Road Trip '07

I know it’s a little early to start asking but I am the biggest procrastinator and was put in charge of getting things together, so I wanted to get ahead of myself.
Two of my friends and I are planning to go on a Road Trip to the East Coast in July 2007, We plan on taking 14 days starting in Minnesota across to Pennsylvania down to Florida across to Louisiana up thru Mississippi then Tennessee then up thru Kentucky, Illinois, to Iowa back to Minnesota, stopping to see everything we can.
Everyone has their own budget or the amount of money they think they’ll need, two of us think $2000.00 is a start; one thinks $600.00 is fine; she wants to go to theme parks, nice hotels and t-shits from each state. We’re trying to talk her into money or less acceptations, but I’m not sure which ones going to sink in first.
We also decided everyone puts in 350.00 for Gas and car emergencies at the beginning of the trip, so no one fights over who pays for gas. We plan on cheap hotels, splitting the cost on who shares the room.
If anyone has anything that will help, that’d be awesome.

We are also pranksters so if anyone has tips on surviving your friends or any pranks, it’d help.

...although a year ahead may be pushing the envelope.

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America forum.

Let's see. Your total mileage will depend on your exact destinations, of course, but a general estimate is that you'll be laying down around 4250 miles at least. With only 14 days, that means covering 300 miles each and every day. That's not a lot, and on a good day you can cover twice that much, but you are only going to be able to spend a limited amount of time (hours not days) at any stop along the way.

You can use the Fuel Cost Calculator to determine your gas costs, but putting in reasonable numbers for your trip I got about $550.For more great tips on how to estimate your costs, check this post.

I like your idea of collecting the 'fixed costs' up front and then having each participant pay her own cost for the variables like rooms and meals. You might all want to sit down one evening, take our RoadTrip Compatibility Quiz just to make sure you're all on the same page as to what you hope to see, do, and accomplish on the trip. Also look through all the planning tips available to you under the RoadTrip Planning option on the toolbar at the top of this page. That should help get you pretty far along on your planning.

AZBuck

If you're excited about a trip, why not start thinking about it now. At least that's my thought!

AZBuck gave you some very good advice. I'd really urge you to take the compatability quiz and sit down with your co-travelers to plan for the details.

Certainly, you don't all need to spend the exact same amount of money on your trip, but I'd say getting everyone on the same page finanically will be the biggest obsticle to overcome to make this a great trip. Most of your major costs, like hotels, food, and entertainment will be about the same for all 3 of you, so If one person has vastly different expectations of what the trip will cost, it will lead to problems on the road. The worst case would end up with one person running out of money and then expecting you to either scale back the things you want to do or having you pick up the tab for them.

There's nothing wrong with doing a 2 week trip for $600 a person, but you are right that you can't do that staying at upscale hotels and stopping at lots of theme parks. I think you guys really should sit down together and layout what you are planning for expenses. Decide if you're going to share a cheap hotel room, which would cost about 50 bucks a night, or if you are each going to have your own room in more upscale places. Decide if you are going to be eating out of a cooler, which you can each eat for about $20 a day, or if you're going to spend a lot of time at $20 a plate restaurants. Work through the math those kinds of things and it should give you a pretty good idea if each of you need to bring $2000 or if you can get by on $600 for the trip.

Good luck, and happy planning.