Tourist in MSN

Yes.

And I suspect that some of them would prefer cash, as they might play with the books to pay lower taxes and it is easier to play with the books when you did not have a bunch of revenue documented from the credit card system.

Tourist in MSN

I assume you plan to eat a lot of food cooked by others, not much campsite cooking.

My food bill (including stove fuel too) runs a lot less, but I probably only eat maybe three to five meals a week that was cooked by others when I am on a tour.

indyfabz

Heh. I had fun taking this photo. I had enough leftover pasta for one dinner and I didn’t want to carry food for much of the day. Picked up a bagel early on and left it up to chance at the Dollar General fewer than 2 miles from my campground. $8.62. The Vienna sausages were a snack and to relive a piece of my childhood. Had a leftover shallot and some fresh garlic. Sardines went on the bagel for breakfast. The beer alone was $3.00. I think I made out well.

Tourist in MSN

Yeah, another way to push your food bill up in cost is with alcohol. But, this was CAD, not USD.



Pasta is a good low budget meal that is quite filling. There is only one brand of noodles that does not mess with my blood sugar, but I can find that in about two thirds of grocery stores. When I travel international, I bring a few boxes of it from home.



I was moving the two pots back and forth on the single stove trying to keep both hot, works reasonably well that
way.



But pasta eats up fuel faster than most meals where you can shut off the stove once a boil is reached. The long simmer and the excess water that gets drained consumes more fuel.

And of course the occasional calorie boost mid-day that someone else prepared for you.

BobG

We did the same on the 1983 Bikecentennial "Great Parks Odyssey" (Durango > Jasper). Back then there was no money in the budget for motels. Participants were younger, they couldn't be asked to go into their own funds to supplement. The fellow in the middle of this photo was 18. He recently joined BF and contacted me through the "friends" function 38 years later!

TiHab, there is a lot of free city park camping on the TransAm.


Lion's Club Park, Jeffrey City WY 1983

staehpj1

If you are fuel stingy you can cook pasta with less water than is usual and almost cook it down to cooking to where is little to no liquid when done. The works better with finer pasta like vermicelli. It uses less fuel that way. It probably isn't ideal from a culinary POV, but It seemed fine to me in camp with a heightened appetite.

Ramen noodles aren' really pasta but they cook well that way too. I like to use just enough water so they are hydrated and the liquid is gone when they are cooked. Then stir in butter and seasoning and maybe some foil packed tuna or salmon. You can add cheese or veggies too, but cheese makes dishwashing way more difficult. I don't carry much food preferring to buy daily as much as possible, but a few items I sometimes make an exception for are some freeze dried peas and maybe some dired redried beans, both from honeyville.com. They come in a big #10 can and I repackage them in heat sealed mylar bags. I like them both really well. I actually like the beans as well as any non dried product and the peas are great too. Both are light, carry well, and rehydrate easily. Basically just add hot water.

BTW, alcohol isn't the only beverage that gets expensive. Any beverage added to a meal adds significantly to the cost. If you really want/need it it may be worth it, but if you like water okay you save a lot of money by sticking with just plain non bottled water.

Tourist in MSN

A gal I used to work with would put Ramen noodles in a jar with water in the morning, then by lunch time it was rehydrated. Not sure how much water she used, but that was one of her low budget lunches for camping. I did not ask if she used the flavor packet or not.

On my Pacific Coast trip, many of our one pot meals for two people included a brick of Ramen added for calorie boost.

djb

There definitely are days where the combination of weather, fatigue etc makes it that the odd motel is a nice break/ change and you really appreciate it, so at least budget for a few of these.
On long trips I've found that usually it's relatively easy to have many days with spending less on food, but still eating well, and if budget is set , at least this will offset for the odd motel etc.

I don't recall, is this a solo trip? If so motel costs will obviously be more for you than sharing.

