The Great Loop is a 6,000-mile adventure. You travel through multiple seasons, waterways, US States, and possibly other countries, depending on your route. Determining an accurate budget for this adventure is difficult. When we looped aboard Pivot, our budget was an essential subject; we had tight finances and lofty dreams. Here are the top three strategies we used to make our Great Loop cost $40,501.79 or $3,375.15 per month.
Once you have your Loop boat, you'll want to determine your highest efficiency RPM. Fuel is often the highest expense on the Loop, and depending on how you run your boat, you can save thousands of dollars! For our trawler, we found if we ran it at 1600 RPM, we'd burn an average of 2.18 gallons per hour. Our fuel bill was $10,567.13, second only to our food! We used Waterway Guide's fuel reports to plan your next fill up.
Our final tip for looping on a budget is very similar to running a tight budget on land, and that is cooking on your own boat instead of going to restaurants. One of the great facets of the Great Loop is that you are traveling with everything you need. Some of our favorite moments were visiting farmers markets in small towns, and then basing our meal plan on whatever we find. You can invite people for docktails on your boat or the shore instead of hitting the bar!
Everyone's budget will be different. Some, like us, are trying to minimize expenses as much as possible, and others might have more room! There is no right or wrong way to Loop, but if you are looking for ways to Loop on a tight budget, you can do it!
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