The Cost of Our Cross-Country Move

We did a 6 day road trip from Ohio to California! It cost us about $100 a day total including gas. This was because we used Couchsurfing for all of our accommodations. When you are paying for a place to stay, travel in the USA gets expensive.

Toledo, Ohio to San Diego, California

6 Days

2461 miles

Gas: $398.11

Tolls: $25.80

Food/Beverages: $245.85

Accommodations: Free!

Grand Total: $669.76

We didn’t exactly live like paupers during this road trip.  We Couchsurfed everywhere of course, but we also splurged on quite a few meals out and quite a few brewery stops in Colorado.  It was a mini vacation!  Still, I think the fact that we spent so little proves something…

Do it.

***Edit 2024 We were drinking a lot at this time of life, so the food budget/beverages reflects that. We used to track all of our money, mostly so we could make these types of posts really accurate. But obsessing over the budget takes its toll, we always wanted everything to be the cheapest possible. It didn’t allow us to grow as people, and created some money mindset problems. It was hard to bridge the gap eventually into being someone successful with money who was willing to pay for things.