Needed help from some Canadians

[berrafromsweden]

Donīt forget, when calculating fuelcosts, that a car takes much more gas when you have two passengers and you have packed it with all your stuff that you need. I would say that 15-20% more is very reasonable to add in the calculation. Especially if you drive alone with no passengers in your own investigation of fuel consumption.

Bernt Bergkvist
Stockholm, Sweden

[carmey012]

hey again, thanks for all the car advice.. the only thing is i wont be gettin my car until June, after my birthday ... so I can't really test out anything because I will have owned it for like 3 weeks if that before the trip.
Oh wow I never even thought about the extra load that would put on the car! So how would I add that extra %? Could you please help

Um.. also, I have started to look at atlases n stuff to see where we could stop for the night and what not, but im not sure how many miles I can do in lets say 8 hrs. Ive only ever driven an hr n 1/2 to toronto and bak ... Do you think if I was to calculate the miles I did on that trip then I would calculate relatively in which city we would be in by then? Or is it completely different because of the freeways or what not... Hmm oh ya!

Another question, does anyone know any good spots to visit along the east coast? Us canadians know very little about the major spots unless its like New York, Sanfransico, California or Buffalo ...

I think thats all the questions I have as of right now

[berrafromsweden]

I donīt know which car you will got, and I must say I even donīt know so much about northamerican cars since Iīm from Sweden. Here in Sweden we calculate that an ordinare Swedish car like Saab 9-5 or Volvo V70 need 1 liter of gas for every 10 kilometers when we do roadtrips. If we translate that to something understandable for you, itīs 24mpg. If your car in smaller than that, 24mpg will be good to calculate for even if you have passengers and a lot of stuff inside the car. If the car is bigger, say 20mpg to be for sure.

I wouldnt care so much about that, since it probably will be no 3 or 4 in order of expensives. If the gas will cost $450 instead of $350 I donīt think that will make the trip unmakeable.

[Midwest Michael]

If you haven't yet read it, I would highly suggest you take a look at the article "Teenage Roadtrip." I think it will provide a lot of help an insight into the kind of major undertaking you want to try.

Most importantly, I would strongly urge you to take at least one small roadtrip before you try this 3,000 mile adventure. Even taking a weekend where you and your friends just go a couple hundred miles away will give you a great deal of help figuring out each of your roadtrip styles, what things work well for your group, and where you could have some problems during your weeks on the road. Considering that you've never been more than a couple hours from home, I'd hate for you to get a thousand miles down the road only to discover you can't stand traveling with your friends and/or being cooped up in a car for 8 hours a day is something that makes you miserable.

As far as your distances, you can use 54 mph as a decent ballpark figure for the fastest you'll be able to travel over a long distance in the areas you'll be driving. That's if you are pretty much driving straight through, any stops beyond the basics for food and fuel will cause you to slow down even more.

[carmey012]

ya, we're going to be taken a 3 night trip after prom but before that it will be kind of hard because my friend is going to France until a month before prom. Anyway.. Im hopeing then we can figure out our road trip styles ... I briefly had skimmed through the Teenage Road Trip article but I'll read it more in depth now.

Is there anythin else I should know? Any more advice before I evolve my own questions.

[PNW Judy]

...but im not sure how many miles I can do in lets say 8 hrs. Ive only ever driven an hr n 1/2 to toronto and bak ... Do you think if I was to calculate the miles I did on that trip then I would calculate relatively in which city we would be in by then? Or is it completely different because of the freeways or what not... Hmm oh ya!

I'm not talking about how fast you can drive or how many miles you can cover in X number of hours. What I'm talking about is your own personal driving style. Some people drive 2-3 hours and they're done for that day. That's it. That's all they can bring themselves to do because they don't enjoy the drive itself. Others think that 2-3 hours is the point where you're just getting warmed up and are fine driving 7-8-9 hours in a day.

You may be able to get to Florida in 2 or 3 days. But will you hate every minute of it? Do you need more days to make the trip enjoyable? And does your interest in driving wane after awhile making it not only unenjoyable but less safe because your mind is wandering?

These are questions only you can answer about yourself.

I really think you should do a practice roadtrip or two before you take this bigger trip on to get an idea of how many stops you need to make durign the day, and how long those stops are, in order for you to enjoy the day's driving. Even though, in theory, you could do 500 miles in a long day's drive, you might find that your personal cap is 300 miles. Knowing this about yourself will help you plan better.

