Waterway trips are cheap – even today

Are you also worried about diesel prices for your boat? I have calculated it, and the result is surprisingly positive!

I have sailed to the Mediterranean several times on rivers and canals and the cost of diesel and petrol has been the absolute biggest item on the journey. Every time.

It can of course make me uneasy when I am now planning more trips on Europe’s rivers and canals. Has it become too expensive with today’s fuel prices? But I have calculated it, and although it has become much more expensive in the last few months, it is still a cheap way to have a holiday.

With today’s diesel prices, if I were to sail to the Mediterranean on rivers and canals with Anna Lisa, our Bavaria 36 sailboat, we would spend approx. 520 liters of diesel. This corresponds to € 1,120 with today’s very high diesel prices in Germany and France.

It is of course a lot of money, but considering that we would spend two or three months on such a trip, it is not that bad.

If I were to sail to the Mediterranean again with my little 17-foot speedboat “Mini Lisa”, which uses almost twice as much petrol as the sailboat uses diesel, it would still be affordable.

We use 880 liters of petrol on an expedition to the Mediterranean in the Mini Lisa, which corresponds to € 1,804 at today’s petrol prices in Germany and France.

Port fees are really low on the waterways, and in many places you can even moor completely free of charge. Today it would probably add up to approx. € 200 for the entire trip from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean for us in our Bavaria.

In other words approx. € 1,300 for a three-month holiday in a sailboat – and all the way to the Mediterranean. It’s not that expensive, is it? For the same money, the family wouldn’t even be able to ski for one week.

What other three-month holiday could you go on for € 1,300?

PS You can also watch this post as a video. How? Check here on YouTube!