Making this trip happen
Updated: Aug 1, 2021
Costs:
Pre-costs of the trip:
Before I left for the road trip, I ensured that my car was ready for such a journey (replaced tires and belts, got fluids replenished, repaired leaks). I specifically told the mechanic about my journey, how many hours I’d be traveling a day and what I was most afraid of: my car breaking down in the desert.
.I, luckily, had no major mechanical issues during my trip, phew!
I also invested in AAA, which ended up being a very wise choice! Could not recommend this more for a road trip.
As far as the money I had when I left for the trip, since I had officially given up my apartment and was in between housing, I had no rent to pay for the month of August. So, that money was able to be reallocated to my excursions.
I had also had this plan in the works for over a year and had been putting away money for quite a while. If you can save beforehand for a trip like this, do it!
Lodging:
I had planned for the majority of my trip to be camping. I was afraid to camp in the desert during August, so I booked motels and a hostel ahead of time to get through the three nights I was passing through Southern California, Arizona and Utah.
Most campgrounds cost an average of $25/a night and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be spending that amount of money each night for the whole trip.
I had heard of camping for free or dispersed (or primitive) camping on BLM lands. Bureau of Land Management is this wonderful gift the US has to give. There are public or free sites across the country to camp on for free for up to 14 days.
With this said, it does take some serious gathering of information to find spots, as a lot of these are “off-road” or in less traveled areas.
I used the website freecampsites to see areas that were listed and what people’s experience had been like. Just type in the area you are looking to try disperse/primitive camp at. You’ll see a few options come up that are free or paid.
While I think this website is in clear need of an update, I liked how people could add spots they were able to camp or park for free and their comments of their experiences at each of these sites. They might share what condition the road to the site was like or any updates that could be highly valuable to know beforehand. I found this type of information to be helpful, as I don’t have an off-road kind of car. I was very nervous about getting stuck in the middle of nowhere with no service to call anyone.
Using the freecampsites website is actually how I planned the majority of my trip. If I couldn’t find a well vetted dispersed site, I would look for alternatives, like paid camping or a motel.
It’s also worth mentioning that a lot of these dispersed camping sites are down unmarked roads that might be gated and blocked from entry. This is usually due to the time of year, maybe it’s an off season. I recommend contacting a local park ranger about these areas to have as much knowledge as you can about access and their regulations for dispersed camping. Nothing like accidentally ending up in a dispersed camping area during hunting season to cause a catastrophe. That homework has to be done!
The majority of my camping was planned to be dispersed camping. And even though I did my homework, I still ran into some of the areas being blocked off and had to find last minute places to stay in the middle of nowhere.
This is why I strongly suggest that you make sure you have $50 cash on you in smaller increments at all times for being able to secure a site at a paid campground in a pinch.
I did book a couple nights specifically at a few campgrounds and had reservations for a few cheap motels along the way to take breaks from the high alert feeling of camping out in the wilderness alone.
I ended up being quite frugal on the trip and had enough extra cash to stay at hotels to avoid camping on a couple of the more damp or rainy nights.
The total cost of hotel stays and campgrounds came to: $595.95 (roughly 42 dollars a day for the 14 nights I had to find places to lay my head). This could have been even lower if I had really stuck to camping more as I originally intended. There’s always next time!
Other costs:
I was lucky that during my trip gas was ridiculously cheap (under $2/gallon in most states).
Makes a huge difference when you have to fill up every day. I spent about: $396 on gas for about 4,860 miles total.
There were no highway tolls until I hit Virginia. I tried to be diligent about keeping track of the exact cost, alas, I estimate that from VA ➡️ME I spent about $40 on tolls. The highest tolls being the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and entering NY from NJ (both were around $16). Most of these were all-electronic tolling, they sent me bills in the mail after the fact that I paid for online after my trip.
I invested in a year National park entrance pass: America the Beautiful Pass (Cost $80). I ended up going to 8 national parks, a couple were free to enter (Mammoth Caves, KY & New River Gorge, WV), but the rest had entrance fees. I did the math and I saved $110 by getting the pass. Plus, I saw it as an investment toward other potential trips for the rest of the year.
I thought I was smart ordering the pass online months ahead of time, but I was a couple weeks out from my trip and the pass still hadn’t shown up. The place that sends these out was so backed up that it looked like my pass would show up after I had left for my trip.
Luckily, I had discovered that local mountain sports stores sell these passes (like REI or EMS). I canceled my online order and headed to the nearest store. What I wish I did was, confirm that they had passes in stock. I went to one and they were out, had to go to the complete opposite end of town to another store. I could have completely avoided that fiasco if I had just called ahead of time.
As far as miscellaneous spending, I spent money on
buying mementos that I could easily see myself displaying proudly and were relatively affordable. For me, that’s patches, pins, magnets, and postcards.
Comment below with your questions or your own experiences with planning road trips!
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