question time

Hello everyone!  This is really cliche, but I'm going to say "sorry I haven't posted in a while"!  It seems that lately, I've either had no time or no internet access! Bad combo!  Anyway, one of my former co-workers asked me about my trip on facebook, and I thought some of his questions might be questions that other people would like to see answered, too.

Q:
So KK, how about a little insight on how you came about the idea of a roadtrip. I don't know if you have a blog or anything, that gets into the details. I enjoy the pics, but am interested on the daily finances, how you figure where you are going, do you have an agenda or of a list of things you want to accomplish and do you see an end to this trip, or is it more like a fly by the seat of your pants and one day stop walking and say "I think i'm going to go home now". My wife and I have toyed with the idea. I think it is very exciting to just go and enjoy life and see what is at the end of that road. Scary but exhilarating also. Thanks. 

A:
Hey! Sorry for the late answer, I've only had internet on my phone lately! But hello from Pennsylvania!

Well, I was reading Kerouac's On the Road when I kind of had the idea to go on a trip (although I have always liked travel and really didn't like the book in the end, haha). My bf and I both kinda hated our jobs (haha)/where we were in life so doing something drastic like the trip seemed really appealing. He was already planning on quitting his job and I thought a cross country road trip would be fun, and when we got together to talk about it, the trip kind of developed from there into this giant balls-out thing.

I do actually blog about the trip at http://gimmefantastic.blogspot.com/
Although lately, I haven't had much time to post :(

From the onset, I thought trying to have an itinerary would be kind of crazy for a trip of this magnitude... so we do kinda just take it a few days at a time, although we are following a sort of path across the top of the country rather than just driving around randomly. We're basically planning on going in a big circle around the country and ending up back home in California and skipping a few of the more desolate states in the middle of the country. We both have some places we really want to see...most of them are the must-sees along with a few random places/things and we're also stopping wherever we have good friends/family that we can visit/crash with. We aren't really sure when we'll be home...the original plan was to be traveling around for a year, but now that seems totally crazy and overly ambitious, haha.

As for the finances, the money to finance the trip is really my boyfriend's and not mine, to be honest! He's an accountant, so he's good with money/numbers and I leave all of that to him! When we decided to travel, he looked at how much he thought it would be and thought about if we'd have enough money. He was able to save a lot of money while working by living modestly. We really think that most peoples $$$ go to things like mortgages, kids, and new car payments. Without any of those things it's pretty easy to save a lot, it seems.
Anyway, the basic plan is that he saved up about 30k and about half of that is for the trip, and half is for him to get re-established when we're done travelling. Ostensibly, when we've spent the alloted money for the trip, it will be time to go back home.

We have been travelling pretty modestly...we only got a hotel room for a few nights in Vegas for $20/night...other than that we have been camping ($10-20 a night), crashing with friends/family for free, or sleeping in our car in Walmart parking lots or rest stops. In Canada and in big cities where sleeping in our car would get us hassled by cops, we've stayed at hostels which has been about $50/night for both of us. Sometimes we can even get a private room for that price and hostels are usually in really happening areas of town.

Other than accommodations, we try not to spend too much money, with food probably being the one big exception because I love to eat good food :3 Although we never really eat anywhere too fancy/cook a lot too. We brought a bunch of dry goods to cook and eat (especially when camping).

Gas has overwhelmingly been the biggest expense, and it has already gone wayyy over what my bf estimated we'd spend! ...and I drive a Honda (although, it is loaded down with all our stuff, which affects the mileage).

Oh man, I'm sorry for the novel I've written in answer, haha! If you guys can travel, you totally, totally should!! Serious. People think traveling this extensively is crazy, but a lot more people do it than one would imagine and it's really easy if you budget travel, haha. Although, I do think that my bf and I are probably more willing to live without creature comforts than most. I don't know much about RVs, but they do seem pretty comfortable (although unwieldy and really expensive).

---

Nick & I are slowly but surely becoming American road trip travel experts.  If anyone out there has any other travel or road-trip related questions, feel free to ask.  You can comment here, e-mail me, or ask anonymously on my formspring (I also answer all manner of ridiculous, anonymous questions on formspring).