How Much our 2 Month USA Road Trip Cost
Over the fall of 2017 we went on a two month long USA road trip. We covered over 10,000 miles and went through three oil changes in our car. As travelers, we get asked all the time if we like traveling in our own country and YES! We definitely do.
A whole series of unforeseen events happened over our summer. As fall approached and the end of our working season we were not in the position to make any plans or book any plane tickets. As with many things in life, when certain things are not going as we might have hoped or anticipated, there is still an opportunity there.
For us that opportunity was to take a big USA road trip! Before falling in love with Vermont as our seasonal home, we have lived and worked in Arizona, Utah, Colorado and traveled around to a bunch of different states out west. So we were so excited to get back out there.
We had a few simple goals for this trip:
- Get to San Francisco to see Chris’s brother
- Get across the Rockies before serious snow fall
- Explore some National Parks we have not been to
- See wolves in Yellowstone National Park
One of the big questions we got asked a lot was: How much did this all cost?
We were curious too! So we kept a detailed budget of everything we spent for this trip.
Here is the break down and some analysis for the question many people are wondering:
How Much Did Our 2 Month USA Road Trip Cost?
The Route:
The red line gives a good overview of the route we went. Notice the loop-de-lopp near San Francisco. Life went all crazy there for a little while.
Total Days on Road: 50 (Yes, I know that is not quite 2 months. I did round up for simplicity in the post title.)
Our travel style for this trip: Mostly camping using gear from this post, this post and this post.
Our car: 2007 Hyundai Sonata
There she is! I know this car might not be flashy & cool or some super rigged up ‘traveler car/van/truck vehicle’ but our car was incredibly practical and reliable.
(Insider tip: A HUGE reason we are able to afford to do some of the things we do is because we will almost always choose practical over flashy. We had saved the $4000 USD that our car cost us. We paid in full. We did not pay any interest on a car loan. We also paid in advance for full year’s worth of insurance. We have no monthly car payments and no monthly insurance payments. Practicality may not always be super flashy, but practicality for us also means we have no monthly payments on anything other than our phone plan.)
Our Travel Style:
This was our spot in the Upper Pines camping loop in Yosemite, CA. Loved how the morning light hit the mountain!
For this trip we were primarily camping. (Of note – see below for how much we saved just because we traveled in the off season!)
Total nights Camping: 35
Total nights Hotel: 8
Total nights stayed with Family: 7
This was the lobby in one of the hotels we stayed at for $38 USD!
Hot Tip: Savvy traveling is not always about paying the cheapest price but rather getting the best value. In a few of the places we were all the tent camping was closed. The only sites on offer were RV sites and sometimes those cost $55! Ummm…for $10-15-ish dollars more we could go to hotel, have electricity/heat all night long and usually have included breakfast in the morning. In those instances it was much better value to go to a hotel and as you will see below, overall, our lodging costs still balanced out to be quite reasonable.
The Money
Total Spent in October: $1313
Food: $377 <<>> Lodging: $359 <<>> Gas $301 <<>> Other: $276
Total Spent in November: $1643
Food: $774 <<>> Lodging $334 <<>> Gas $358 <<>> Other $177
Some interesting analysis…
…but first…if any of you are familiar with Nomadic Matt’s book, How to Travel the World on $50 a Day, Chris and I often are able to travel for about $50 a day for 2 ppl! Now…and please hear this loud and clear (and Matt reiterates this point really well) travel is super personal. You could be reading this post and think it’s interesting, but if you were to repeat it this trip yourself you might hate it because it wouldn’t be your travel style at all. We could have spent way more money and we could have spent way less money on this trip. But we did the things that were interesting to us and we wanted to do.