3 years away, that's a long time, and certainly time to put aside a tiny amount regularly to be set budget wise.

staehpj1

Yep, we stayed free a good percentage of the time and never resorted to stealth. I assumed at the time that it was because the trail was so well blazed on the TA, but later did tours in other places in the middle of the US and found that it was mostly similarly accommodating once you knew the ropes. I found that using the Adventure Cycling maps on the Trans America taught me what would be okay and what wouldn't. Later with experience I got good at knowing where and how to ask, when to not ask permission but to just feel out the situation, and when to just set up with out asking at all. Most often, I'd wind up stopping in some tiny town, buying stuff in the general store or minimart and saying something like, "I am riding coast to coast, do you think any one will bother me if I pitch my tent over there in the picnic area for the night?".

Sometimes I'd ask whoever I'd talk to any way if they knew of a place that I could picth a tent or if there was a spot they had seen others camp. Clerks, waitstaff, whoever, might be helpful. I have found librarians can be especially helpful. People say call the local police. I have never actually done that, usually I stay in towns too small to have a cop. I have asked to camp on the grounds at a fire house now and then. Same for churches.

Still, in tiny Kansas towns I most often haven't bothered with getting permission and have just set up in the little town park if there were no signs prohibiting it. I guess I have read the situations well, because have never been kicked out.

On the TA, I think we averaged something like $5 per night if you average out the nights we paid with the ones we didn't. I am sure prices have gone up a little since then, but you can still stay for free a lot of the time. I know of guys who managed to not pay at all, but I am sure that probably involved some stealth. I prefer camping for free in plain sight when possible and paid sites when not and resort to steath only rarely.

staehpj1

I never tried that, sounds like it would work well. I'd still want to heat them up though and I find they hydrate pretty quickly as I heat them with limited water. One thing I forgot to mention. A dash of hot sauce is a nice addition. A tiny bottle of the crazy high heat that requires only a drop kind is a good option or a foil packet of less intense stuff grabbed from a fast food place earlier in the day is another.

Ramen noodles are cheap, versatile, and travel well.

indyfabz

Boiling water “hack”: If there is direct sun and you have the time, fill your pot or whatever (e.g., CamelBak) and warm the water in the sun. Saves fuel.

Had access to a good Price Chopper on the way to Taconic State Park in NY. Whole wheat pasta, pre-cooked chicken andouille, shallots, garlic and fresh spinach. Started the meal with a cucumber “salad.”

gerryl

Depending where I am, I'll carry some cash usually the equivalent of $100, but that's about it. Plastic is just too convenient not use.

Sometimes the cash situation gets out of hand (literally). Below is a handful Uzbek SOMs, the equivalent of 100 USD. If nothing else all that cash makes you feel rich. In case anyone is wondering each one of those 10,000 SOM bills is worth about $0.90.

skookum

There is a Montreal style bagel place here in Calgary that only takes cash. My niece thinks that is very appropriate.

I (along with the vast majority of Calgarians) am vaccinated. I can show you my restrictions exemptions card. Just don't call it a vaccine passport.

indyfabz

Heh. I remember being in Florence, IT back in '85 while doing the whole backpack around Europe thing that was so popular with college students back then. The exchange rate for the Lira was around 2,200 for one U.S. dollar back then. I had close to half a million Lira in my wallet. Just a bit over $200. The smallest denomination bill was 500 Lira.

When I finally caught a boat back to England for my flight home the guy at customs made me show him my return plane ticket back to the U.S. He also asked me how much money I had. It was something like 5,700 Belgian Francs, or about $100. I remember him saying "That's not as much as it sounds, now is it?" I told him it was enough to get me through two nights in London.

Tourist in MSN

I did a trip with REI travel several years ago. One week, included four countries, I can't remember if I needed three currencies or four, I think three. I was careful at the ATM machine to avoid getting too much cash so I did not have very much. My last meal in a restaurant before before going to the airport, I left a tip that was all my remaining Czech and Hungarian cash, but I expected to need Euros for a trip later so I kept that currency. Tip was left in Budapest.

skookum

Crossing into the US from Canada at Roosville by bicycle, border guard asks how much US cash we are carrying. I have about $200, Chris has $20.

"That's all?"

