I was actually quite surprised that it wasn't as expensive as I thought. I'm not saying it was cheap, but for the opportunity it offered I felt it wasn't bad.
When I was first thinking of doing the Alps I looked at the organized tour outfits, like Edelweiss. They have a tour that's similar to what we ended up doing called the Dolomites Touring Center. 6 days based out of Bolzano in the Dolomites, with 5 riding days. Depending on the bike you wanted, prices for a single person ranged between $2910 (F650GS) and $3950 (R1200RT). That includes bike rental, hotel for 6 nights, 6 breakfasts and 6 dinners. Airfare is extra, fuel extra, lunches extra, hotels outside of the tour days extra, etc. I figured my budget if I went that route would be close to $5,000.
Once I found someone to go with, the idea of "rolling our own" tour was more appealing. Some preliminary online searching as to bike rental rates and airfares indicated we could do a longer tour for far less money than with an organized outfit.
This is in now way a slam on tour companies like Edelweiss or Beech - they offer intangibles (expertise, route suggestions, guidance) and peace of mind (safety in numbers, support vans, fix your bike) that are hard to put a price on.
Airfare- $645
-
maybe could do a little better next time, maybe not
First up, for me at least, was the airfare. We had thought originally of flying into Munich or Milan, as they were the closest major cities to the Dolomites. Problem was there were no direct flights from PHL or Newark, and the cheapest flights were around $1,000 anyway. We switched to Zurich and I managed to snag a nonstop ticket for $645 during a fair sale US Airways was having after landing a plane in the Hudson River.
Bike Rental - $1170 (me) $800 (Jim)
- next time I'd stick with the GS and save the money
The single biggest expense was the bike rental. We rented from Moto Mader outside of Zurich, Switzerland. For 7 days, the rental for the F650GS was just under $800. Jim was going with that, while I originally booked the F800GS for about $70 more. I ended up switching to the R1200RT, which cost me $1170 for the 7 days.
Hotels - $910
Swissotel Zurich - $115
Hotel Pontives - $75
Hotel Mesdi - $85 * 4 nights
Hotel Aurora - $120
Hotel Moevenpick - $130 * 2
- could probably do the Zurich hotels cheaper, Hotel Mesdi great deal
That left hotels as the only other arrangements to be made beforehand. Hotels in Zurich are very expensive, and since we'd never been there it was hard to know what might be good areas and what might not be. I found a great pre-pay deal for our arrival day at the Swissotel Zurich, 10 minutes from the airport with a train station right outside. I wanted to book them again for our departure days, but the price that weekend was more than double. Ended up with a pretty good rate at the Hotel Moevenpick Zurich Airport for our last days.
Our hardest choices were which hotels to use in the Alps. Expedia and such were little help (no surprise), so lots of googling to find some attractive places. We settled on the Hotel Mesdi in Arabba for 5 nights, for $85/night including breakfast and dinner. I thought the rate was $65/night, but that was based on double-occupency. If you read the trip report, you'll know we didn't make it to the Mesdi that first night, staying instead at the Hotel Pontives in St. Ulrich. I forget the exact price, somewhere around $75.
Andermatt was pricier, $120/night was the best we could do.
Fuel - $250
We ended up doing about 2100kms, which at around 40mpg put my fuel cost around $250. Jim and the GS probably spent around $200 since he got considerably better gas mileage
Food - less than I thought
I had budgeted $50/day for food, or $450 for the trip. I had forgotten that breakfast and dinner was included at the Arabba hotel, so we ended up spending considerably less. Lunches for the most part were around $10-$15 in Italy, and the only other time we spent money on food there were $3 beers and $4 Cokes.
Switzerland was pricier, with meals closer to $20-$25.
Other items
I probably spent around $80 buying pins at the various passes, and would have spent more if I could have found more of them.
Train tickets in Switzerland ran us around $60 or so, between trains to Zurich HB and the round-trip to Arrau.
Total
The grand total for 10 days in Europe, with 7 riding days, came to just under $3,500. With a better bike choice, and some more frugal hotel choices I probably could have brought the total down to around $3,000.