Help with costings

Me and my partner want to fulfill a dream and travel round america! Although looking online at other forums has scared me quite a bit due to costings etc.

We are looking at a 5 month trip (i know we need to get a visa) to the following
Seattle
San Francisco
LA
Vegas
San dieago
Miami
Washington
New york
Chicago

We will be spending appx 4 nights in each place and around 3 nights in stop off points eg jacksonville along the way.

Its an appx 6680 mile journey with no detours so iv looked at petrol for appx 8000 miles at 31mpg to cost around £1,200

Now im stuck

Food was thinking of buying at supermarkets and maybe hitting a diner or restaurant once a week

Please bear in mind that we dont want to be staying in hotels camping is our number one choice with a motel once a week so advice on camping laws would be great

Im thinking for us both everything in we are looking at around 21,600 gbp

Was looking at spending 5months in total in america!

Oh and obvs need spending money to do stuff.
Hope this makes sense!
Lucy

Welcome!

What are you going to use for transportation?

Note that camping usually is not a good option in cities.

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

21,600 gbp works out to roughtly US$35,000.

That's $7,000 a month or about $230 a day. That's a budget that's quite healthy, even factoring in a high price for a rental car and spending most every night in a motel. If you can't have a very nice trip on that budget, then you are really spending cash!

Having said that, I do agree, if the focus of your trip is going to be cities, then camping can be tough and if you're not camping, its a bit more of a challenge to avoid restaurants. A car that gets 31 mpg is also probably going to be a pretty small one, and may not be comfortable for such a long trip, especially if you need to bring camping gear.

And of course, transportation will be the tricky part, as a car rental will be expensive for such a long trip, and buying a car is very difficult for non-residents.

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

Actually, your estimate for petrol ("gas" on this side of the Atlantic) is a bit high where it is relatively cheap. If you're estimates for total miles and mpg are relatively accurate, then you would be looking at something like $900 = £560. For my own planning purposes, here are some numbers I use. Car rental: $250/week (more if you're under 25 years of age, or if you're both going to drive and aren't spouses). General 'living' expenses: $150/day/couple for food, lodging, and minor entry fees. Note that I eat fairly well and generally stay at mid-level motels. By camping you can probably save $30-50 a night and by buying your food at supermarkets, you can save around another $20 or so, bringing your per day cost for two to maybe $75 or so. But remember travel is not inherently cheap, You still have to live and you're clearly going to have to sped more than you do to live at home. And remember, camping really isn't an option for multiple days in major cities. Using the above figures (assuming the camping option for four months and one month in motels), you're looking at a total cost for two for five months of somewhere in the neighborhood of $18,000 or £12,000. But remember, that's just a rough estimate, assuming a rather frugal travel style.

AZBuck

Hi everyone
Thanks for all the comments heres me thinking id get messages saying i was living in a dream world!!

Ok looking into it you guys are right about camping in bigger cities but my 18 mini stops are more suitable for camping.

Glad i can look at a smaller budget as that budget would of taken a good 3 years to get to! So can i ask including car rental, gas, motels for bigger stops and camping or truck stops for the smaller ones, food, living how much do you reckon i will need for a comfortable 5month stay in america.

Cheers x

Your budget seems pretty healthy to me ! Doing a full loop of the country will prevent the dreaded one way drop off fee associated with one way rentals and with your 'wish list' of places to visit above, won't add many miles. Flying into the east coast [NY] would also mean cheaper airfares then if you were to fly out to the west coast to start your trip. [It would also be quicker, those last few hours on the plane can be tedious !] If you were to spend a few days in NY you would not need to rent the vehicle until you depart and you could consider renting a small apartment with facilities to cook.

If you are planning on spending time in the National parks and other areas of outstanding natural beauty [I hope so, they are remarkable !] then tent camping could be an option and save you some money, even if you were to buy basic equipment and donate it to an organisation/charity at the end. You might want to decide which way around you travel depending on when you start and finish your trip, summer can come late to high elevations in the North [think Rockies] and get too hot in the desert south during the summer.

We found that 'living off the dollar' in the US was similar to living 'off the pound' in the UK, other than fuel which is so much cheaper. In other words a £60 room here would be $60 there, a £40 meal, $40 and so on. The good thing is that with the exchange rate it makes things more favourable for us Brits because that $40 meal is only costing us a little over £25 at the present rate. [We also found the food to be nicer, the rooms bigger and service better, generally speaking !]

I see you replied while I was typing.

