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The trip in statistics

Posted on 19 May 2014 | 25 comments

map of our route

map of our route as featured on the side of Lara – the red line from the permanent (?!) marker had to be replaced many, many times as it keeps fading when people trace it…

(For a more detailed route, check the individual country maps on their respective pages under the ‘Countries‘ menu. There we have the Google map of our route and you can zoom in to see where exactly we drove. Or for an overview on a world map have a look at our tripline.)

So, we made it and over the past few months we had many people asking many questions regarding kilometers, budget and dates (the calendar variety, not the edible ones). So we’ve done our best to answer all and satisfy your curiosity.

We’ll start with the most important one – how many kilometers did we drive and who won the bet? We had 24 people take a wild guess at the ultimate number of kilometers driven. Here they are in ascending order …

  • Jessie – 23,000
  • Gillian – 24,414
  • Theo de Badts – 26,354.7
  • Jens – 29,000
  • Hans and Dini – 29,653
  • Bron Larner and Seane – 30,001
  • Nico – 31,945
  • Sandra – 32,000
  • Annie de Badts – 32,500
  • Riet – 33,111
  • Todd – 33,824
  • Peter – 33,940
  • Niels – 34,000
  • Helmuth & Eugenie – 35,000
  • Mark Porter – 36.724,3
  • Regine – 34,946
  • Mick Weir – 43,782               38,000-ish if you were in a Toyota but you’ll have to take the long way round a few hazards…;-)
  • Karen Staudte – 44,444
  • John Leyland – 45,000
  • Tara – 47,480
  • Tanya Vautier – 52,626          with plenty of additional adventure kms via foot, paddle, bike or beast along the way
  • Tim McInerny – 56,476
  • Joel Day – 100,000
  • Sally Leyland – 100,000

 

odometer finish

odometer finish

odometer start

odometer start

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And (drum roll please…) our total was 52,499km from our starting point in the port of Kuala Lumpur to our final destination in Penshurst – a small village south of London where Jon’s sister lives which is almost exactly on the Greenwich Meridian. This means Tanya won with her guess of 52,626km. Nice guess Tanya, only 127km out and spot on about the plenty of additional adventure kilometers via foot, paddle, bike or beast we also did – we have your prize here at home, brought with us from an exotic location and we’ll have to find a way to get it to you!

We managed to drive this distance in 301 days, making it an average of 174km per day through 27 countries crossing 33 borders (just under half of these countries are European – the section we drove in just over 3 weeks…).

Our longest day (in kilometers) was already made in Thailand: 669km on Jon’s birthday, and we even managed to catch up for lunch with friends (Guy & Cheryl) coming the other way! We did come close to breaking that record in Europe with 664km driving from Slovenia to Stuttgart in one day and another 647km from Stuttgart to Paris the next. Here’s the totals for each country with China easily standing out as the country where we drove most kilometers, and we only drove south to north…

kilometers driven per country

kilometers driven per country

There was a reasonably good correlation between the kilometers driven and time spent per country – Jon kept a relentless pace and there was no slacking off, after all you don’t get to do this kind of trip very often…

number of days in each country, the green is the number of days we spent the second time in that country

number of days in each country, where we visited a country twice, we have shown the split

Some more random statistics of our trip:

  • 0 punctures! (we can certainly recommend BF Goodrich tyres)
  • 1 breakdown (Mongolia)
  • 6,031 litres of diesel (if we had flown direct, we would have used ~1,000 litres)
  • 11.5 liters per 100km on average (equivalent to 24.6 mpg)
  • 2 police fines ($25 ea) – no prizes for guessing who got these…
  • 2 stomach upsets for Jude
  • 1 stomach upset for Jon
  • 1 attempted break in
  • 0 actual break-ins
  • 8% of the trip in rain
  • 23% of the trip on ‘bad’ roads
  • most southerly point: Singapore
  • most easterly point: Beijing
  • most northerly point: Lake Baikal
  • most westerly point: London
  • 22,580 photos taken (a mere average of 75 a day for 301 days straight…)
  • 1480 video clips taken (Jon is very keen to start editing…)
  • countless acts of generosity from strangers
  • dozens of new friends made

Not everything will be disclosed here. We may have had the odd argument, but who’s counting?