The point I hope to convey is, if you want to travel or do xyz in your own life, there are ways to achieve those goals. This post is showing you how much this trip cost us, some ways we achieved that and hopefully provide you some insider info and inspiration for whatever your goals may be. Moving along…)
Grand Total for 50 Day Road Trip: $2956
Per day Cost: $59.12 <<>> Per day costs per Person: $29.56
Total amount during road trip spent on:
Food: $1151 <<>> Per day Cost: $23.02 <<>> Per day costs per Person: $11.51
Lodging: $693 <<>> Per day Cost: $13.86 <<>> Per day costs per Person: $6.93
Gas: $659 <<>> Per day Cost: $13.18 <<>> Per day costs per Person: $6.59
Other: $453 <<>> Per day Cost: $9.06 <<>> Per day costs per Person: $4.53
Side note: We LOVE using this travel kettle when we travel. So easy, convienient, and save money on that coffee!
Other interesting calculations:
When you travel in the off season or shoulder season, often times prices are lowered. For instance, when we camped at Craters of the Moon National Park Campground in Idaho, the normal camping rate was $16 a site. But because were traveling in the off season the rate had been reduced to $8. So we paid $4 per person to camp in what was one of the most interesting and unique campgrounds we’ve ever stayed in.
Hot tip: this type of solar lantern is SO handy when camping. Someone gave us one as a gift and we have had one ever since.
Ummm….we were basically camping on lava and other volcanic matter! How cool is that!
Off season travel savings: $50
Also, when traveling with a somewhat flexible schedule, it also meant that on the few times we needed or wanted to go to a hotel, we could plan to go mid-week and use hotel coupons or get a mid-week discount.
Hot Tip: If you are driving along on the interstate and go by those rest stops – stop! Most of them have hotel coupon books. For about $55 we stayed at Motel 6 type of hotels. They were not flashy but they served the purpose of hot shower and wifi all night long to catch up on things. 😉
Hotel coupon & mid-week stay savings: $62
Combined off season & hotel coupon savings: $112
National Parks Pass Savings
I can’t make this mistake again and you must know that if you are going to about three or more national parks in the United States – buy the National Parks Pass! Some of our best friends went on a road trip and I completely failed them by not making sure they knew this. (Guys – I know you’re reading this – I’m so sorry!)
The National Parks Pass cost $80. You can buy whenever you are first going into a park or learn about pass options here. (And in defense of those who don’t know about the pass and as a critique to the NPS they could do a better job informing people of the pass. I know about it and just had a heck of a time even finding the link to put in this post from their website.) The normal pass is good for a year. Some parks have an entry fee of $30 and there is talk of increasing that cost even more.
On this trip we went to Theodore Roosevelt, Devils Tower, Big Horn Canyon, Yellowstone, Craters of the Moon, Crater Lake, Redwoods National Forest with Fern Canyon, Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia and Death Valley National Parks and/or Recreation Areas.
Had we not bought the pass we would have paid $208 for all our entrance fees. So subtract the $80 for the pass itself and that gave us:
Money Saved because of National Parks Pass: $128
Our off season savings + national park savings = $240 we never had to spend.
Figuring out creative ways to keep the money not spent growing is a great way to keep traveling longer or achieve other goals you may have in your life. You can look into house sitting, use skyscanner to find the best deals. A few of the times we did stay at hotels, we would price check the coupon rate and see what it cost to book it on Agoda. If it was the same on Agoda we would book with Agoda because they we could get our Agoda reward points too. We saved about $100 applying our Agoda rewards while making bookings for our Asia trip.
I hope you are seeing how it all adds up. It’s really no different than a person trying to get through college, lose weight, save money, travel more, learn computer code: when we do consistent little bits by little bits to actively put effort into achieving a goal, we are setting ourselves up to achieve that goal.
These giant sequoia trees were not an overnight success. Growth and achieving goals takes years and years.