Quote:

---

Thanks for all the comments heres me thinking id get messages saying i was living in a dream world!!

---

That's the beauty of arranging your own trip to suit your own needs rather than going through a tour operator who are more interested in profit. [Finding RTA was a massive help on our first ever trip]

Quote:

---

living how much do you reckon i will need for a comfortable 5month stay in america.

---

I don't think you will go far wrong with Bucks comment above. [A reminder]

Quote:

---

you're looking at a total cost for two for five months of somewhere in the neighborhood of $18,000 or £12,000. But remember, that's just a rough estimate, assuming a rather frugal travel style.

---

You would need to add the costs of flights but it should give you a good idea of where to start.

You will find a lot of info searching the forums and road trip planning pages in the tool bars above. You will routes, atrractions, map planning plus more in the tool bars. You can get an idea of car and Hotel costs using the RTA link to the right of this page and you will find lots of ideas and tips around the forums, with links to other members trips in the 'Field reports'.

As you move forward with your planning keep asking questiuons and we will be able to help you to get the best from the great adventure ! [Best work on those Visas though]

I don't think you will be allowed to keep the same rental car for 5 months - plan on finding a local agency and swapping it off once a month. This is something you need to actually ask the company. Rent only from one of the national chains, even if you are planning a "loop" trip.

Hi Everyone

Hope iv posted right wasnt quite sure so clicked a load of buttons and ended up here.

Im desperatly trying to connect my dots in my road trip to america with my partner we have certain cities we want to visit and certain thing we want to see but was hoping you guys could point us in the right direction.

In total i have 10 big places where im hoping to stay 4 nights
10 big places are:
Seattle, San Fransisco, LA, Las Vegas, San Dieago, Texas, Orlando, Miami, New York and then end in Chicago.
Smaller stops are essential to have 2 nights at each place im looking at my time limit of 2 nights at 20 smaller stops

I know need help to connect the dots in the best way seeing as much as I can. We want a mixture of long open roads, beaches and natural beauty

Im looking at the moment at a straight foward route of 6,517miles and am going to limit it to about 8500 miles which gives us a chance to go off and explore as well as if we get lost!

Any help would be great!

Lucy x

Mod Edit: Please, keep all posts about your trip in one thread!

When I travelled around the US with my family for 7 weeks I bought an electric fry pan and steamer which we used in our hotel room to cook cheap healthy meals in the evenings.
I have to agree that the hotels are cheaper, bigger rooms and better service than in the UK. I will have to disagree about the food being nicer though, lol. We saved a lot of money in the US by booking through hotwire. We stayed in quite a few 4 star hotels for $65 per room per night. There is a forum called better bidding that helps you to work out which hotel you are getting.

With a trip of this size you have thousands of possible attractions you could visit, and now that you have those dots on the map as a guide, you can work on those "smaller" stops along the way. This is the part where you will need to research the possibilities and decide what it is that appeals to your tastes the most. You will soon discover you could spend weeks [months] exploring between any of your 'BIG places'. If you are looking for natural beauty then the National and State parks are hard to beat, with the likes of Yosemite, Death valley and Grand canyon in the CA/AZ region being among some of the finest along with southern Utah hosting Zion and Bryce canyon among others. These two are a little further north than your current itinerary follows from Vegas to Texas, but it's certainly an option for consideration along with Lake Powell and Monument valley etc etc.

This is just a small selection covering a small part of your trip, so you can see why you are going to have to do some reading and map studying. Once you have got a few 'smaller' stops sorted out and a few more dots on the map [which in all honesty I would regard regard the NP's and natural wonders as the 'BIG' stops] your route will start to take shape, then we will certainly be able to help fill in the blanks and help to 'fine tune' your plans. I would start with working on one leg at a time, for example Seattle to SF, inland [Mt Ranier, Columbia River Gorge, Crater Lake, Lassen Volcanic Park etc] or coast [Olympic NP, Oregon Sand dunes, Redwoods NP, Point Reyes etc] or a mixture of both.

You can use the RTA map centre to create routes and find attractions, it can be found under 'Members' in the green tool bar above. If you need to 'play around' with your options first you can use Google maps and use the 'drop and drag' feature by placing your cursor on the blue route line and 'bend' your route accordingly.

Keep asking questions as you need to and enjoy the planning, it's a fun part of the journey !

Quote:

---

Hope iv posted right wasnt quite sure so clicked a load of buttons and ended up here.

---

[Please keep all questions in this thread with regards to this trip. If you have trouble finding it just click on your user name and select find 'Started threads' and then post reply.