Staying on Budget: Cross Country Roadtrip

From east to west to mountain to city to forest to desert to ocean, three recent college grads set out to see the country before entering the real world.

Passes

Knowing that one of our main goals of this trip across the country was to visit national parks, one of our first purchases was an “America the Beautiful” pass, a pass that got you, and up to three others, into any national park in the US. The price is $80 and is good for a year (cheaper if you are military or senior). This may seem like a lot but split with two or three other people and considering most National Parks run you $30, this saves A LOT. So in the end we each paid $27 to go to 12 National Parks. 

Rental Car

Another huge money saver is being a AAA member. I wasn’t one until I saw how much money it saved you on rental cars. This is also a yearly expense and runs you a little under $60 in Massachusetts where I'm from. For the rental car you get a discounted price as well as having the “young driver fee” waived completely. We were all 22 at the time, so still considered young drivers. Not only does this save you money on rental cars but you get loads of other deals and of course, roadside assistance.

When choosing a rental car you want to make sure it is unlimited mileage - this was of course huge for such a lengthy trip. I’m sure Hertz regretted this after seeing we put 9735 miles on the car in total! Other things to consider is the size of the car - you don’t necessarily want to go smallest for cheapness. You want to consider how many people you have, how much stuff all of you are bringing, how much stuff you’ll accumulate on the trip, and comfort level in the space you have since you will spend most of your time literally living in this car. You also need to consider gas mileage. The larger the vehicle, the more you will generally spend. We ended up choosing a full size car for all of the above reasons. We ended up with a brand new car with great mileage.

Itinerary is of course the most important part of planning a trip. Know generally where you want to go and see, but do not set a strict time line - things will and do change.

Camping

Camp! Staying in any sort of hotel, motel, hostel, etc will send your budget way up. Who needs four walls and a bed when you can have a fire pit, sleeping bag, and birds as an alarm. There are campgrounds everywhere across the US. This is one part where I personally think we could’ve saved even more money if we looked even harder. Not that we didn’t! Searching for campsites requires effort and time so good thing you have so much time in the car! Because we did not have a strict time line, we did not book anywhere more than 48 hours in advance. More times than not we searched for campsites on our way to a destination and called on our way there. 

There are multiples kinds of campsites. Some are campgrounds that are run by a person present there and are open to tents and RVs. These are generally the most expensive but you also get a hot shower and sometimes even laundry. There are also plenty of campsites that are free. Most free sites we found were ones in the middle of the woods where you chose where to pitch the tent and there were no amenities except for a hole in the ground they considered a toilet. But when it’s free, NO COMPLAINTS. After sleeping in a tent a couple of times you get very used to the lifestyle and is actually quite enjoyable to be living within nature. You also get quite good at starting fires - speaking of, keep an eye out for cheap firewood either sold at campgrounds or gas stations.

Couch Surf

Not all sleeping has to be done in bear neighborhood though. Call up that friend you haven’t talked to in years that you know moved out of state, facebook message that cousin you haven’t seen since you were a kid, reach out! You’ll be surprised how willing people are to let you stay on their couch for a night for free. They love to hear your stories of your trip so far, give you food, give you their showers, show you around, and tell you what you should do while in the area. Between friends and family, we saved a good chunk of money by couch surfing across the country. We stuck to people we knew but there are also websites and apps out there made for this purpose.

Food

Another mandatory expense is food. If your main goal is to save money, sorry but you can’t go out to eat at those “must eat restaurants when you visit _______!” You have a couple of options here. Unfortunately you will end up eating fast food if you’re on a budget. More than you want to. Besides this though, you can get things in bulk at grocery stores. For example, for under $10 you can get a loaf of bread, lunch meat, cheese, peanut butter, bananas, and protein bars. This will feed all of you for two meals a day for a few days. Not only that but these include no cooking, so turn that back seat of the car into a temporary sandwich kitchen. You can also get very cheap items to cook over a fire such as canned goods (they don’t go bad!) as well as an assortment of other things.

Gas, Tolls, and Parking

The last mandatory expenses are those that come along with a car. There’s not much you can do about gas besides trying to find cheaper gas stations. Don’t go to ones on highways or right off highways. There are also apps that find the cheapest gas closest to you. As far as tolls, of course you can reroute to avoid tolls but remember to weigh out the difference between the toll price and the amount of miles/gas it would be to avoid it. Also, depending on what state you are traveling in there could be an option like the Massachusetts EZ Pass which makes the tolls cheaper and quicker. Parking can get expensive if you plan on hitting any big cities. Use apps like Park Whiz or Spot Hero to book cheap parking ahead of time.

Optional Expenses

Besides these mandatory expenses the rest of our money went to coffee, more coffee, ice for the cooler, beer, energy drinks, souvenirs (hats, shirts, knick knacks, gifts, etc), legal weed, food splurges (Chicago deep dish pizza, VooDoo Donuts, Ice Cream, snacks), toiletries we ran out of (deodarant, toothpaste).

In Conclusion

Most importantly, remember to keep track of your expenses so it can be split between your travel buddies. Instead of trying to equally pay for gas as we went, we just wrote down what we each paid for gas. Same goes for campgrounds, food, ice, tolls, anything. Trying to pay each other back as you go gets confusing and can cause stress. Keep a log of expenses and at the end of it all divide it up equally.

You don't have to lessen your trip in order to stay on budget and you don't have to be rich to make it perfect. We saw everything we wanted and had the absolute time of our lives. You just have to be smart about it. Plan ahead - but not too much. Cut unnecessary corners. Don't be picky. Think efficiently. 

Happy trails.