Two months into a journey around the world and I figured it was time to do a status update (some habits are hard to break).

Part 1 detailed my favorite destinations so far, along with a couple I didn’t enjoy quite as much.

For Part 2, here are some updates on the logistics and financials of the trip.

With all of the nuts and bolts of the trip, the critical thing is to find a balance that makes you comfortable. Here’s how things are playing out for me, so far.

Accommodations

After a stay with friends in England, I experienced my first hostel stay in Lille, France. It was not a pleasant way to start off a long journey – the hostel I booked had no real community rooms, dark & dingy bathrooms and no lockers to store belongings.

Fortunately, the hostels I’ve stayed at since then have all been significant improvements over that first one – with kitchens, bars, lounges and even low cost laundry facilities.

Along the way, I’ve been in many small towns that don’t have hostels, but the cost of the B&Bs have been even lower than some of the hostels I’ve stayed at. Throughout Bretagne, there are wonderful cozy, country hideaways for less than the cost of a nice dinner. Some of them ARE in the middle of nowhere, so having a bike helped tremendously.

I’ve balanced the hostel stays with hotels once in a while. If you search well, you can often find hotel rooms for the same cost as a hostel and even if it’s a couple of dollars more, having a private room to stretch out is worth it once in a while.

My favorite is the homestay. Through AirBnB.com, I found a wonderful flat in Paris and was able to live like a local for a couple of weeks. Far less than a hotel, and a bit more than a hostel but having a full apartment including laundry, internet and kitchen saved me a lot of money on the living expenses so it evened out.

Money

Overall, my expenses are tracking close to what I had planned. It’s a bit higher than it will be over the bulk of the trip, but I had prepared for that. Europe isn’t cheap – especially London and Paris. A few months in Asia and staying with friends for a while will more than balance it out.

My accommodations have been a bit below my budget, fortunately, because I’m running very high on food and beverage.

One of the adjustments I’ve had to make is to make more of my own meals along the way, because every time you step into a restaurant in Europe, it’s nearly $20 to get out. Even fast food runs about $10 a pop. The only exception to this rule is breakfast. A coffee and pastry in the morning costs less than a cup of Starbucks in the U.S. (unless, of course, your coffee and pastry are AT Starbucks). The early morning café stops have been one of the great pleasures so far.

Health

Illness & Injury:

Overall, things have been great. I had a cold for a couple of days in Paris, but got over it quickly. I think the moldy cheese killed it.

I have had some trouble with numb toes after days of walking. To some extent, I needed to break in my shoes a bit more than I did but I also over-do it with walking. These towns have rail systems for a reason, but I was regularly walking up to 10 miles a day. I hate to miss the “in-betweens” along the way.

Fitness:

Between cycling and walking, I’ve lost a great deal of weight and my legs are dead sexy (especially once I learned to stop gashing them open with the sharp hybrid pedals on my bike). Unfortunately, I do need to start some sort of upper body work before my chest rivals the Grand Canyon in concavity.

Vitiligo:

Most of you probably don’t know about this, but I’m melanin-challenged. It’s not a big deal most of the time but some parts of my skin tan, some stay lily-white (or burn in about 3 minutes). Being in the sun hours and hours a day – either riding or walking – enhanced my blotchiness by tanning my “good” parts, even with 60 SPF on. It’s more cosmetic than a health issue, but still annoys the fuck out of me. I’ve had to vainly start applying self-tanner to even things out a bit and eliminate the “Guernsey effect.”

I promise I’m not orange.

Telecommunications

After months of waiting, I was finally able to jailbreak my iPhone and pop in a local SIM card to use  without paying AT&T roaming charges. It was a beautiful thing while it lasted. Sadly, it went missing while I was in Madrid – and I’m still not sure if I left it somewhere or if it was nicked while I wasn’t paying attention.

I now have an unlocked cell phone that I use for local calls (replacing the SIM in countries I’m staying around for a while) and I picked up an iPod Touch for all the other iPhone functions I would rather not live without. Skype, Accio Language dictionaries, Evernote, OffMaps, HootSuite and Kindle top the list of my most used apps.

Cycling

As I mentioned in part 1, riding has been one of the best parts of the trip. The bike comes with a couple downsides, though.

With a load on it, the bike limits you to around 80 miles a day, preferably not more than 60, fewer if there are hills along the way. That means it takes a while to get to a destination that’s 300 miles away. Physically, that kind of riding doesn’t phase me, but it does cause some other issues.

You’re constantly on the move. If you want to get from Paris to Bordeaux, you’re going to be on the road every day or it’s going to take you weeks to make the trek.

With daily packing & unpacking and 6 or 7 hours of ride time, it’s challenging to get to know people and places along the way. There are a lot of days when you do little more than eat breakfast, ride, shower, have dinner and sleep. For me, that’s actually a wonderful day – but at the same time, I felt like I wasn’t really getting to know the towns I sped past.

Spain, in particular, has not been a bike-friendly country when you get past the cities of Barcelona and Valencia. Bikes aren’t allowed on the high-speed rail (which is the case in several countries) and drivers in much of Spain aren’t using to seeing bikes on their roads.

So, what’s next on that front?

I’ve temporarily left the bike behind in Madrid, so I can hit up some destinations that would have been a serious logistical hassle. While I’m in England for the next few weeks, I’ll be looking at picking up a folding bike so that I can more easily transport it and still have wheels with me for rides around the area. I won’t be using it for point to point transportation, but since I’m planning extended stays in the cities I visit going forward, that becomes less of a focus anyway.

Cycling is an important facet for me, but I’m not one of those travelers who wants to be on the bike and riding to a new location every day.

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Whew. Long post. There’s more, but those are the big things. Next week – Part 3: Next destinations and goal updates.