We were so thankful to have the time and ability to go on this big USA Road Trip. It felt like we went together with so many of you and we love the community vibe we feel from you on the facebook, instagram and twitter pages. Your comments, input and kind words inspire us and spur us onwards…well that and an internal drive to want to experience as much of the world as possible! 😉 So thank you for coming along and playing a part to make this USA road trip so fun and enjoyable! We can’t wait until we go on the next one! 🙂
Tiff & Chris…aka…Vagabond Way
Were you surprised? What did you think the trip would cost? Did you think this was expensive? Did you think this was good value? Do you have any burning questions we didn’t answer? Please share you thoughts below in the comments – we’d be so interested to know. 🙂
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Hey nothing you two do surprises me! You do your homework, plan carefully and continually have amazing adventures! Plus a little help from your friends, LOL
mare
Haha, that is all true. We are so grateful for all the ways people surprise us, encourage us and help get us on our way! Thanks! 🙂
Pretty darn good for 50 days on the road! Cost me more than that just to stay at home.
I think you are right! LOL
You know I was actually surprised by how much our accommodation costs balanced out. There was one night we did pay $65 for a hotel and I was like, omg! Also, our gas budget was pretty reasonable we thought. Our car usually got over 30 mpg – what a difference!
I appreciate seeing the calculations done in such a concise way, it makes planning a cross country trip realistic and doable.
Thanks so much and glad you found it helpful Christine! Yes, a road trip can totally be affordable. You might take interest to note the increase in food costs our second month. If you recall we met up with a few certain someone’s and ate out a lot more 😉 ….what a difference that made. Still wonderful experience but making our own food makes the money go a lot longer – as you know and do too! 🙂
Wow! Sleeping on lava rocks vs. that swanky looking hotel? You’re my heroes…I’d definitely be looking for the deals on the hotels, but I’m sure the sunrises/sunsets trump the views from the hotel windows. I’ve always been curious how a trip like this would calculate. What a fabulous post – thanks for sharing!
$2956 is not bad at all! I am definitely saving this! My husband spent close to $1k just road tripping from Alabama to Colorado. So this really puts it in perspective.
Nice work I can’t believe how truly little it cost to gain so much good for you. I hope to do this one day when I return to Canada so I can tour both the US and my home country #flyawayfriday
Wow! That is impressive! It sounds like such a fun trip! I love the way you broke down the spending. I’m saving this post! #FlyAwayFriday
Wow, that was quite the trip! I am happy you shared monetary details about your trip since it put things in perspective. I understand travel is personal and what works for you may not work for me but, in my case, I can see we have similar travel styles so, this gives me inspiration to do my plan my own trip. An extended trip around the country is something I have wanted to do for a long time. #FlyAwayFriday
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wow what a cool trip and thanks for the specifics! We are leaving for a 6 months sabbatical next week and the States will be one of the countries we will visit. So this was a timely and interesting post to read. #flyawayfriday
I can’t believe you travelled for that long for such a small amount of money. You two are my new heroes! Now I want to somehow get two-ish months off and do a US roadtrip too! I was actually going to buy a National Parks Pass this year as well… great tip on spending a few extra dollars for a hotel rather than camping in an RV spot. That hot shower must have gone a long way! #FarawayFiles
You covered so much of the country! These reports are so helpful to assist in planning trips. I don’t know if I could camp for that many nights though! Thanks for coming out to Fly Away Friday! See you tomorrow! 🙂
We track all of our travel expenses too, so I love seeing another travel blogger break this down. I’m SO impressed! I feel like I need to get on board with the camping lifestyle…such a big moneysaver. #flyawayfree
Wow you guys did an amazing job on the road trip! I’m not a camper so all the hotel stays would definitely have added up! Thanks for joining Fly Away Friday, hope to see you again this week! xo
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I wondered what happened to you 2 ! Looks like you 2 had a wonderful thrifty adventure ! Absolutely love all of your pictures ! And enjoy traveling in my mind along with you guys 😌 Enjoy your summer !
