How to Save for Your Next Motorcycle Adventure – 10 Tips to Build a Travel Fund
- Andy Marks
- Dec 8, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Dec 10, 2025
It's that time of year again, it's dark more than it's light, it always seems to be cold, and will this rain ever end? If you are anything like me, you are already starting to look ahead to next year's motorcycle travels and, quite possibly, wondering how you are going to pay for them. Whether you're aiming for an organised motorcycle tour in a group or a solo adventure across Europe and beyond, saving money for these trips doesn't have to be painful.
I know some people's approach is to 'stick it on the credit card and worry about it later.' Although I use a credit card to pay for just about everything while I am away, it is more secure and I use one that has zero fees for non-sterling use, I like to know I have the money to clear it when I get home.
Now, before we go any further with my tips for saving, I should point out I am not a financial expert - in fact I'm pretty crap at it. What follows are a few of the things that have helped me to squirrel away enough to manage a couple of fortnight long trips in Europe, I'm hoping they can help you build a solid motorcycle travel fund as well.
1) Save little and often for your motorcycle trip fund
Let me start by assuring you, you'll never hear me telling millennials that giving up avocado on toast or drinking less chai lattes will allow them to buy a house and be mortgage free in 10 years. The numbers just don't add up, no matter how often we are all told we just need to work as hard as 'their' generation did.
However, you'll be surprised how quickly a few quid here and there adds up when we are talking about a few hundred pounds for a holiday. You can travel in France on less than £40/day - if you put £1/day in a savings account, starting on New Years Day, by September 1st you'll have enough money for 6 days away. Reckon you could stretch to £2/day?
2) Set a clear savings target
Work out roughly how much you are going to need. I spent 13 days in France in 2023 for £749.66. I wrote a blog post on it with a breakdown of where I spent the money - try using this as a starting point and get an idea of how much you need. Just bare in mind camping in France is cheap - if you want to travel to other countries the costs will almost certainly go up.
3) Use a separate account for your 'Adventure Budget'
I have an instant access savings account that I use for the sole purpose of holiday money. Any money earmarked for going away is put straight into this account and I try my best not to touch it unless I'm going away. I find money in my current account gets spent, and if I mix it in with any other savings it just get's lost into the bigger picture. Having an account solely for the use of holiday funds helps to keep you focused.
4) Boost your savings with Round Ups
I bank with NatWest (because they gave me a free railcard when I was a student) and they offer what they call Rounds Ups. I'm sure other banks do similar. Basically, I have it set so that whenever I buy something on my debit card, anything between that amount and the next whole pound is automatically put into the savings account I've already mentioned.
When I buy a coffee for £4.50 it actually 'costs' me £5 - but the 50p goes into my savings. It doesn't feel like a lot, but most weeks I end up putting £5-£10 away with it. Over the course of the year that's £260-£520 pounds. With NatWest you can also set it to multiply the roundup by 2, 3, 4 or 5 times. This can start to add up though if you go too mad though so keep an eye on it.
Bonus: When you fill up with petrol and accidently go over to £15.01 - there is a silver lining in the form of some savings! Sounds daft I know but all these things really add up.
5) Plan ahead and start saving early
Once you have an idea of how much you are going to need, and how long you have to save that money, you can work out how much you need to put aside each month. I think it goes without saying, but I'll point it out anyway - the earlier you start the less you need to put away each month.
Unless you know you have a windfall coming (bonus at work for example) it's easier for most people when they aim to put the same amount away each month. If you earn a monthly wage, put away your target amount as soon as you get the wages in your bank and forget you had them. If that means you can't afford to go out for lunch for a few days before your next pay packet, just remind yourself of what you are saving for.
It's more difficult for self employed or freelance workers as the income can be a bit more sporadic. I fall in to this category and what I find works for me is to put a percentage of my income away every time I pay myself some wages from the business. If you know what you earn on average over the course of the year you can work out what percentage of that you will need to put away. It works most of the time, if I have a particularly quiet month (December is always slow for me) then I might not be able to do it - I just try to make up for this if I have a very good month at some other time.
