Dallas To LA

[Scootergurl]

Hello all, my name is Alex. Last summer, I went with my parents to California and absolutely loved it. I would love to go back there again. So here's the plan...my friends and I are going to road trip to California next summer ('07). However, we're all freshman in college and we have no idea how to go about doing this. We have a rough idea about what we want to do, and that is cut through El Paso so I can see my family. Then, make our way up north through California. We really want to hit Irvine, LA, and the San Francisco bay area. Any help would be much appreciated. I'd really like to get an estimate of how much gas, food, hotels, etc. would be, as well as how much time we should allow for this. I was thinking maybe 2 weeks? Thanks for your time!

Alex

[W. Larrison]

Hi Scootergurl -- welcome to the Roadtrip America forum.

It's a doable trip in 2 weeks, but you'll make making some miles. As a rough first cut, you'll be doing around 2000 miles each way (maybe something less). Go on to one of the internet map sites and look at the routes and distances you might go, and it'll give you a rough estimate of miles to drive and hours you'll spend behind the wheel. www.maps.com, www.mapquest.com or the maps at Yahoo all are good ones.

If you know the mileage you car gets, you can roughly estimate how much money you'll need in gas.

For lodging and food, that will depend upon what you plan on doing. If you're staying in a hotel room, and depending upon how good of a hotel room, you can estimate that depending upon how many nights you would be staying. As a rough rule of thumb, around $40-50 per night per person is reasonable -- and somewhat less with 3 people in a room instead of 2 -- for a reasonable but not great hotel.

If you camp, you can camp for around $20 per night for the group, but you'll need to take camping gear with you.

Food will depend upon if you're planning on buying every meal, or going to bring an ice chest and make as many meals as you can out of that. (I typically do this for lunches and snacks, and also dinners if I'm camping). Meals in restuarants will depend upon your taste -- fast food for around $5-8 per person, Denny's type diner/ family restaurant food for around $10-12 per person, and fancier restaurants for $20-30 per person.

And don't forget "fun money" -- admissions to parks, buses for bus tours, parking at the beaches, museums, souvieners, t-shirts, etc. And in two weeks, laundramat money too.

Do a quick serach on the forums here under "budgets" and there are lots of threads talking about estimating costs and living within a budget on a road trip.

[Scootergurl]

Thank you so much, Larrison. I will definitely be researching some more.

[lhuff]

I know that I did this same type of trip a few years ago and have posted about it in several threads entitled things like Texas to California, etc. Also look at threads I've posted to about costs. I got very ambitious one night and broke down the costs very carefuly for this sort of trip.

Once you get further along and have specific questions just let us know and we'll be happy to help out.

Laura