Cycletouring in Ireland

Budget guidelines
At 2008-9 prices the absolute bare minimum budget for cycle touring Ireland is 25 euro per day. That assumes you are camping, self-catering and staying away from takeaway food.

If hosteling, a bed is going to cost 12-20 euro a night so a very tight budget would be around the 35 euro mark.

Bed and breakfasts start at around 40 euro for a single, 60 for a double. Given you are going to have to buy an evening meal too (at least 25 euro each) you are looking at a bare minimum of 80 euro per person per day.

How much did it cost me?
I did the book on an absolute shoestring - I even got around of most of Donegal 'wild' camping. I camped where I could and threw in the occasional hostel - usually where there was no alternative.

My average costs per day (euros) were:

• Food 13.14
• Accommodation 11.67
• Other 3.39

'Other' was usually entry to places, internet, postage etc. Many of which were directly related to the book
On top of that I had about 1.28 /day in bike expenditure (repairs etc) which you are unlikely to incur except on a really long trip.
I also had quite high costs travelling internally in Ireland - but you probably won't incur these as they were mostly related to route planning for the book

For a summary and details of my costs see the attached PDF documents - excuse the poor formatting!

Tips to save cash

1. Travel in Northern Ireland - it is way cheaper. Groceries are about 40% cheaper by my reckoning and accommodation just slightly lower in price than the Republic
2. Discount supermarkets in the towns are the cheapest places to shop (but they don't always have stuff in small quantities)
3. Avoid takeaways which can be really expensive - I paid 18 euro for a pizza in Fermoy