13 Day USA Roadtrip – How Much I Spent!

Hello, ello, ello, long time no blog post!! But I’m back from my best summer yet working as a camp counsellor at a sleep away camp in the West Virginian mountains. I have soooo much to share about my experience at camp and of course the finances surrounding it but I thought I’d kick it all off with a spending roundup from the roadtrip I did with a few new friends once we left camp.

We spent almost two weeks together travelling from West Virginia up the coast to NYC (where we met up with some fellow counsellors, one of whom was kind enough to host us) and then onwards through Connecticut, Rhode Island & Massachusetts. Before cutting across New England towards Buffalo, NY where we squeezed in a visit to Niagara Falls. And then on through a sliver of Pennsylvania and the entire northern shore of Ohio towards Michigan where we stayed with one of my fellow roadtrippies family for a few days. Leaving there we drove to Chicago where I had an onwards flight booked.

So all in all we travelled through 14 states in 13 days clocking over 2000 miles. Epic if I do say so myself.

But how much did this crazy adventure cost, I hear you ask?? Well let’s jump straight into a full cost breakdown!!

CAR HIRE = £367.81

So this was my share of a car we hired for 5 days from Westchester Country airport in NY to Grand Rapids airport in Michigan! If you follow me on instagram and saw my stories a few weeks ago you’ll know we had an absolute nightmare renting a car (all down to my visa status 🙄) so ended up paying nearly double what we were originally quoted. BUT we ended up with a much nicer & bigger car and considering all the luggage we had this was probably a good thing!!!

Now I know what you’re thinking… “wait, 13 day roadtrip but only hired a car for 5? huh?”. Well we decided to rent a car from NYC rather than DC (where our camp dropped us off) because not only was it significantly cheaper it also meant we didn’t have to faff around with parking in the city. All round win win. Plus when we were in Michigan we were blessed to have access to my friends car meaning we didn’t need the rental. We dropped it off at an airport not far from her.

GAS & PARKING = £83.45

As someone who hasn’t owned a car in 4 years (by choice) this one came as a shock!! Like we were paying $9/hour for parking in some places – is this just the US or is everywhere this insane now?! The gas prices were kinda what I was expecting and every fill up came to around $45-$50 which when divided by three isn’t terrible considering the milage we were putting in.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT = £63.88

As there were those few days where we didn’t have car access we made good use of public transport – like during the three days we spent in NYC where we used the subway to get around. We also took a night bus from DC to NYC. Plus we took a couple of taxis between stops when the luggage just got too much to handle.

HOTELS = £170.96

If I’m proud of anything in our budget from this trip it’s our hotel spend! Like I’m sorry £170 for 13 nights – INSANE!! But lemme preface this by saying spending the majority of our time staying with friends meant free accommodation which we were immensely grateful for and without we probably wouldn’t have been able to do the trip. Two incredible hosts plus one night spent on a Flixbus meant we actually only paid for 5 nights in hotels. And hotel is generous, whilst nice, these were motels on the side of the highway! We would get a double room (as in two double beds) and split the cost three ways – typically working out to roughly $40/night each. Not bad!!

FOOD & DRINK = £380.15

Ooof another big’un!! Whilst we did have a few meals at home (when staying with people) we ate out for most meals – pretty sure we drank our bodyweight in Dunkin coffee over the two weeks. This is a novelty for me as I’m used to extremely frugal travel – e.g. going food shopping and cooking all of my meals. But staying in hotels meant this wasn’t really feasible.

GIFTS = £39.13

I’m not one to walk into someone’s house empty handed, especially if they go out of there way to host me! I’ll always bring a little gift with me or treat my host (one such treat is being classed in my food budget because it was a meal out) hence the gift category. I also picked up some postcards and a cute pair of earrings along the way.

ACTIVITIES = £52.59

Now if you’re a regular reader of my spending roundups you’ll know I’m a MASSIVE fan of free activities/entertainment and not usually one to splurge on these things. However, there a few things came up on this trip that were just too good to pass on. Like the Maid of the Mist experience at Niagara Falls – it’s not everyday you get to have a shower in the famous falls that straddle two countries!! Wait does this mean I can say I’ve technically been to Canada? 😜

Plus whilst staying with my friends family in Michigan we did some cool things like mini-golf, go-karting and my favourite, a sand dune ride!!

RANDOM = £2.01

One particular rainy day in Salem, MA led us all to the nearest Walgreens to buy umbrellas/ponchos. I chose the latter simply because it was half the price of the brollies and there was no way in hell that thing was fitting in my already jam-packed suitcase. So clear, silly poncho it was – lemme tell you I was a site to behold.

So drumroll please… my total spend was a whopping £1159.99.

Now this was my no means my most frugal holiday ever BUT it was my first non-family road trip, the US is expensive af & I had the time of my life so in terms of value it was money very well spent!!!

I’m curious, was my total spend more or less than you were expecting? 👀