Is it your dream to travel Route 66 but are you on a budget? How much does Route 66 cost to do? Ok, we are not going to lie to you, there are much cheaper destinations than this one, but if you organize yourself well, you follow some tricks and you are not a born waste (for example, do not buy a snakeskin belt as a souvenir), you can surely fulfill your dream without having to mortgage you for life.

After having traveled Route 66 by motorhome, we bring you this post with a base budget to travel Route 66, and we detail youhow much does Route 66 cost to do in the different sections: flights, rent of the transport, lodging, gasoline, food, and the rest of expenses.

FLIGHTS

The flight can infinitely change the budget of the trip! Especially if we consider that it will not be a round trip flight to use… since you will arrive at Chicago and you will return from The Angels. To book these flights you have two options:

1. Make a single multi-destination reservation: Arrival in Chicago and departure from Los Angeles. For this, most search engines only search for specific dates, but Kiwi for example allows you to look in a range of days.
2. Make two different reservations for each trip. The trip to Chicago on the one hand and the return from Los Angeles on the other.

This second step can be worth to check the multidestino by setting the cheapest dates. As always, stay tuned for offers, but calculate some 500-800€ per person.

TRANSPORT

Rent a car

If you decide to travel Route 66 by car we advise you to use a search engine like AutoEurope (we used this platform for our road trip through Texas and for the trip to the West Coast and everything was great). These search engines are the best way to find competitive prices.

How much does it cost to rent a car from Chicago to Los Angeles for 15 days? We already gave you an idea in our article “Tips for doing Route 66 (without shitting it)”, in summary, this is what you can spend:

• Daily rent: $ 35
• One way rate: $ 500-1,000 (varies from company to company)
• Expand coverage: $ 5-10 per day.

The total rental price of a normal car for 14 days is around $ 1,200, or about 1.000€. That is, € 500 per person.

On motorcycle?

There are people who prefer to rent a Harley Davidson and travel on Route 66 on two wheels, we discard it from the first moment for several reasons: especially for the price and discomfort (rain can catch you, we would have to carry a lot of luggage ...) . Although it is clear that it has to be an epic adventure and if you are a biker there is no price / discomfort that can keep you from fulfilling this dream.

In motorhome?

Another dream! We could fulfill it by renting a motorhome with a relocation offer (below we explain more). But if you are not lucky enough to find one of these offers that suits your dates, we always recommend use some search engine like Motorhome Republic to get the best prices on motorhome rental.

Relocation of a motorhome

We did a Relocation from Forest City (a tiny little town in Iowa, where we arrived from Minneapolis) to Los Angeles. We found an offer for € 25 per day and, considering that it would be worth it as a means of transport and as “accommodation”, we saw it clearly 🙂

It was an amazing experience and, although we had to skip the first two stages of the Route, we were able to tour states like Iowa and Missouri and discover an America that has nothing to do with what we knew on TV.

In total the Relocation cost us: 275$ (and it must be said that there is much cheaper relocation ... from € 1 per day! Although it is somewhat complicated to find a caravan at this price for so many days).

ACCOMMODATION

If you travel by car

It is best to pull motels and not only because they are the cheapest option ... some of the Route 66 motels are so legendary that they are part of the best attractions on the Route! Our favorites are the Wigwam Motel and the Blue swallow although there are many more.

Although, as you know, we traveled Route 66 by motorhome, for other roadtrips around the US, if we stay in motels, two are the chains we use the most: Super 8 Y Motel 6. The former are somewhat more expensive but better, the latter are more normal and, being clean and decent, have very good prices. We made the reservation from one day to another through booking.com and it worked out better than booking them there directly. The price per night is around 40-60€ per night the double room.

Keep in mind that if you want to sleep one night in Chicago, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, the prices in these places are somewhat higher than on the road.

Another option is to search with Airbnb, we do not see that it is the best solution but it can get you out of trouble at some other time. Here we leave you a € 25 discount for your first reservation.