‘On road’ costs of $100/day (quite incredibly on budget….)

On road costs means everything we spent during the 301 days traveling, including diesel, accommodation, food, tourist attraction fees (yep, also our advanced diving course), Lara repairs and even replacing our camera after Jude dropped it.

There are of course some additional costs involved in a trip like this (Lara preparation, shipping to and from Australia, carnet de passage for Lara, insurances, medical preparation, visas, satphone, GPS, camera etc etc etc), but those were not made during the 301 days we were out there and are not included in the ‘on road’ costs.

This is the breakdown of where our hard earned money was spent on the trip:

what did we spent our money on...

what did we spent our money on (%)…

France had the most expensive tolls, tourist attractions were most expensive in China, food was most expensive in Kazakhstan, accommodation was most expensive in Uzbekistan and diesel was most expensive in Turkey and cheapest in Iran.

This blog now contains 99 posts, has 167 subscribers and has had more than 40,000 views – thanks everybody! Our most viewed blog post was ‘The dream becomes a nightmare‘, where we wrote about our break-down in Mongolia. Our most active ‘commenter’ was Regine, closely followed by Phil Tudhope and Peter Hosie. To complete the top 5 we can add Annie & Theo and Jude’s sister Sandra from our Dutch audience. Together you all commented more than 600 times – thanks for every single one of them!

But when all is said and done, the statistics are incidental – unless we had blown the budget, which would have been a whole other matter! The trip was about fulfilling a shared dream, challenging ourselves, encouraging one another when we doubted the path, and sharing the highs and lows over the most incredible 10 months we have ever had.

one of 22,580 photos...

one of 22,580 photos…

This is not quite the end of the road for the blog, as we would like to share with you the administrative fun that was returning home.

25 Comments

  1. Hi Jon and Jude,
    That was quite a trip!! I am so impressed by your achievement.
    I would be in 7th haven to do such a thing… but I guess will never do:-(
    But on the good note, I’m going to Kyrgyzstan in 2 months, and I really hope you could answer some of my questions.
    I am overwhelmed in the possibilities of the hikes. Yours seems very picturesque. Could you please let me know your route like where did you start, what “trail”/ pass/glacier did you take/cross?
    I would like to repeat that if the weather will cooperate, but with so many trails I don’t want to go through different areas.
    As well I don’t want to take your guide, as he seems not very useful to you.
    Hopefully will able to find more reliable person
    All the best, and more exciting trips.
    Thanks Ina

    • Hi Ina, it was quite a trip indeed! You’ll love Kyrgyzstan and the hiking options it gives you. It really depends on your experience what you want / can do as only experienced people should do the walk across the glacier we did. There is the 2 day walk from the Karakol Valley to the hot springs which is a stunning hike too and more for people with less experience. There are also many other hikes in that area. Let us know how long you want to hike and how experienced you are and we might be able to be a bit more specific. Hiking around Khan Tengri is also an option and then use the helicopter to fly back. But again, this depends on your experience and how long you plan to go for. You’ll be still in season so should be able to do most hikes (if they don’t get closed for the plague again!) Hope to hear from you soon! Cheers, Jude

      • Thank you so much for your such a quick reply.
        Well, we are no super experience in rock climbing/glacier walking, but we are good hikers with a lot of experience in hiking in the mountains.
        Last year we were hiking in Rockies for 3 weeks, before that took over other mountains.

        I was thinking about 5-6 days of hiking in really beautiful areas. Yours pictures look more like mountain hiking, than valley walking what most of those hikes look from the pictures.
        I don’t mind to hire a guide to show me the way in more dangerous areas. If you can recommend any guide – this would be great.
        In Kyrgyzstan there is so many possibilities for the hike that I don’t to pick up something less impressing:-)
        Mostly I’m just looking for any idea where to go for beautiful views of the mountains/glaciers/passes.

