How to Un-FIRE yourself: part 3 – Tour de France!

Our history with trying to un-FIRE ourselves has been hit-and-miss. The Money-pit was definitely a big hit. The Paris trip was okay-ish. We tried, but were still fairly frugal overall. How did we do on our 4-week “Tour de France”. Let’s have a quick look in this edition of “How to Un-FIRE yourself: part 3 – Tour de France!”.

Tour de France in Numbers

The numbers:

• 0 speeding tickets! Not helping the Un-FIRE process…
• 1 refrigerator magnet
• 1 FIRE friend visited
• 2 hotel visits
• 3 people (and one large dog) to find a accommodation for
• 6 countries visited (Belgium, France, Spain, Andorra, Switzerland & Luxembourg)
• 11 Airbnb rental visits
• 13 different accommodations (we stayed 1, 2 or 3 days at each location)
• 15 degrees Celsius was the lowest recorded temperature (in both France and Switzerland)
• 29 nights and 30 days of vacation fun
• 38 degrees Celsius was the highest recorded temperature (in Carcassonne, France)
• 235 liters of gasoline burned
• 4.563 kilometers driven
• 5.321,51 Euros spent to facilitate the above

What was the plan and what did we do?

We did an ad-hoc road trip. How ad-hoc? We only booked the first 4 nights before we left (about a week before) and nothing else. The rest we booked a 1-3 days in advance (subject to WIFI availability). We did a similar trip back in 2018 in similar fashion, which was a big success. But this was not in peak holiday season and not with a dog. We had no idea if we would be able to find accommodations, and if we did, if they would be affordable. We primarily used Airbnb and occasionally Booking if we got stuck on Airbnb (2 times).

Furthermore, we had a general idea in which direction we wanted to go (South). With the goal to see some mountains (Pyrenees), visit a country I had not visted before (Andorra) and see some castles. Specifically Carcassonne (which technically is not a castle, but is a fortified city….).

Experiences

Overall we were really surprised by the availability of homes on AirBnB and Booking. Especially for 1-3 day timeframes. We always had multiple choices where we could sleep. Even the prices were not too insane for the peak-holiday season (with the exception of Spain!). We managed to find decent properties between about €80 and €175/day. We averaged €125/day for the trip. Which was a bit of a surprise to be honest. We expected worse (€150-200/day range for an average).

Things we had to learn:

• A “double bed” in France means 140cm wide and 190cm long. If you are both around the 190-195cm mark, this does not fit…. Well, one fits diagonally, leaving no room for the other! So after the first two places, we started looking for properties with 3 beds (and not those foldable ones!). This did increase the price a bit.
• Taking a large dog on a road trip does pose some limitations. One person had to stay behind in some cases as the dog was not allowed in certain museums, beaches, castles, grocery stores, etc. Which means we resorted to more hikes and less places with entrance limitations. Which was not always fun for our 10 year old… But overall, she did still enjoy the holiday.

We ended up driving down the west coast of France, dove down into Spain and Andorra. Got some sticker shock on the rental prices in Spain (about €50-75 / night more than France for same size/nr of beds), so decided to drive back north into France again. Visit Carcassonne and head to Switzerland (yes, that was about the same or lower prices than Spain, go figure!). But a caveat here, if you book well in advance, Spain can be more affordable. On an Ad-hoc basis, for us, it was not affordable. After going to the Alps, we drive north again to Luxembourg and Belgium to complete the journey.

The Numbers

Let’s review the numbers for the trip. As noted above, we spend a grand total of €5.321,51. This is the split:

As expected, the accommodation costs are by far the largest portion of the total expenses (68%). Followed by food (groceries, going out to lunch/dinner and ice-cream!). The next is transportation (primarily gasoline, parking, toll roads, etc.). Followed by entrance fees and various expenses (minor cash amounts and miscellaneous expenses).

Wrap-up

We look back on an amazing family road trip, which again didn’t break the bank. We do suck at this Un-FIRE thing. Now, €5321 is still a lot of money, but considering we did a full month of road tripping including everything, I’m pretty content. Next trip might be Canada, that would break the bank most likely. But nothing is confirmed just yet!

Want to talk more about FIRE, travel and/or spending money, do join us on October 20th for another FIRE meetup in the La Place in Leiderdorp! Hope to see you all there.

And now some more castles & other old stuff…