As with gas, I also round up each night’s estimated cost to account for unforeseen lodging expenses such as firewood at the campground or unexpected parking or internet fees at hotels. If we are planning on camping, but we are just not sure which park we will be stopping at, I look up campsite costs in the area to get a general idea of their fees so I can more accurately estimate our costs. But there are times we like to wing it and hit the road without reservations, so I just check out typical lodging costs for the region on a mobile app (I usually use Trip Advisor or Travelocity) to estimate this daily expense. When we are reserving all of the places we are planning to stay, it’s easy to keep track of the total cost of lodging since we already know the total price. Sometimes we camp, sometimes we stay in hotels and we also stay with friends or family at times. You have lots of options for lodging when on a road trip, and the cost of a night’s sleep can vary widely. After I have added up the amount of driving I will be doing each day and calculate the estimated cost for that day’s gas, I generally round up the total gas cost by about 10% to account for variables in gas prices that inevitably occur after my budget has been planned. This helps keep my gas budget accurate for the whole trip. So if I’m driving 500 miles throughout California, where gas prices can be high, I determine my gas costs for that portion of the trip and then add it to the gas costs of the 500 miles I’m driving in Nevada where gas is a bit cheaper. If on a longer trip, I do this calculation for each day of the trip so that my total gas price in the road trip budget planner reflects regional differences in gas prices. So let’s say our trip is 1000 miles and we get 25 miles per gallon and the average price of gas is $2 a gallon, our total gas cost is $80. Since some of our road trips are too long and complicated for the trip calculator tool, I just figure it out myself based on our car’s gas mileage. GasBuddy also has a useful Trip Cost Calculator tool to do the math for you to figure out your total gas cost which works great for shorter trips. Simply enter the cities you will be driving to and find out the average price of gas there. If your road trip is taking you across the country, gas prices can vary widely, but it’s easy to determine the cost of gas at various destinations by using GasBuddy which is available as both a website and mobile app. Once I’ve added both the initial driving mileage and the additional mileage from driving at our destination, I round up in order to have a slight cushion in my budget. For example, when we visited Joshua Tree National Park, we added a lot of mileage to our road trip driving back and forth to the Visitor Center to fill up our water containers. This is especially true in National Parks and other wilderness areas simply for the fact that things are much further apart from each other. Make sure you add any additional mileage that you will be driving while at each location since this can easily add to the total mileage. Once you’ve entered in all of the destinations in your planned itinerary, you have your total mileage. But you can use whichever mapping website you like. It’s what I’m used to and you can add destinations to your itinerary and easily modify your desired route. I like to use Google Maps when planning my initial route since I am a creature of habit. Using your favorite mapping website, determine the mileage of where you are planning to travel. With a few simple tools, it’s also fairly easy to determine the amount of gas you will need for your trip. I will start with gas as that is pretty much a fixed expense since if you are driving a regular car, you have no other choice but to buy fuel to get to the places you want to visit. The three largest expenditures in my road trip budget planner are usually gas, food, and lodging. But expenses can add up when you take into account meals, gas, a place to sleep, and activities, so I’ve learned over the years how to make an accurate road trip budget which I am going to share with you here in my helpful free road trip budget planner that you can print at home. With careful planning, even long road trips of a month or more can be a budget friendly travel choice. And a road trip is generally a pretty cheap way to travel. There’s something about heading off down the road with a full tank of gas that makes me feel totally free and ready for an adventure. Planning a road trip and trying to figure out the total cost? You need to have a road trip budget planner to get organized! I am beyond excited to share with you a road trip budget planner that I put together that has been an helpful resource for planning our upcoming 10 week long summer road trip throughout the US and Canada. Free Printable Road Trip Budget Planner to Help You Get Organized! by Tricia
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