As we contemplated whether or not to undertake the Epic 50th Anniversary Grand Adventure Road Trip, we greatly considered the cost of the adventure. I’m a relative cheapskate which is why, Randy claims, we have the money to even consider doing something of this magnitude.
Part of the considerations, as I’ve written about before, was whether or not to acquire some sort of RV to keep our lodging and food costs down. Renting an RV was dismissed as ridiculous right from the start. Preliminary investigation showed the cost to just rent an RV is $150 a night and up. And that doesn’t include fuel, insurance, and campground expense. It was a no brainer to quickly reject renting.
After a couple of weeks looking at both new and used smaller drivable RVs, we dismissed that idea as well. There is still increased fuel expense, campground expense, and insurance. But more importantly, the cost of acquiring a new unit was not much under $100,000 (and up), and used units in decent condition weren’t much less than that. When the trip was over, we’d have an RV we couldn’t store where we lived, and that we probably wouldn’t routinely use again anyway. When we crunched the numbers, it didn’t make any sense to own an RV either.
It was in the number crunching stage that I calculated we could do this whole grand adventure, including the Alaska cruise (which cost $4,806) for about $10,000. The cruise was already paid for so that left $5,200 we estimated we’d spend being nomads adventuring for a couple of months. Ultimately, we decided that $10,000 was far less money we’d spend and far less long-term hassle in our lives than buying a fast-depreciating, high maintenance “asset” like an RV.
In the end, as you will see, our reasoning was sound, our number crunching conclusions amazingly accurate, and our peace of mind during and after the adventure much higher than we even anticipated.
So, here, just like Joe Friday from the old show Dragnet, used to say, are “Just the facts, M’am” from Part 2 of our Epic 50th Anniversary Grand Adventure Road Trip.
| Road Trip Vehicle | 2023 Kia Sorento | |
| Total Road Trip Days | 53 | |
| Total Driving Days | 31 | |
| Miles Driven | 10078 | |
| Average Number of Miles Driven per Driving Day | 325 | |
| Total Road Trip Cost | $4,610.23 | This was for lodging, fuel, and eating out. We did not keep track of incidental expenses that we probably would have incurred at home. This proved to be truer than we expected as our credit card bills for the entire trip were only about $3,000 more (total) than in normal, stay at home months. |
| Lodging Expense | $2,199.28 | 28 nights in hotels. |
| Average Night’s Lodging Expense | $78.55 | We are VERY blessed to be included on a Hilton Hotels Friends and Family Plan. This factored heavily into our decision to even undertake the road trip. However, we only stayed in Hilton Hotels for 11 of those 28 nights. There are great hotel deals out there if you look for them. We stayed at the Sahara in Las Vegas for 2 nights in a terrific room for $68 per night (tax included). My favorite hotel booking site is www.booking.com. We found it’s much more reliable than hotels.com as far as ratings and prices go. |
| Restaurant Expense | $1,326.40 | We knew this would be a major expense as we traveled. The thought of eating out every meal was unappealing as well. We kept this expense as low as it ended up by investing $230 before we left in an electric cooler. We filled it with food we could eat as picnics and in hotel rooms using a microwave. That ended up being an outstanding decision. We enjoyed having this culinary and monetary flexibility. |
| Average Restaurant Meal Expense (55 meals) | $24.12 | We ate in restaurants 24 times. However, we took friends we visited out for dinner, so total number of meals purchased seemed the most fair way to present this information. |
| Total Fuel Expense | $1,136.03 (we only paid $1,084.53) | Gas for our car on this trip was $1,136.03 but Lynn and Dave paid for a tank of gas when we all road together from Spokane to Seattle and back for the cruise. |
| Number of Fuel Stops | 34 | We generally tried to fill our fuel when it got to about a half tank. As a rule, we filled up about once a day on driving days. |
| Average Fuel Efficiency | 27.90 miles per gallon | This surprised us. We were very happy with the car. Fuel efficiency is better at higher elevations. |
| Average Price Per Gallon | $3.15 | Fuel was much less expensive after we left Washington State. After we left California, fuel prices had started to come down some and in Texas we saw gas at one station for $2.269 per gallon. It required a loyalty card, but still. When we filled up in Florida before we left, we paid $2.929 per gallon, when we filled up when we returned, we paid $2.519 per gallon, both times at BJs, a wholesale membership warehouse we belong to. Note that whenever it was convenient, we fueled up on a military installation. It was always cheaper, but not necessarily significantly cheaper. |