6) Cut the beer (or coffee) and add to your motorbike touring budget
Sorry - I said it. I'm not suggesting you go T-total or never call in at Starbucks again. But cutting back on something you have regularly will make a huge difference. I'm not a big coffee drinker but I do like my beer - so I'll apply the sums to that:
A pint of my favourite ale in my local is now £5.40/pint. If I have one less pint per week over a year that's:
52 x £5.40 = £280.80
Drink Guinness? Or a nice Cider? That could be £6/pint where I'm from - make that £312/year saved. That's an extra week in France for me!
And that's just one less pint per week - do you really enjoy yourself that much more on a Friday night with six pints than you do with five? Enough to choose that last pint over the trip you've been talking about for years? When I started asking myself questions like this, the small changes started feeling a lot easier!
7) Make saving a game to fuel your motorcycle touring plans
Is there something you regularly do that you could do slightly cheaper? Set yourself a 'typical budget' and aim to go bellow it - whatever you have left afterwards goes straight into that savings account.
I'll use the above example of beer for me. When I started doing this my chosen beer was £5/pint and a typical night out for me was four pints - so I set my budget at £20. If I had three pints, I'd put a fiver straight into the kitty, if I had a bag of crisps it was a bit less. Call it a night after two pints and a bit more went in. You get the picture - I found this really motivating and have saved literally hundreds of pounds towards various trips by keeping it in mind. For me it creates a direct link between what I am spending now and how long I can afford to go away for later.
Bonus: You drink less, which can only be a good thing!
8) 'Run what ya brung' - Get into a budget motorcycle touring mindset
If you are reading this blog post, and have got this far, you are probably looking at traveling on a budget like me. So as nice as it would be to have all the latest kit and a top of the range BMW to go touring on, it isn't really necessary to enjoy yourself. There will always be better kit out there, and marketing departments do a fantastic job of telling us why we need it all. Don't scrimp on safety or being comfortable, but with a lot of the kit it's worth seriously asking yourself what needs upgrading and what is absolutely fine as it is.
9) Track your spending to afford more time travelling
What is measured is managed. There are loads of apps out there for budgeting and tracking spending. I do mine in an excel spreadsheet because I use them a lot for work, so it's just easy for me. But have a play with a few of the apps and see how you get on.
10) Stay focused on your moto touring goals
Only you really know what will work for you on this - but a couple of ideas:
Have a picture of somewhere you really want to visit on your trip and put it somewhere that you will see it every day. On the fridge door or, as we are in 2025 now, create a vision board to set as the screensaver on your phone or the background on your computer.
Countdown the days until you leave. This could be done on a wall calendar or with your phone or computer.
Book the first day so you have a definite target and tell people you are going. Not that you 'might' go, or that you are 'hoping to' go - but that you are going. I'm no psychologist, but language matters when you are talking about your goals.
11) Bonus Tip - Generate income to top up your savings
Change of tack on this one. Everything so far has looked at making the money you already have go further. But why not see if you can earn an extra few quid. I'm sure most of us have plenty of 'stuff' lying around that we no longer use. eBay, Facebook Marketplace and Vinted are easy to use and any money that comes in from selling on there is pretty much money for nothing - put all of it aside if you can.
A final point on saving for a motorcycle trip
Put what your trying to do into perspective for a minute. Let's say you're saving up for a two week trip - it is only two weeks. You still have to have a life for the other 50 weeks of the year. Small consistent changes will make a difference - but that bowl of chips in the pub or avocado on toast for breakfast isn't going to make the difference when it's the occasional treat. I might even go as far as to say you'll enjoy it more when you do treat yourself.
That's all for this one. If you found it useful, entertaining, or even mildly interesting, please subscribe to my blog for updates on future posts.
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