how much $$$ to drive cross country

[ceyoung]

I'm driving from NY to CA in august. I asked a friend who made the trip and he said it cost him about $2000. This doesnt seem even close to reasonable. Does anyone here have experience with how much it would cost? We plan on sleeping in a tent some of the nights to add to the experience and save some money.

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm driving from NY to CA in august. I asked a friend who made the trip and he said it cost him about $2000. This doesnt seem even close to reasonable. Does anyone here have experience with how much it would cost? We plan on sleeping in a tent some of the nights to add to the experience and save some money.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's insane unless he stopped at every strip club along the way.

[Jurollo]

I drove from MA to GA and back. It was $350 or so to rent a car for the week. Probably $50 for tolls, and $125 for gas. All together it was 2400 miles. That is the closest guess I can give you. You won't deal with a ton of tolls because it is all freeways west of the miss. river.
~Justin

[swede123]

Your friend must drive an M1 tank or something to drop that much cash on that trip. A quick lookup on Yahoo Maps gives me 2,843 miles from NYC to LA. Let's say you drive a car averaging 25 miles to the Gallon you'll use about 114 gallons. Let's assume you buy all the gas at $2.50 per gallon (probably a high estimate), and you're now spending $284 on gas. Yahoo's driving directions says the trip will take about 44 hours, so assuming you do 10 hour days you need motels for four nights. Let's say you are picky about rooms so you're spending $80 per night, and there you have $320. Add another $200 for food and misc. (toll roads, car washes, entertainment during your stops etc) and you're looking at $800 for the entire trip. All these estimates are on the high end. I bet you could do it for $500 if you were mindful of where you slept, what you ate etc.

Cheers,

Swede

[meep_42]

3000 miles @ 25mpg = 120gal * $2.15/gal (estimate) = $258
Tolls = Go west, then to the south of Ohio and you won't hit much at all, $50 tops
60mph * 10 hours driving = 600 miles per day, 5 days. $70/night for lodging = $350
Food = $20/day = $100

258 + 50 + 350 + 100 = $758, and i'd say that's a pretty generous estimate.

-d

[meep_42]

[ QUOTE ]
Your friend must drive an M1 tank or something to drop that much cash on that trip. A quick lookup on Yahoo Maps gives me 2,843 miles from NYC to LA. Let's say you drive a car averaging 25 miles to the Gallon you'll use about 114 gallons. Let's assume you buy all the gas at $2.50 per gallon (probably a high estimate), and you're now spending $284 on gas. Yahoo's driving directions says the trip will take about 44 hours, so assuming you do 10 hour days you need motels for four nights. Let's say you are picky about rooms so you're spending $80 per night, and there you have $320. Add another $200 for food and misc. (toll roads, car washes, entertainment during your stops etc) and you're looking at $800 for the entire trip. All these estimates are on the high end. I bet you could do it for $500 if you were mindful of where you slept, what you ate etc.

Cheers,

Swede

[/ QUOTE ]

Damn you!

-d

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]

I'm driving from NY to CA in august. I asked a friend who made the trip and he said it cost him about $2000. This doesnt seem even close to reasonable. Does anyone here have experience with how much it would cost? We plan on sleeping in a tent some of the nights to add to the experience and save some money.

[/ QUOTE ]

$2000 is absolutely insane. I did this last summer with my then gf now ex-gf, from Marlboro, NJ to Los Angeles, CA and I made a vacation out of it. You could certainly get by for cheaper that I did.

Here's a rough outline of my trip:

Day 1: NJ->Indianapolis
Day 2: Indianapolis->St. Louis
Day 3: St. Louis->Colby, KS
Day 4: Colby, KS->Denver
Day 5: Denver->Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park
Day 6: Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park->Mt. Evans->Grand Junction
Day 7: Grand Junction->Bryce Canyon Nat'l Park
Day 8: Bryce Canyon Nat'l Park->Zion Nat'l Park
Day 9: Zion Nat'l Park->Las Vegas
Day 10, 11: Las Vegas
Day 12: Las Vegas->Los Angeles

I spent $207 on gas (I drive a 2004 Honda Civic and avg. 36 MPG). I spent ~$500 on sleeping quarters (I used priceline for cheap hotels, and camped other nights) + $90 on a new tent. Add your food costs.

[lu_hawk]

i did it in 5 days and it cost me about $1000. but i stayed at nicer hotels or motels and ate at restaurants. i also got about 23 mpg. if you stayed in a tent and packed your food and drove a fuel efficient car you could do it for less than $300 for sure.

[lu_hawk]

fwiw, i went san jose -> flagstaff, az -> elk city, OK -> st louis -> indianapolis -> NJ

[ceyoung]

fwiw we plan on ny--->(niagra?)--->mt. rushmore ---> yellowstone ---> vegas---> east bay

im thinking we can do it for really cheap. i just wanted to make sure i wasnt the only one that thought $2000 was crazy.

[bogey]

I've done it three times in the past 2 years or so. First time, a buddy and mine drove straight all the was on I-80, only sleeping while the other was driving. It took us about 2 1/2 days, and we each spent less than $200 for gas and food.

The other time, a couple of my friends and I, in two cars, did it, stopping and camping in a lot of the national parks and getting hotels a few times. This was a very round up about trip since we drove from NY up through the Dakotas to Yellowstone, then down through all of the Utah parks. I still only spent about $400 though, and most of that was on beer.

Moral of the story, you can do it as cheap as you want to.

[lu_hawk]

[ QUOTE ]
fwiw we plan on ny--->(niagra?)--->mt. rushmore

[/ QUOTE ]

god bless you

[James282]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm driving from NY to CA in august. I asked a friend who made the trip and he said it cost him about $2000. This doesnt seem even close to reasonable. Does anyone here have experience with how much it would cost? We plan on sleeping in a tent some of the nights to add to the experience and save some money.

[/ QUOTE ]

Haha, I drove to CA and back to NJ on less than 2000. I did a lot of camping and sleeping in the car, and stayed at mostly National Parks. My advice to you is, get a National Parks pass and plan your trips around staying in those. If you split the gas with someone you could easily get out to CA for like 500-700.

Pictures here:

http://community.webshots.com/user/jameswdavis
-James