[carmey012]

ya i wasnt totally sure because ive only ever driven one the freeway once and it was for like an hr 1/2 maybe 2 hours and I could have kept going, I don't get tired when I'm behind the wheel. I don't really enjoy driving too much in the dark so I guess that is something to consider also.

Oh ya! I have another question, I went on map quest and got directions and maps and it said there isnt anythin I can do to avoid toll routes.. is that true? and if so how much does it usually cost??

[Midwest Michael]

First of all, regarding tolls, you can't avoid them completely because all of the border crossings in the Niagara area involve crossing toll bridges. They'll cost about $2. Any other toll routes could be pretty easily avoided.

But that's really a tiny detail in a very major project, and honestly, its reflective of the questions you've been asking. I think you will really be much better served by backing up, and restarting how you are coming up with a plan.

Before you start to worry about the costs of toll roads, or how much gas will cost in one direction, or anything like that you need to figure out the basics.

How much time do you have? How much of a budget do you have? and How far can you go and have a good time? And then after answering all of those, figure out where exactly you'd want to go that fits into those criteria.

To me, you haven't figured out any of these questions yet, and until you've answered those questions, most of the little things don't matter.

One more piece of advice. You need to approach this like you have zero experience with this sort of trip, because, that's what you have. That doesn't mean you can't have a good time or have a successful trip, but it does mean there are questions you can't answer. When you say "You don't get tired behind the wheel," it makes me cringe, because you simply haven't driven enough to answer that question. 2 hours of freeway driving will have you no more prepared for a 3000 mile trip than 5 minutes in a baby pool will have you ready to jump off a 20 foot high diving board.

None of this is ment to discourage you. Its only ment to get you pointed back in the right directoin. Short trips down the road and cross country roadtrips are two very different animals. While you don't need a wealth of experience to make either one successful, you can't approach the two things the same way and expect to have good results.

[carmey012]

Okay.. The basics: ~=approximately
~10-14 days (it all depends on our parents exactly how long)
~$1500-$2000 (all depends on the "little things" like gas,accomidations, toll roads, food {it all adds up})
we want to go to florida or to another big ocean and see everything on the way

I know everyone is suggesting we go on little weekend adventures but no one understands how little time we all have. We're all working part-time jobs, attending school, 1 friend is going to France for 3 months, and I don't have my own car yet, I'm sharing with my mom and its the only car she has.
The only excersion I can see us having which is a weekend thing will be in the beginning of June, before that we'll be too busy.

And I can see your getting fustrated by my types of questions, but I was raised to count my chickens before they hatch, I devise a realistic plan of our trip with all costs, plus extra for accidents and to be cautious since nothing is perfect... and THEN make our bugdet
Hense why I'm asking how much fuel is.. because that will be about $400 of the budget... so our budget has to be large enough to accomidate everything

[PNW Judy]

I appreciate the fact that you're trying to nail things down. A lot of people your age wouldn't be so diligent. It seems you have a good head on your shoulders. This reflects well on your ability to put this together.

Is the $1500-2000 per person? Or the total for everybody?

Did you visit the post on budgeting that I provided a link for? If not, please go there now and do that.

If it's $1500-2000 for everybody, I think your budget might work fine for 10 days as long as you choose the more inexpensive options like camping and eating out of your cooler most meals. I think you might be pushing it for 14 days. But, even for 10 days, that's not a lot of money for 3 people so you'll have to be careful with what you spend. Anyway, go through that post and see what you come up with based on what all 3 of you want to do on this trip.

This exercise should give you a good idea of what your budget needs to be for this trip. Once you've come up with a tentative budget with a breakdown for lodging, food, gas, entertainment, etc., then you'll have a better idea of the money you will need for this trip and whether this trip will be feasible with the funds you'll have.

In fact, let's do some of it here:

You previously said: "From my town to Florida is 1335.8 miles. I checked my car online and it says it has an average of 32 mpg and I went on gasbuddy.com and saw the average prices were around 2.30 but I wanted to be safe and said 2.50. My results were it would cost $104.36 in fuel. Does that sound about right?
But I didn't calculate any stops or anythin.. B/c we aren't sure about extra driving that doesnt involve straight freeway drivin, how many extra miles should I add?"

If the 1335.8 miles is accurate, than you need to double-that for the round trip. Then I would add at least 25% for the extra miles, but I feel more comfortable with 33% more miles. So 1336 x 2 + 33% = 2845 miles (if my quick math is right). I would figure that you'll get closer to 25mpg because the manufacturer's estimates are usually a bit on the high side and because of the extra passengers and baggage you'll be hauling. Since you'll be traveling in the summer when gas prices are high, I'd estimate $3.00 per gallon. It probably won't be that high but I always estimate high myself. It's always better to have too much than not enough, right? This comes to about $350 so rounding up to $400 is good and gives you a lot of breathing room in that part of your budget.