" I have two credit cards and my bank card"

He let us in, but in this day and age, the amount of cash you have, isn't representative of your ability to afford your trip.

staehpj1

Wow, it would never have occured to me that how much cash I had would be used as a measure of my ability to afford my visit and possibly affect whether I was allowed entry. Maybe some number of decades ago.

skookum

This was about five years ago. They just have to think of question s to ask you to justify their existence.

Back in the olde days, I was leaving on a multi month bicycle tour of the South Pacific and Asia. This was in the pre bank card, pre internet money transfer, indeed pre internet days.
I had to transit through LAX and the US border dude asked me about my intinerary ( I was just transiting in the US) and then asked how much money I had. I was carrying about 5 or 6 thousand $USD in travellers cheques. I told him. He nodded. "Do you want to see it?" "No, its okay, you can go."

It was fairly common in those days for border authorities to want to see your cash. How do they do it today, do you have to log in to your bank and show them your account balance?

skookum

When I go to Asia I usually carry about $1000 USD in cold hard cash, because I have had problems accessing my bank account and many places don't take credit cards.

In the continental USA, I find the transaction fees at ATMs vary considerably and can be quite high, so I usually start out with a wad of greenbacks.

Am I setting myself up to be robbed by mentioining this?

gerryl

The problem with small value bills, is that ATMs quickly run out of money. Almost every time someone walks away from an ATM they are leaving with a wad of cash 1 to 2 inches thick, if not more. Since the ATM can hold only so much cash and everyone knows it, people tend to take out as much as they can before the machine runs out, leaving naive tourist like myself spending hours looking for a working ATM.

pdlamb

My credit union is part of a coalition that lets its members withdraw money from many other credit unions without paying the ATM fees.

Of course, I didn't find that out until most of my long tour days are over, giving away $2-3 at every ATM because I used my commercial bank card.

skookum

If I remember correctly it was about $4 or $5 at every ATM in the US, using a Canadian bank card.
I am sure it is the same for you guys when you are in Canada. It just annoys me that I have to pay that much to access my money. Back in the old days Amex travellers cheques were 1%.
Of course then you had to find some place that would accept them.

djb

I don't recall what fees I had while taking money out of foreign atm machines over the decades, but in the end, as long as I didnt overdo it, the fee was just part of taking money out and I would take enough to last a week or whatever. Don't really recall the intervals in taking out cash in various countries, but in the end I didn't get upset about it, and would "save" money on eating cheaply most of the time, so a few bucks here and there wasn't the end of the world.
Travelling in an area where you switch countries and currencies is just what it is, so you don't really have a choice but to take out a certain amount of money in each country--trying to figure out your daily expenses ish and then figuring out and taking out a reasonable amount so as not to have too too much on hand in a worse case scenario.

skookum

The worst is not being able to get money. In Indonesia my Canadian bank card would only work occasionally. The problem being if that machine didn't accept your card, it would do something
so that that card couldn't be used again until it was reset by the bank. I had a couple of long calls to the bank to get it straightened out, they didn't understand it completely either. Strangely enough cash advances on a credit card worked fine. The trick was to transfer money to your credit card account so that you had a surplus to draw on and didn't get charged 20% interest from day one.

I would happily have paid 4 or 5% in Indonesia just to be able to get acces to my money.

Calsun

Credit card terminals are very common in even the smallest store. I carry two credit cards so if a problem with one I have a backup one. For cash I take 10's and 20's as it is can be more convenient. Only place I must have cash is at a campground where I need to put the money into an envelope and deposit it. I do use cash for all my tips to food servers and bus people as otherwise they get ripped off by the business owners as well as the feds. They are very grateful when I hand them cash directly for the tip.

I have learned to never have the credit card out of my sight and now use only the chip readers which are supposed to be all that is allowed but I still find some merchants use the old swipe ones. The mag strip is easily read and if provides enough personal information for identity theft.

I have the bank issuing the card provide me with a new one after I return home. Makes it very easy to spot test transactions by thieves and makes them work a bit harder with the new card number. This is a free service by the banks.