Aftermath - Review of the plan, cost analysis

After the completion of a trip, there is always this part that is not so interesting. I have a habit of reviewing what I have done in the trip, and have a cost split to see how much I spend in the trip. This information is a bit personal, but I will post it anyway as people may be interested in knowing what it costs to arrange a cross-country driving trip like this one.

In a very early post I have shown the plan on paper. Now this is the final result (with the changes I made in the actual trip shown in blue):

day #	morning	afternoon	evening	stay at	Approx. mileage	Driven miles
1	Leave LA, heading Vegas	Arriving at Vegas	Vegas	Vegas	270	289
2	Vegas	Vegas	Baseball	Vegas	50	0
3	Vegas	Vegas	Vegas	Vegas	50	30
4	Vegas	Vegas	move to Springdale, UT	Springdale, UT	158	195
5	Zion NP	Zion NP	move to Hatch, UT (or Bryce)	Hatch, UT	76.1	65
6	Bryce Canyon NP	Bryce Canyon NP		Hatch, UT	100	115
7	Leave Bryce Canyon	Drive through Capital Reef NP	Arrive GreenRiver, UT	GreenRiver, UT	231	259
8	Canyonland NP	Arches NP	Moab	Moab, UT	100	172
9	Arches NP	Arches NP	Leave for Denver	Denver	354	404
10	Denver city tour	Denver	Baseball	Denver	30	12
11	Leave Denver	driving	Arrive at Topeka, KS	Topeka, KS	433	535
12	Leave Topeka, KS	Arrive at St. Louis, MO	Baseball	St. Louis, MO	422	325
13	Break in the hotel	Leave St. Louis	Keep driving	Nashville, Tennessee		316
14	Keep driving	Arrive at Atlanta	Meet with friends	Atlanta, GA	554	245
15	Leave Atlanta	Keep driving	Arrive at Gainesville, FL!!!	Home, sweet home	331	334
					3159.1	3296

Overall I stayed with my original plan very well. Almost all the points I planned to stop at were closely followed. I was particularly proud about the estimation of the driving mileage I did for the trip. It is less than 5% error. :-)

About the cost, I spent totally about 1800 dollars for this trip, from the first meal I had on the road, to the last photo I developed after the trip. I was not as happy about this part of the trip, because I spent a bit more than I expected to. However, traveling might be expensive, and I could live with that this time as I had a good experience already. A more detailed cost split shows the following:

food	lodging	gas	others
249.2	797.64	370.3	382.89

As you can see lodging cost is the killer. Although I had thrown in Priceline and Motel6 as the great helpers whenever I could, it still made up 44% of the overall cost. This is what I have to swallow if I continue to travel alone. I don't like the cost, but there is not much I can do to change my mentality in the short term, so I guess I need to tolerate this to some extent. Significant expenditure on the gas was expected, as this trip is by nature driving. Consider the high gas cost in the summer and the fully loaded car, Whity had done its part to help me out of this. The "other" cost includes entertainment, souvenirs, baseball tickets, etc. It seems to be a bit high, but if I do the following split:

	food	lodging	gas	others
Before Vegas	104.5	204.64	40.9	196.13
After Vegas	144.6	593	329.4	186.76

You can see the extended stay at Vegas actually cost me a great deal in "food" and "others", as I went to the shows and some buffet at Vegas. Overall, the cross country trip with the focus on the national parks was not that costly. If you can find someone to share the ride and the lodging, let me guarantee you, this is a very, very worthwhile trip to take.