If you travel by motorhome

It will be easy sleep for free each night. Of course, there will be days that you will park on the banks of a lake mega beautiful and others that you will have to stay embedded among other caravans in front of Wallmart, the most famous supermarket in the USA. If you don't mind ... cool obviamente We obviously didn't care and what's more, we spent some of the best nights of the trip in the gas stations travel centers (intended especially for truckers where you can sleep for free and take advantage of laundry / wifi / food services). You will always be surrounded by other caravans and trucks and being the gas stations open 24 hours a day they are safe places ... not very romantic but look at the positive side: you can eat a hotdog at 3 in the morning.

If this is your case, look for free parking spots in freecampsites.net or in the wikicamps USA APP.

FOOD

This is the departure of the most variable budget of the trip and you can spend on food everything you want. There is very cheap options: pull fast food with their menu offerings for about $ 5, buy ready-made dishes in supermarkets (uh, those ribs and those roasted chickens!), prepare a sandwich or cook in caravan / accommodation kitchen. Of course, touring Route 66 without enjoying its most famous (and rich) restaurants and diners would be a shame.

We used to always have breakfast in the caravan (bread, eggs, coffee and candy) and we know that in most motels the breakfast isincluded so here the cost can be between $ 0 (motel) and $ 1-3 (caravan). If you have breakfast outside be prepared to spend about 5-10 $.

To eat we almost always went outside. The diner menus They are very similar and you will hardly spend less than about $ 10-15 per person. On average we spend between the two about $ 25 (tips of 18-20% included).

Tip: the water is free so if you want to save avoid drinking smoothies or drinks.

For dinner we took advantage of the caravan kitchen and prepared something delicious (or not, but very cheap XD like our dear noodles that cost like 20cent XD). If you want to have dinner outside, calculate that in most restaurants the main dishes are around 9-13$.

Therefore, an estimated price of food per day and person can be between 15-30€.

GASOLINE

In this case travel with mobile home It has a disadvantage: how much these beasts suck! We have spent 2,450 miles to spend 514€. With the car you will spend much less, calculate some 200-250€ approximately.

To know the price of gasoline in different areas of the country check out this website.

Tip: don't forget to fill the deposit in Tulsa, the world capital of oil (it is the cheapest place we saw, gasoline cost $ 1.93 a gallon equivalent to about 3.8 liters, or about € 0.43 / liter).

OTHER EXPENSES

As with each trip you have to have a set of miscellaneous expenses, where we will include tickets to museums and other attractions, souvenirs, parking lots, etc. It is usually the tailor's drawer and the least one can be calculated a priori, but we put a total of 60€ per person.

It is essential to carry a good travel insurance, as you know with health you do not joke and less in a country like the United States! We made a quote with Iati and we see that the insurance Iati Premium, which covers up to € 200,000 costs about 86€ for 15 days Including 5% discount if you hire from this link.

In order to enter the United States you will have to apply for Esta, an online permit that costs 14$, easy and cheap. Here we tell you how to request it.

SUMMARY

After breaking down all types of expenses to consider in a trip to Route 66, we can calculate a budget per total person base taking as reference a trip for two people. It would be the following:

• Flights → € 600

• Car rental: → € 500

• Accommodation → € 400

• Food → € 375

• Gasoline → € 125

• Miscellaneous expenses → € 60

• TOTAL → € 2,060

Calculate some € 2,000 per person if you travel by rental car, and ones € 1,500 if you get a relocation.

We hope we have helped you with these indicative prices, as always keep in mind that at the moment of truth ... it is you who decides how and how much to spend, but we believe that this budget can guide you a lot!

Expensive? Yes, but we assure you that touring Route 66 was one of the most fun and beautiful experiences we ever had.

Video: Route 66 Motorcycle Road Trip. Arizona Cowboys, Hot Rods & Diners (April 2024).