When Barbara and I flew from Dulles airport to Brussels, Belgium in February of 1986 for our year-long trip around the world, our budget was $10,000. We expected to spend about $5,000 on airfares and $5,000 or around $13 per day on everything else. In actual practice, knowing that there would be unexpected expenses, we planned to spend $7 per day and that had to cover food, accommodations, and other out of pockets. Through a combination of extreme frugality and a little work along the way, our money lasted 16 months and we flew home from San Francisco to Virginia nearly broke.

That was the last time we traveled:

for an extended period of time and
when neither of us was working and the only cash flows were negative.

Then this past June,, we were ready to roam again. A few things were the same as they were 36 years ago.

We forwarded our mail to my mother to deal with.
We had to bring gear for all kinds of weather.
With both of us retired were on a strict (albeit slightly more generous) budget.

But there were also some important differences.

Although no air travel would be involved, we would be driving long distances in our own vehicle. We would need to pay for accommodations in expensive countries like the US and Canada and the price of gasoline was soaring; it was already well over $4 per gallon here at home and the stock market’s plummet added to the stress. To be honest, I was nervous about blowing through the travel budget too quickly. My faith, however, was bolstered by the fact that worst case scenario we could sleep in Walmart parking lots for free and by our habits of frugality honed over a lifetime.

Now with all the final numbers in from our 3 months on the road and 13,000 more miles on the van, I am ready to share with you what it costs to do something like this.

Here is how it breaks down.

Camping 2,,031.45

Equipment and Supplies 125.48

Fares 815.43

Fees 3,812.48

Gasoline 2,362.85

Hotel 1,261.53

Other 320.90

Restaurants 1,615.21

Misc. Expense 25.00

Total 12,370.33

A few things of note.

We only stayed in hotels a total of 7 nights but those 7 nights totaled more than half of all the camping expense. Camping saves a lot of money.
Fares are things like ferry rides or taxis.
Fees are mostly for things like day cruises, whale watching, or the bus trip to the Arctic Circle but I also stuck ATM fees and currency conversion fees in there too.
Other is mostly the cost of forwarding our mail (to my mom) and also laundromats.
Finally, Misc. Expense is cash expenditure that was unaccounted for. Probably the odd coffee or bag of ice, I forgot to enter into Quicken, my financial software.

So there you have it. 86 days — $143.84 per day or if you remove the fees for the special things $99.51 per day. Call it $100 per day. I will let you decide if that is a lot or a little for a three month trip.

There are a few things omitted. One is groceries. The reason I left this out is that we would have had to eat at home as well and we actually spent less for food on the road than we would have at home — simpler food, lots of pasta and salad, few exotic ingredients.

Also not included are the two oil changes and four new tires we bought on route. That was close to $1,000.

Obviously the cost of the van and its conversion is not included. Although this is a significant cost, the van serves as our second car and even with the conversion the used Sienna cost less than many people spend on a car. Even better, it gets 28 mpg and drives like a car.

Having this information now, I feel more confident in budgeting for upcoming road trips. Where next? The southwest including the Grand Canyon is currently leading for the Spring.

Hope to see you on the road!

Economy