How expensive is a road trip at the US west coast?

How expensive is a road trip at the US west coast?

You think such a road trip is pretty expensive with all the flights, rental car(s) and hotels, right?

I have to disappoint you. You know why?
There is a secret recipe called „price comparison“ ;-)

From Germany or UK there are a lot of cheap flights to Los Angeles (LAX).
Just keep your eyes open for special offers. Sometimes you have to be very flexible to take an offer.

Where can you find these cheap flights?

I am looking at skyscanner, momondo, kiwi.
But you can find them on facebook as well. Just subscribe to travel sites like: holidaypirates.

In this short version I am gonna tell you what my sister and I have paid for our 3-week road trip.

Our road trip:

March 13th Arrival in L.A.
March 18th Flight from LAX to SFO
March 21st Rental car – along the coast
March 23rd Arrival in San Diego
March 26th Arrival in Las Vegas
March 31st Departure to Duesseldorf

Flights:

Outbound flight: Duesseldorf (DUS) – Newark (EWR) – Los Angeles (LAX)
Return flight: Los Angeles (LAX) – Toronto (YYZ) – London (LHR) – Duesseldorf (DUS)
Price: 336 Euro per person

For this 3 weeks we had 2 internal flights and 3 rental cars:

Flights:

L.A. - San Francisco = 85 Euro per person
Las Vegas – L.A. = 70 Euro per person

Baggage fee was between $25 - $50

Rental cars:

5 days L.A.
Midsize SUV (Hyundai Tucson)
= 220 Euro

3 days along the coast (San Francisco – San Diego)
Convertible (Ford Mustang)
= 133 Euro

6 days (to) Las Vegas
Fullsize (Chevrolet Malibu)
= 240 Euro (after upgrade to this car)

Refuel:

I was pretty overwhelmed how cheap it is!
We have always paid between $20 - $30 – and the tank was full !

Accommodation:

I booked the accommodations in advance to save a lot of money!
I prefer booking.com, hotels.com and expedia.

Los Angeles:

5 nights
Motel: Crenshaw Inn
= 304 Euro (for 2 people)

FYI: Don't book this Motel! Bad experience!

San Francisco:

3 nights
Hotel: Minna Hotel
= 186 Euro (for 2 people)

Santa Barbara:

1 night
Motel: Orange Tree Inn
= 71 Euro (for 2 people)

San Diego:

4 nights
Hotel: West Park Inn
= 179 Euro (for 2 people)

Las Vegas:

2 nights
Hotel: Oasis at Spike
= 90 Euro (for 2 people)

3 nights
Hotel: Fortune Hotel & Suites
= 181 Euro (incl. resort fee)

Food & Drinks:

We didn't eat in restaurants every day! Because a visit in a restaurant would be $20 to $50 (+ tip)!
So, for breakfast mostly we bought some cereals, fruits, bread, nutella, cheese and water.

At a rough guess we paid $300 (+ tip) for 3 weeks (for 2 people)

Shopping:

Do you like shopping? Do you like to save money?

I like to save money!
So, I used coupons and discounts to save a lot of money.

Example:
Outlet Store Tommy Hilfiger

If I had bought this clothes in a regular store I'd had to pay $488 !
But with all the discounts I paid only $230 ! :-)

We went shopping in almost every city we have visited^^
We bought the most things at „Ross“ or premium outlets.

Actually, I don't know how much I spend … maybe $400 oder $500
I really don't know. I have lost count … haha.

Events:

TV-Show (record)
2 Broke Girls
Tickets: FREE

(we got a small bottle of water there)

Basketball
LA Lakers vs Milwaukee Bucks
Tickets: $36 (per person)

Magic Mike Live
Tickets: $60 (per person)

So, with all the flights, rental cars, accommodation etc we paid about 1650 Euro
(without events and shopping) FOR 3 WEEKS !

I heard stories about people who paid almost 10000 Euro for 3 weeks ! You can buy a new car for this kind of money !
I would cry if I had to pay so much money...but as you know I like saving money and I would do it again :-)

You can find more photos and the german translation here / du findest die Übersetzung und weitere Fotos hier:

http://finallyontheroad.de/waskosteteinroadtrip/
http://finallyontheroad.de/roadtrip-westkueste1/

Thank you for reading my story and have a good day

Nadine :-)