Lodging: If you camp every night, you'll probably average about $25/night. $25 x 14 = $350. But it sounds like one of your friends doesn't want to camp every night. Hotel prices really vary. A more inexpensive chain like a Motel 6 might be $45-55/night for 3 people in some locations, and closer to $80-90/night in other locations. So if you plan your hotel stays away from cities or tourist attractions, you will get a lower rate. Just as a ballpark estimate, let's say you will average $80/night for hotels and that you are going to do hotels every 3rd night to please your non-camping friend. In 14 days, that means you will be staying in hotels for 4 nights and camping 10 nights. 10 x $25 = $250. 4 x $80 = $320. 320 + 250 = $570. So let's round that up to $600.

Food: There are huge variables here. Are you eating out of a cooler some meals? Or restaurants? If restaurants, are we talking fastfood places? Or do you want to eat out in a nicer place once in awhile...especially someplace that has good local cuisine? I typically only eat in a restaurant once every 2 days, eating the rest of my meals from my cooler. But, when I do eat in a restaurant, it's usually a bit on the high-end. I'd rather eat out less often but then eat well when I do. We're all different. If you're into fastfood (since many teens are, I'm guess you all are, too), then 3 meals per day x $5 per meal x 3 people = $45/day. But you should add extra into this for a few snacks and fluids. So I'd figure another $10/day for extra drinks (try to drink some water and not just pop). That's $55/day. Let's round it up to $60 for some leeway. $60 x 14 = $840

When I travel, I figure $10/day for food out of my cooler. I replenish at grocery stores, not mini-marts, because it's cheaper and has a better selection. I fill my cooler with cheese, crackers, protein bars, sliced lunch meats, bread, condiments, tuna, fruit, veggies, pop, and lots of water. I probably don't really spend $10/day but, again, I like to estimate high. I then budget myself $30-40 every 2 days for those nicer meals. I actually put the meals more in my entertainment budget than my food budget. But, that's just what works for me. So, my food budget over 14 days would only be $140 but I would add about $280 to my entertainment budget for nice meals out. (Remember, these figures are just for one person.)

Anyway, I figure you could all eat out of a cooler for about $12-15/day if you plan on doing what lots of folks do and eat 2 meals per day out of the cooler, but then eat out one meal per day. You can eat at fastfood places for about $5-7 per person. Mid-range places like Denny's will be more like $10-12 per person. If you're thinking Denny's type of places, you're looking at about $36 for all three of you plus $15 for the cooler food for $51/day. $51 x 14 = $714 per day.

See how it varies? Only you and your friends can pin these numbers down based on how you intend to eat.

Gas: $400
Lodging: $600
Food: $714-840
Total: $1714-$1840

And this doesn't even include money for fun/entertainment, emergencies, souvenirs, etc.

I hope this gives you a better picture of how to figure your budget and helps you understand why we think you're putting the cart before the horse a bit.

Also, re the driving...Michael's also right here. You can't compare a short drive on the highway to a multi-day roadtrip to figure how tired you'll get driving. Based on the inexperience you all have with driving, I would take a guess that 6 hours per day is probably the maximum you should drive. I would plan on breaking that up into three 2-hour chunks. After 2 hours, plan a rest break...maybe a stop at some place you want to explore. Or, at the least, a meal break. At this rate, it would probably take you at least 3 days, probably 4 days, to make it to Jacksonville. Would this work for you and your plans? I really don't think you should try to do it quicker.

I just don't think that a long roadtrip is the time to get your first real experience on the road. However, if it's impossible for you to get out and do some practice roadtrips, then you need to plan for your inexperience while on your trip. This doesn't mean you shouldn't go. It just means that you need to factor your inexperience into your plans. This definitely means laying out a plan where you pace yourself because there are few things more dangerous than a fatigued and stressed inexperienced driver on the road. And, without experience, you may not recognize when you hit your limit. So schedule adequate rest stops in.

Please continue asking questions. That's what we're here for. We're certainly not trying to discourage you. We're just trying to help you think realistically so that you end up having a fantastic roadtrip and will want to do more in the future, rather than ending up having a rotten time and then not wanting to do one again. Hope that makes sense.