Hey Denise! Sorry for the long delay on a response here. Thank you so much! Based on your encouragement we are making some big strides towards setting up our photography! Things are going great in Central America and we hope you are enjoying that beautiful snow back at home! 🙂
What a great article, I love the price breakdown. My husband and I are planning a 15000 mile, 2 -3 month trip in another year and a half, and I have really struggled with how much it will cost us. Reading this was very valuable!
Thank you so much Sandra! Yes – we really weren’t sure how much this would cost either…and when we had a couple of $65 a night hotel rooms I was freaking. But it was pleasant to see how it all averaged out. Hope you have a great trip and let us know if you have any other questions! 🙂
You just made my planning easier and now I am pretty sure about my 1 month road trip plan. This is first for me and needed some actual calculations including every sectors. You did it perfectly and so many thankful to you. Keep up the good work.
Wow, you guys did an amazing job on the road trip. These reports are so helpful to assist in planning trips. You just made my planning easier and now I am pretty sure about my 1-month road trip plan. Thanks for the sharing this.
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What about attractions other than national parks? Parking? Little splurges? Is this included in your miscellaneous? At 55 and 65 my husband and I took a one-month USA road trip as our retirement present. This was in 2009. I planned and budgeted this trip for about six months. We rented a fuel-efficient car and stayed in hotels every night except two with our son. We had the national parks pass, which as seniors cost I think $30 or so for a lifetime pass for seniors. We generally stayed at hotels which provided breakfast. Most restaurant meals consisted of a late lunch buffet which held us over the rest of the day, thus no money for dinners. We always had healthy snacks on hand for the evening munchies. We are very frugal. However, at our ages we did not know if we would be making this trip again so we did things that were on our “bucket” list even if they were a little expensive. But with all of these pleasures in mind we still spent only about $8000. Not a great deal compared to yours but considering the age difference I don’t think we did too bad. Most of our friends would have spent way more.
Hey Norma! Thanks so much for the comment. On this trip most of our activities were to visit the national parks. We did go to a few museums like the Wild Bill museum in Wyoming but not too many other activities other than the parks. I’m so glad you got to go on such a nice trip too and do some of your bucket list activities! That is really what it’s all about. And that is a great tip on the late lunch buffet – we use that trick sometimes too! No matter how one goes about it – heading out for a great American road trip can be one heck of an amazing trip! Thanks for sharing about yours! 🙂
Hey Norma! Thanks so much for the comment. On this trip most of our activities were to visit the national parks. We did go to a few museums like the Wild Bill museum in Wyoming but not too many other activities other than the parks. I’m so glad you got to go on such a nice trip too and do some of your bucket list activities! That is really what it’s all about. And that is a great tip on the late lunch buffet – we use that trick sometimes too! No matter how one goes about it – heading out for a great American road trip can be one heck of an amazing trip! Thanks for sharing about yours! 🙂
My wife and I are planning on doing a 2 month road trip! What did you do for food? We already know it’s smart to buy food from a store over dining out. Like sandwiches, bagels, etc. Do you have a list of food items? Sorry if I missed a link somewhere on here.
Hey Mel! That is so exciting and thanks for the comment. You know, I don’t actually have a good post about food for camping. So thanks for the idea – I will try to write that up over the next month. I did write the post with the link below, although that was more focused on overnight backpacking, still has some pertinent info. For instance, cheese, especially cheddar cheese, unless you are in crazy high temps, it really doesn’t have to be refrigerated that much. As you said, we do a lot of sandwiches and almost always do our own breakfasts. Sometimes when we were really running low on time in a day a rotisserie chicken was an easy meal and then use any left over chicken for sandwiches the next day (and that we would use the cooler for). Ok, I will get back to you in a while with another post. 🙂 https://vagabondway.net/power-day-of-food-for-camping/
Really useful post, thank you
Hi Guys,
I feel it was excellent value for money. I wish I was as organized. Perhaps I’ll print out what you have done, and go over it with my wife, as we would love to do something along these lines.
Cheers Nathan…
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