Cost to Travel by Car Across the USA

Cost to Drive Across USA —

I thought that it would cost me around $250 to drive a small Subaru Legacy almost the entire length and breadth of the USA: from Bangor, Maine to Quartzsite, Arizona.

I thought wrong.

After tallying up my expenditures, the trip, which took five days, removed $350 from my travel funds.

I did not pay for accommodation during this trip — as I made good use of rest stops and the homes of family and friends — and I also only spent around $22 on food. The remainder of these expenses were from a $20 oil change, gas, and coffee. But as there is a limit to how much coffee I can drink — and it is a relatively cheap substance at that — my main expense was, unsurprisingly, gas.

I thought that I had spent a lot of money on this journey, but now that I have had a little space to reflect on how far I actually traveled — How far is 3,000 miles — I must say that I did this trip for a penance.

$329 is not much to have spent for a 3,000 mile road trip with gas costing between $2.10 and $2.80 a gallon.

The archaeology company that I am working for agreed to pay me 16 hours of drive time, so that removes around $180 from the total expense.

The road trip from Maine to Arizona, in the end, deducted $150 from my travel funds. But I have already made this back by working two days last week.

So I am now on my second week of working in Arizona making money to travel further and farther. Time is not money but money is a representation of time.

The journey across the USA cost 40 hours of working on the farm, but I have already made this back with 32 hours on the archaeology clock.

Making time to travel doing archaeology fieldwork.

Maine to Arizona Road Trip Series

[seriesposts orderby=date name=”maine to arizona” ]