment, my truck is sailing somewhere on the Arabian Sea, and I wait for it to arrive in Mumbai. So I guess my body decided to take a break from the long travel.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The notebook where Nadia and I entered every expense.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But as I was recovering in bed, I got some work done. Since I started the expedition, all the expenses have been kept in a notebook, waiting to be added up. Frankly, I was not looking forward to it, as I was kind of nervous about the outcome. I have been keeping a tab on gas, food and lodging expenses, but never added up all the rest. It is now done, and I can share with you my financial report.<\/p>\n

\"Close<\/a>
Close to Horniman circle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since I left New York, I spent $26,500 on the expedition to cover the 25,800 miles I drove since departure which turns out to be very close to $1 per mile. That includes also the money Nadia and Dan spent when they were with me. Of this money, 19% or $5,000 was spent on gas. $3,900 was spent on food, and only $1,300 on lodging. I spent $6,000 on the truck, more than half of this money disappearing as a consequence of the accident in Honduras. $6,000 was spent on shipping, not including the Iran-India portion. $450 is gone in visa fees. Less than $1,000 was spent on entertainment, museums and visit fees.<\/p>\n

\"Flora<\/a>
Flora fountain, central Mumbai.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But the bottom line is here. Of my own pocket, I spent $20,000 since departure, and approximately $14,000 before departure, to buy the truck, prepare it and get all the equipment. That gives us a total of $34,000.
\nThis means that I was about right on my budget projection of $50,000 for the whole trip. I would think I still have to spend an extra $6,000 for shipping until the end of the trip, which let me with $10K to cross India, get to South-East Asia, travel through Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia (at least), get to the U.S. and cross the country from west to east. I will be OK if I am lucky and have no problem at all with the vehicle.<\/p>\n

\"Under<\/a>
Under the pavement, the beach...<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If anyone here is interested by more detailed stats, you kind find a spreadsheet here<\/a>. Of course when I will be done with the trip, I will be able to do more analysis and will publish the results.<\/p>\n

I worked on the website as well and did some minor improvements. That includes a more precise map highlighting the places I have been in the \u201cRoute page\u201d<\/a>. Also available now is a mobile version of the blog which should provide a better experience to people using a iPhone or Blackberry to access the website.<\/p>\n

\"Every<\/a>
Every day I take a cab to downtown where I take care of the paperwork.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since few days I feel better and I am now regularly going to the center of town. It is easier to be here than in Delhi. The city is less chaotic and easier to navigate. There’s almost no tuk-tuk, and cab drivers are pretty honest. There I began to fill the paperwork for the truck import. I also met with the agent who is going to help me out at the port. Unfortunately, India is supposed to be a difficult place for clearance, so I keep my fingers crossed. The ship is supposed to arrive tonight in the port, and I hope to be able to get my house-on-wheels in the middle of next week. I have been looking also for a deep-cycle battery to power my fridge. It is down since Yemen, and I really don\u2019t want to continue like that. I located one, and will get it next week.<\/p>\n

\"Projected<\/a>
Projected route through India. Expect changes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Once I get the vehicle, I plan on driving south to Goa, the east toward Hyderabad, reach the east coast and go up to Calcutta. There I would obtain the Bangladesh visa and drive to Dhaka and the port of Chittagong. When I will start driving, I will only have one month left on my Indian visa, so I really can’t spend as much time as I would like here, as I estimate the distance to drive at 4,000 miles to Chittagong.<\/p>\n

\"Horniman<\/a>
Horniman Circle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NOTE: This week I received a lot of notes from schools in the U.S., following a story in a kid newspaper. Teachers interested in gathering questions on the trip in the classroom can then email the list to me, and I will answer as soon as I can. My email address can be found in the section \u201cAbout Nick\u201d. Thanks for your interest!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since I left New York, I spent $26,500 on the expedition to cover the 25,800 miles I drove since departure which turns out to be very close to $1 per mile…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[202,203,201,13,334,194,204],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transworldexpedition.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transworldexpedition.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transworldexpedition.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transworldexpedition.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transworldexpedition.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1978"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/transworldexpedition.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1997,"href":"https:\/\/transworldexpedition.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978\/revisions\/1997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transworldexpedition.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transworldexpedition.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transworldexpedition.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}