Most travelers like to watch to their finances, and so do we. In case you’re interested in how much we spent on what, here’s the breakdown:

• $2450 on lodging (hotels, AirBnB)
• $1700 on car rental (one week out of Portland and three weeks out of San Francisco)
• $1050 on dining out
• $270 on gas and tolls
• $240 on various entrance fees (e.g., the annual national park pass)
• $160 on food from supermarkets

Altogether, that’s around $100 per day per person.

Expenses in the U.S. in November.

Traveling the U.S. is not cheap, if you want to stay in decent private rooms and have a car—which you really need to explore most interesting areas. Going off-season certainly helps, though: Hotel rates are much lower and you avoid the crowds.

We’re in the fortunate position not to pay rent and other recurring bills while we’re on the road (except for storage at $100/month), so we can afford some luxury. Otherwise, lodging and dining out would have had some potential to cut costs.

Creating this summary was easy thanks to credit card statements exported to spreadsheets, and Mathematica doing the rest. Some small cash expenses are not taken into account here.