        By the way could you tell me if the trails are well signed, or is the a clear path.
        I can’t find any info how well the trails are marked:-)

        Anyway if you would be able to give me some suggestions this would be great.
        Thanks a lot.
        Happy travels
        Ina

        • Hi Ina, There’s a standard 3day/2night trek that most people do. It goes from the Karakol Canyon via Ala-Kul lake to the Altyn Arashan Hot Springs. You can get a guide and porter from any of the travel agencies in town (Community Based Tourism or CBT, Kyrgyz-Tours, Eco Trek, Yak Tours) but you can do it on your own if you have camping gear (all of which you can rent if you don’t have it). In general the path is really easy to follow, and during most times of the year you’ll see at least a few other people. You can buy a good topographical area map from any of the travel agencies, which should be enough as long as you know how to read a map. There’s a 250 som entry fee to the park (per person), and depending on where you camp, there are also tent fees, which range from 50 som to 100 som per tent. At the middle of the trek is Ala-Kul lake. At one end of the trail there are a series of guesthouses at Altyn Arashan Hot Springs, one which has a hot spring you can go into for 250 som per person. Before we did this hike in 2 days we did a loop from the Karakol Canyon to the glacier, over the pass and back to the Karakol Canyon. We loved the hike and if you don’t want to use our guide I suggest use the CBT (community based toursim) to find one. They also have a book swap. Enjoy the planning and the trip!! Cheers, Jude

          • Thanks Jude for all the info.
            I’m sure I will enjoy planning and the trip!
            Thanks a lot
            Take care
            Ina

  2. Interesting stats! I’ve enjoyed vicariously travelling with you, thanks for sharing your adventure in such detail. It will no doubt inspire others to get out there

    • Thanks Tanya, can you email us your address so we can send the prize to you for winning?! 🙂

  3. Thanks a lot for all the e-mails you,ve send me hoop to meet you again either here in Holland or in Aus.

    see you love and all the best to both of u!

    Jan your old neighbour.

    • Hi Jan, glad you enjoyed the emails! And yes, hopefully we can catch up again at some point, maybe the next time in NL or when you are touring AU again 🙂

  4. I loved following your blog and “travelling” with you. Thanks so much for sharing. It has been perfect receiving the email advice of your blog updates. A huge amount of time and effort goes into writing a travel blog, as I know from experience, so thank you to you both.

    • Thanks Gil!! Much appreciate your kind words and glad you loved the blog. Who knows what more adventures await us all 🙂

  5. Jon, when can we expect your edited video of the trip?? 😉

    • hmmmm, yes I’d like an answer to that question too… 😉

  6. Fantastic read you have both lived the dream and it has been fantastic to ride with you both. Now i guess its almost time to plan the next adventure

    • We’re always planning the next adventure Peter. Thanks for ‘traveling’ with us. Hope you have a good adventure planned too?!

  7. Amazing guys – it was a real pleasure to follow you as we completed the same journey via Afirca. You covered a few more klms than us. I it was a real shame to miss you in the UK but hopefully we can meet up in Aus some day. Rich and Soph, aka morgansafari.

    • Likewise Rich and Soph, likewise! We enjoyed reading your stories (apart from the Nairobi one…!) and look forward to meeting you some day, somewhere for sure. Let’s keep in touch!

    • No worries Ben. How is the planning coming along? I think you are in Brisbane too aren’t you? If you want to catch up at some stage let us know. Always happy to help!

      • Would love to meet up and swap stories. Which part of town are you in?

        • Ben, we’re in Toowong, but leaving this Saturday on a final trip in Oz before moving to Kenya on 20 Sep… I’ll send you an email…!

  8. Do I get a price for being the most active commenter?
    Since I didn’t win the km guess 😉

    • Prize of course, not price

    • Your prize is here, waiting for you to come and collect it 🙂 (or we can bring it with us next time we go to Perth…)

      • I guess it will be next time you are in Perth, since I haven’t got any spare money for traveling at the moment

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