The Cross-Country, $1000 Road Trip (and Move!)

For a few reasons, I’ve decided to move from Boston to Los Angeles. To do that, I needed to plan exactly how I would move out there. And, well, there is no finer excuse to jaunt off on a cross-country $1000 road trip. I love exploring new places and, like a lot of people, have daydreamed about driving all over the country. Well, carpe diem! This was my excuse chance to see more of America!

I started the $1000 road trip in the Boston area and here were my stops:

• Pigeon Forge, TN for Dollywood
• Chicago, IL to visit my brother and other relatives
• St. Louis, MO to visit my friend Gwen from Fiery Millennials
• Kansas City, MO for the night
• Oklahoma City, OK for the night
• Albuquerque, NM to visit the Pueblo petroglyphs at the national park
• Flagstaff, AZ to visit Ali and Alison from All Options Considered
• Los Angeles, CA to MOVE THERE

Me being me, I also kept track of how much money I spent during the 11-day trip, which came out to $1,079.65. (Side note: I only took 11 days because I was nervous about taking further PTO from work. While I got to see a lot, I really should have taken at least 14 days to do all that driving!) There were some factors that lowered the total cost for me, and other factors that would have pushed the costs even lower.

Let’s look at some numbers and how I did this for $98 a day!

Category	Cost
Gas	$525.65
Food	$183.46
Fun	$125.01
Hotel stays	$163.19
Misc	$82.34
TOTAL	$1,079.65

The 5 Things That Made It Cheap

Friends for stays, food, and company

I have a lot of friends and acquaintances scattered throughout the US (and some outside of it!) I reached out to a few of them to see if they would be around when I’d be anywhere close by where they’ve settled. There were four friends in particular who offered their guest bed to me while I was coming through.

This was obviously great for my budget, but what was most fantastic was getting to spend quality time with them! Gwen (who also has a great article about road tripping) made sure I tried out a couple of dishes St. Louis is known for, including their BBQ and The Slinger! She also has a phenomenal apartment that made my jaw drop. Ali and Alison also live in a gorgeous home and treated me to some of the best homecooked meals I’ve ever had. My only regret is that I didn’t have more time to stay longer, so if I start posting about a do-over to see them you now know why.

Credit card points for hotels

When I wasn’t staying with friends, I stopped at different hotels and motels along the way. Thanks to travel credit card points, I only had to pay about $163 total for lodgings. For this, I used both the Chase Sapphire card and the Capital One Venture card; without these options, this would have easily been triple the cost. I only cared about having a bed to pass out on so I usually picked the cheapest options available. Since it was the off-season for travelers (late November/early December) I got a better rate than usual.

Gas price arbitrage and driving slower

I drive a 2011 Nissan Rogue and my had a 28 MPG average for the $1000 road trip. For reference, 23 MPG or higher is considered good; for a used car that’s now 12 years old, I consider that a win. One of the ways I kept gas costs low was by fueling up as much as I could in the states/areas I knew had lower gas prices; the cheapest gas I saw was in Tennessee for $2.59 and the most expensive was in California at $5.79. I also kept my driving speed hovering around the speed limit at most part. The faster you drive, the more gas you’re using up.

Grocery stores for food

I only paid for two restaurant meals: one for a deep dish pizza and one for a Monical’s pizza (which is a superior version of St. Louis pizza and Gwen agrees with me). Otherwise, I was only buying food at ALDI or other discount grocery stores.

Researching for free/discount admission

Most cities have free or discounted activities to do or check out. In Chicago, for example, I hit downtown with a cousin of mine and visited the Chicago Cultural Center. It’s one of the most beautiful places in the city and totally free to visit, with art exhibits and gorgeous architecture from its days as a fancy library. We also went to the Palmer House for a drink, which has its own amazing history and used to be one of the most exclusive lounges to visit. Other stops included free museums in St. Louis and the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque. It really pays off to research what gems you can explore on your trip!

I could have made this trip even cheaper than this; others on much longer road trips report spending as low as $50 or $30 per day! The reason I didn’t was due to the time constraint and being distracted by other obligations. I’m very happy with the $98/day trip considering I didn’t optimize my car interior for the trip or do further cost-saving measures like camping.

The Reason for the $1000 Road Trip

If you’re planning on a road trip yourself, your route would look more circular so you’d end up back home again. Unless, of course, you do what I did and bundle a road trip in with moving. As a single person with no kids or pets, I could get away with traveling this way.

To make the move I had a few options, including:

• Flying to CA with suitcases with me
• Renting a UHAUL and driving cross-country with that
• Hiring a moving company to haul all my possessions from MA to CA

Some of these are cheaper options than others. The cheapest would have been simply booking a plane ticket and paying extra for extra baggage. The most expensive, the moving company. I could have also done what a coworker of mine did when moving from CA to MA (or opposite of me): pack my car full of my stuff and ship the car to my destination. I looked up some quotes for this out of curiosity and that costs in the ballpark of $800-$1,200. Not a bad move, but now you know you can drive yourself and see the country for roughly the same price.

I am now officially settled in my Hollywood apartment, and getting whiplash whenever someone casually mentions being related to a celebrity. It sure is a different culture from the Midwest and New England, but I enjoy it so much more than I initially thought I would. Wish me luck on this new life chapter!

Cover image credit: Martin Adams via Unsplash