Epic Summer Road Trip 2019: Stage 1 - Planning (How much money do I want to spend?)

Planning an epic, weeks-long road trip is haaaard!  Quitting your job is an easy first step so that you can actually have time to plan, but then the discipline of committing to the planning has to kick in.  I'm a project manager by profession so I knew I had to start "big picture."  I started with the three basic tenets:
1.  Budget - How much money do I want to spend?
2. Duration - How long can we road trip?
3. Scope - Where the heck are we going?

1.  How much money do I want to spend?  To be honest, this one wasn't the highest on the priority.  We had a nest egg which I could tap into from the savings account.  I asked my accountant (Wendy) about expenses and she basically told me, "Once the vacation is over you'll need to start looking for a job."  Boo.  Okay, a bit of a wishy-washy budget constraint.  A normal person would get a rough estimate of how much they wanted to spend and work from there.  No one gave me budget constraints so I could theoretically fly to each destination first class and stay in nice hotels while eating at restaurants every day.  Honestly, I don't think I could do that even if I was a multi-millionaire.  

Growing up in central New York State farm country to a father who was a high school history teacher, money was never thrown around.  Every "major" purchase I made as a kid included a heavy dose of guilt trip from my parents where my mother would say, "Are you SURE that's what you want to spend your money on?"  Frugality was instilled into me from an early age.  My first major challenge regarding commerce was going to Bucknell University which was filled with peers who could spend money freely and frequently.  Thank god that my college days were the peak of the Grunge era so I could wear my worn out jeans and plaid shirts without anyone batting an eye.  

The Aliner popped up (sides fold in and the 

roof folds down on itself to form a rectangle)

My first thought around expenses was figuring out where we were going to sleep.  Do I just take the truck and tent it?  Rent an RV?  Buy an camper?    An RV rental would cost at least $100/day.  Over 6 weeks that's pretty expensive (~$4,200).  Ironically, I ended up buying a used 2013 Aliner pop up camper for $12,500, but the rationale is that if I wanted to sell it at the end of the trip I could probably recoup most of my money back.  I wanted a pop-up trailer to reduce fuel costs and have the ability to unhitch it if we wanted to do some day exploring in congested or hard-to-reach areas.  Mom and Dad had bought a stripped down version a few years ago and I liked the fact that it's fully enclosed to reduce outside elements (specifically loud neighbors at camp grounds).  

Now, this beast was a bit bigger than I was looking for, but I found a good deal on craigslist.org for a fully loaded version (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWodPLG1-Fw) in very good condition.  Little did I know that you don't just buy a camper.  I had to purchase and install a brake controller in the truck, side mirror extenders, and, of course, pay to have the camper registered among other things.  I also came to find out that the truck needs new tires which I'll be installing prior to the trip.  

The kids and I did a test drive over spring break down to Santa Cruz, CA and back.  The camper comes with a stove top, fridge, and sink so that we can theoretically do all of our cooking without having to rely on eating out all the time.  The camper sleeps three people comfortably so someone will have to sleep on the floor or in a tent when Wendy joins us for parts of the trip.  

The other major expense that I needed to consider was where we were going to stay.  I opted for a mixture of KOA's and state parks on the route.  Most KOA's have the water and electric hookup so that I can plug in and keep the camper cool with the AC unit as well as providing a pool for the kids to jump in to when we hit the hot states.  KOA's run on average about $55/night while state parks are now about $30/night.  Obviously the prices vary depending on the popularity of the area.   We are also planning on staying with friends/family along the way when possible.  

Fuel costs (gasoline) will be come to about $2000 for the trip, but I didn't really factor this price at first since I didn't know the route yet.  The intent was to maximize miles per gallon by towing with my Toyota Tacoma and having a relatively low pay load.  The dry weight of the camper is about 1900 lbs.   

As mentioned above, we'll be eating most of the meals out of the camper or "brown bagging it" to minimize food expenses.  I'll prefer to spend a little extra money on food when we get to areas known for their famous cuisine.  Yum!