| Most Expensive Gas | $4.339 per gallon | Ritzville, Washington |
| Least Expensive Gas | $2.429 per gallon | Lackland AFB, Texas Sadly, we only needed 5.64 gallons when we were at Lackland. Gas in Texas was about $2.589 everywhere else. |
| Google Maps Estimate of Total Driving Hours | 157.5 | We tried to average about 5 hours per driving day. I think we hit that although we probably spent double the number of hours actually in the car on the trip. Some days, like on National Park Days, we were in and out of the car for 8-10 hours though we may only have driven 200 miles. It was great to not have time constraints and a strict agenda. We built plenty of flex time into the trip. |
| Number of Day We Ended Up Driving after Dark | 2 | Good planning, huh? |
| National Parks Visited | 8 (Kinda, Sorta) | Painted Desert National Park; Zion National Park; Bryce Canyon National Park; Glacier National Park; Crater Lake National Park; Yosemite National Park; White Sands National Park (closed because of government shutdown); Carlsbad Caverns National Park (closed because of government shutdown) |
| Military Bases Visited | 7 | Malstrom AFB, Great Falls, MT; Fairchild AFB, Spokane, WA; Beale AFB, Marysville, CA; China Lake Naval Air Station, Ridgecrest, CA; Davis Monthan AFB, Tucson, AZ; Holloman, AFB, near White Sands, NM; Lackland AFB, San Antonio, TX |
| Favorite Thing on the Trip | Seeing the diverse, magnificent creation we call Planet Earth | The landscape diversity is stunning and unforgettable. From the peaks of Zion and Yosemite National Parks, to the canyons with the eroded hoodoos of Bryce Canyon, the incredible colors of the Painted Desert, the tumbling tumbleweeds blowing through the deserts of the southwest, we were in awe of the planet. |
| Least Favorite Thing on the Trip | The traffic around the metro areas, especially the I-35 corridor from San Antonio to Austin, Texas | Never want to drive that again. We feel sorry for the people who live there. And for those thinking about moving there…be sure to go spend a week there first driving those roads. That corridor, which is about 90 miles, is wall to wall suburbia. There probably wasn’t 10 miles along that route that I would call rural or green space. And the supercharged elevated highway construction everywhere is kind of scary. |
| Biggest Surprise of the Trip | That we weren’t anxious to end the trip and be home | When we first started planning this grand adventure, Randy was reluctant to “be on the road” for 8 weeks. We both thought it might be too ambitious to be gone that long. We were surprised at how almost every day was something new to discover and savor, and that the time didn’t drag at all. Even on the last night we didn’t look forward with wild anticipation to being home. Although our bodies were starting to protest being in the car every day for hours at a time. Mentally, it was invigorating to be on this journey. |
| Biggest Realization on the Trip | How much of this country is uninhabited | The land area of the entire United States is 3,531,905 square miles. The population of the United States is 340,100,000 people. Simple arithmetic makes that an average of 96 ¼ people per square mile. By contrast, the population density of New York City is 28,211 people per square mile; St Louis, MO – 5,030; Tampa, FL – 3,326; Orlando, FL – 2,707; Huntsville, AL – 924. There is an awful lot of vacant land out there, folks. You should go see for yourself. |
| Best Investment on the Trip | That electric cooler mentioned above | Every night we took it out of the car and plugged it in wherever we were staying. If you take any 3 days or longer road trips, it’s a great investment. If you decide to buy one, I recommend you make sure it comes with both an AC and DC power cord. |
As Randy and I were compiling this information he asked me several times if I wanted to say more about how so many of the military bases looked like ghost towns, or the incredible diversity of the geology out west. I promised him those topics could be future blog posts by themselves so look for more musings about the road trip.
I hope you enjoyed the recap. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.
P.S. Our actual 50th Anniversary is December 12. We kicked around what to do to recognize the actual event and decided that, in the spirit of travel adventure, we also wanted to set foot in Mexico (for the first time ever) during this anniversary year. So I booked a cruise for that week with an itinerary of Cozumel, Belize and the Honduras. It was a bargain and we’re really looking forward to having someone wait on us hand and foot on our big day.
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