unshift said:
i know its completely relative but roughly how much did the 3 weeks cost you ... (excluding fines)
Erm.. this will probably not encourage you but I made a point of not keeping count. I spent a small fortune but it is possible to do it on a budget.
I did it as a ride with my dad (70yrs old) as a final bike trip together so you can appreciate that we didn't look at expense too much. Again we stayed in the log cabins (variously called Hytta or Stuga depending on which scandinavian country you are in) which are usually designed for four, and we were only three.
You can camp for free pretty much anywhere under 'all man's right' as long as you basically leave no trace of having been there (no picking flowers, open fires, litter etc). It's not so easy rolling around on the floor to get your keks on when you get to 70 so we avoided this.
Another big cost you can cut out is booze! Very expensive throughout. We brought our own spirits to minimize this cost. Actually we took 2 litres of 98% pure ethanol which goes great with tonic!
This didn't stop us sampling several of the local brews including the now legendary "As öl". The Finns do a great "Lapin Kulta" and the Pripps Blau went down a treat as did Nordlands Guld and pretty much all the Mack stuff we drank. As you can guess this all starts to add up!
Again food is expensive as is pretty much everything, especially when you get into Norway. If you are any good at fishing you can get a license for next to nothing (or fish in the sea without a license if I remember right) and this can provide a few free meals.
Fuel, from memory, is about the same price as over here and I never had problems finding it. I have the R1150GS so any of you with the ADV will have an even bigger range.
As for the fines... I didn't get one
so I don't know but I remember reading a few threads about them and some GSers who had felt the brunt of this. I have to say that in three weeks (6000 miles) we only saw about 4 cops and only one who was doing the speed trap thing. All the cameras we saw were forward facing (take a pic of the front of the bike, not your number plate) and when you get beyond the arctic nothing much grows taller than a couple of feet so you can see for miles ahead. So with some concentration and common sense you could probably take your chances and get away with it.
We actually found that most people stick to the limits and when you get used to the lower speeds you can really enjoy taking in the sights. The last thing we wanted to do was to spoil everyone's enjoyment by haring past them and attracting attention to ourselves and a bad name for tourist bikers. When in Rome...
Actually when you are riding in Rome you can do pretty much anything you like because that's what everyone else is doing
For an idea of costs you could look at
this site (amazing what you keep in your bookmarks)
hope that points you in some of the right directions...
