Has anyone done a long US roadtrip? How much did it cost you?

12 comments

1. $20k is probably about right if you’re willing to camp regularly and make many of your own meals. Beyond that, locations, specifics, and activities will play a huge part in how doable this is.

2. I’ve done it twice, but before the gas prices blew up.

   You can figure out roughly what the driving will cost you by calculating the miles driven and then running that through any number of online programs to see gas and toll cost estimates.

   All other costs are very adjustable based on:

   * What sort of hotel/motel/camping ground you stay at.
   * What sort of food you eat.
   * What sort of activities you decide to do.

   $20K should be plenty for six months, as long as you’re not extravagant. I mean, you can’t stay in $300/night hotels and eat at $100/plate restaurants for six months. But there are plenty of hotels, motels, and camping grounds that are much cheaper, and you can easily cut costs by preparing some of your food. Most motels have microwaves & refrigerators. Camping is the least expensive option and there are many nice campgrounds. If you like nature, you could even buy a small trailer for your car (about $10K) and camp the entire time, then sell the small trailer when you’re done.

   There are many variables, and it’s totally doable.

3. If you don’t stay in fancy hotels you should be fine.

4. My longest road trip was 10 days. I think it was around $2500-$3000. We stayed in hotels and ate all meals in restaurants.

5. There’s gotta be guidebooks for this. I did from coast, to coast, to coast with some friends in a van. We never paid money to sleep anywhere. Either just inside the van or couch surfing with friends.

   You can camp part of the time.

6. Stay in National Park campgrounds a lot.

7. My wife and I did a 6-week roadtrip from New York to Yellowstone and back over the summer for around $20k. The largest expense by far was hotels/AirBnB; gas came in around only $1200.

   $20k for 5 months feels doable if you can camp or couch-surf (is that still a thing?) for part of the time. If you’re planning on staying in hotels/AirBnB the whole time then you’ll end up compromising on location and quality, not to mention having almost no money left over for the activities which are the whole point of road trips.

8. In July, my family and I took a two week road trip from South Carolina to Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. We used AirBnB’s and cooked some of our own meals, but ate out most of the time. Most of the trip highlights were national, state, and tribal parks. All said and done, we spent around $5k on everything for a family of four.

9. It was a long time ago, but me and two friends went around the south west for 3 weeks in a mini-van, sharing hotels, camping, staying at friends, eating cheese sandwiches out of a cooler. I spend $300.

10. 5 months is longer than I have done but $20k seems pretty doable.

    The biggest thing will be accommodations. You will absolutely have to camp or find a cheap Airbnb for a while (though that seems counter to a road trip, I guess you could make several trips from an Airbnb basecamp). Not eating out all the time will help too.

11. I did a 6 week roadtrip for about $4k. It was around 19,000 miles.

    I camped a lot and ate cheap meals. You’re going to really struggle on budget if you need to stay in hotels or eat the local food everywhere.

12. I’ve done it 3x. Always from Orlando to Las Vegas or Vice versa. Once in 2010, again in 2012, and again in 2016. Gas was relatively cheap all three trips. I usually drove 12 hours a day and stayed in Motel 6s or some other budget no-frills type of motel. I subsisted on mostly cheap fast food and energy drinks (was in my 20s for all 3 trips)

    I think I spent around $500-$600 each time. Gas was still the biggest expense even with low prices