A couple of weeks ago, my 2 boys and I took a roadtrip to visit my sister. It was about a 12.5 hour drive each way, so I broke it into a 2 day trip (there was no way a 5 and 3 year old were going to drive for that long in 1 day).
Last week, I wrote about how we decided to drive vs. fly or some other mode of transportation. Today, I'll give you some tips on how we saved money on our road trip:
- Plan Your Gas Fill-ups Before you Leave - you don't need to know exactly which exit your going to get gas, but each state has different taxes on gas, so the prices can vary widely by state. For example, I knew that MI usually has higher gas prices than other states, so I made sure that I filled up in OH before I crossed the state border. You can use the site GasBuddy to get an idea of gas prices in each area before you leave.
- Check your Tire Pressure/Air Filter - Make sure that your vehicle is well-tuned up to get the best gas mileage possible on your trip. Also, if you drive slower, you will improve your fuel mileage. You will use about 15% less fuel driving at 60 mph vs. 75 mph.
- Get a AAA Card - We already have a AAA card, but we earned back some of the annual cost by booking the AAA rate at the hotels where we stayed. Plus, if anything had gone wrong with our vehicle, we would have the added security of knowing we had someone to help us.
- Use a travel site to search for the best hotel prices - Although I ended up booking directly through the hotel site to get the AAA card rate, I searched using hotel search sites like Hotels.com or OneTravel.com to see the prices and reviews on all the hotels in the area. That way, I had an idea of the prices in the area.
- Get cash-back on your hotel stay or Join a rewards club - If you do end up booking through a travel site, you can get 5% cash-back from Cashbaq for Hotels.com and 1% cash-back from Cashbaq or Ebates if you book through Expedia.com. Although it's not much, every little bit counts. Or, if you book directly through the hotel site, see if there's a rewards program where you can earn points towards free nights in the future.
- Bring snacks/drinks/lunches with you in the car - In order to save money on food costs, bring snacks and food for at least lunch the first day. If you have room, bring a cooler for cold drinks for the road.
- Choose a hotel with a free continental breakfast - Although we stayed in close to bottom-of-the-barrel hotels, each of the hotels offered a free breakfast. I wasn't expecting much from them (based on the complaints in the reviews), but they were actually pretty good with cereal, bagels, donuts, juice, and milk. They filled us up, and helped us save money on breakfast food.
How do you save money when you go on a long trip in the car? Did I miss anything? For more frugal tips, please visit Being Frugal.
Photo by MarkMiller.
Tia Y
Like you we always pack food, drinks and snacks because that always saves a bundle. I would not have thought to look into gas prices in different states, that is such a great idea! Thank you for sharing with us!
susieshomemade
We use all of these pieces of advice for road trips except the first one. We will have to do that in July when our next trip is planned:-)
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Liz
Great advice. I know it's not really saving money, but this is another tip for when you are doing a big trip and staying somewhere else the first night. We pack one separate bag with everyone's pjs, clothes for the next day, toothbrushes, cuddlies etc, so on the first night we only need to get out one bag, not a bag for each person. It does mean one extra bag, but it's so much easier than unpacking the whole car, especially if you use roof racks like we do, it means we don't have to unstrap and unload all those bags, just to put them up again the next morning!
Thanks for the tips.
Corrie @ "Cents"able Momma
Great tip! When we made our last trip, I realized we needed something like that the first night :-). I ended up pulling some stuff out of our suitcases and sticking it in a plastic bag. I definitely wanted to minimize the amount of stuff I needed to bring into the hotel with me.