How much a solo road trip on motorbike in India cost ?

Documenting how much the 44 day road trip on shoestring budget costed me

I did a solo bike trip of 44 days & blogged my experience on each day. This is the starting post of the series just in case you are interested to follow my journey day by day.

My (semi) pan India ride covering around 6k kms (4k miles) in 44 days

The most asked question during my solo bike trip was - why you doing it alone. The 2nd most asked question was - how much this trip going to eat into my pocket.

I quit my job to do this bike ride & I wanted to do it on my own terms. One of the terms was to do it on a shoestring budget. In the hindsight (& also during one of the ride days .. dont remember which roadtrip day that was) I happened to meet one guy from Amritsar on the way to Manali & while interacting with him, figured that doing a comfortable solo roadtrip in India seems like a bigger problem. But well, I had taken a decision already.

I wanted to do two things once I am done with the trip - 1. check the actual expenditure during the trip & 2. list down all the resources for to help anyone who intend to do a solo unplanned bike trip. This post is for the point 1.

Per day Expense :

I was on the road for 44 days & total expense came out to be Rs 65,212 == Rs 1482 per day. This includes all the expenses including my flight tickets back home. This is Rs 500 less than what I had planned in my opening post (Rs 1k for petrol, 500 for food & 500 for accommodation).

Above is a high level cost breakup. I was using 2 bank accounts, one with Axis & another with DBS.

Travel expense vs total expense :

During the trip, I always felt that petrol is the most expensive part, but post trip analysis showed that out of Rs 65k, petrol expense constitutes only Rs 13,695 which is like 1/5th of total expense. This came as a surprise. I am not entirely sure if the calculation is correct but I dont think I would be investing anymore time on it. I also noticed a good amount of fuel cost reduction in April (Rs 5k vs 8k). I am guessing it is because of my revamped engine which started giving better mileage. It could also be because I was doing more hilly rides in April & was covering pretty less distance per day compared to what I was doing on the planes.

Per km travel expense :

I covered around 6k kms == Rs 2.3 per km ( Rs 13695 / 6k ) . Although as per my bike’s odometer, I guess I should have done close to 7k kms, but I am not sure of its accuracy (considering it 12 years old & I had to change the entire assembly once). I also did a quick plotting of stops on google map & found total distance to be 5.5k kms. I added 10% to it as extra distance travelled within cities, detours etc.

Bike’s mileage :

Taking average petrol cost of Rs 94 per ltr (Gujarat was cheapest at around Rs 89 per ltr while Rajasthan was most expensive with Rs 99 per ltr), I calculated my bike’s mileage to be 37 kms/ltr . To be honest, taking 6k kms total distance gives 41 kms/ltr but I dont think a 12 year old Royal Enfield is capable of performing at that kind of number.

Bike’s expense vs Total expense :

I guess there were quite a few misc expenses like bike repair & spares cost. It should be easily 10k+. Or maybe, could be like Rs 15k. I remember spending Rs 10k for readying the bike before the start of the journey. So all in all, the bike maintenance plus running cost turned out to be 50% of the total expense ( ~ Rs 35k out of Rs 75k). This value would probably be lower if you have a pretty new motorbike.

Average monthly expense :

The monthly expense came about to be Rs 44k (Rs 1462 x 30). If I add Rs 10k to it, which I had spent readying my bike, the total cost will become Rs 75k. With that value, the per day cost comes around Rs 1.7k & monthly cost will be Rs 50k.

Summary :

I hope with this data, you would know how much money you would need if you intend to quit your job & do a pan India tour on a 12 year old Royal Enfield, on a shoestring budget :-D. I think Rs 2k per day is a good budget that you can take as thumb rule.

Please note, this is data from a road trip done in 2021, during pandemic. I was pretty much every time able to get a room for one person for under Rs 500. A lot of my meals were sponsored by some local whom I had met during the trip :).