Home again! (Plus Trip Stats)

Our resort package included a free breakfast buffet, so we did that first thing in the morning. I didn't realize when we booked the hotel, but it also included a lot of outdoor activities. There was a swimming beach on the lake, kayaks and paddleboats, a mini golf course, tennis, playground, so many yard games, and more. I wish we could have stayed here a few days, because we definitely didn't have time to enjoy it all!

After the buffet we went back to the room and packed up all of our things. We decided to check out the outside of the resort instead of going back to the waterpark. Unfortunately I only have one picture on my camera from the day, and it's this one:

But we did have a lot of fun playing mini golf, riding the zip line, playing the in the playground, and enjoying some yard games. It was all too soon before we needed to get back in the van to drive home. We had a seven hour drive ahead of us and hoped to get back before dark. We pulled in the driveway around 8:00 pm. HOME!!!

Trip Stats:

• Total Miles Driven: 6238
• Total Number of Days/Nights on the Road: 23 
• Average Miles Driven Per Day: 271
• Total Amount Spent on Fuel: $1,036.54
• Total Amount Spent on Lodging: $542.62
• We spent 1 night at the fancy waterpark resort hotel for a whopping $282.91
• We spent 13 nights at campsites for a total of $259.71 (average of $19.98/night)
• We spent 3 nights at my brothers house (FREE, thanks Adam & Devin!)
• We spent the other 6 nights boondocking (FREE)
• Average Lodging Cost Per Night: $23.59
• Total Amount Spent on Activities: $371.95 
• This included things like parking, admissions to parks, tolls and ferries, toys and souvenirs, road trip treats, and our Golden Corral buffet extravaganza
• TOTAL COST OF AMAZING 23 DAY ROAD TRIP ADVENTURE: $1,951.11

Next time it would be a good idea to keep track of how many miles we hiked. It was definitely a lot of hiking! It would also have been a good idea to keep track of how many gallons of gas we used so that we could track miles per gallon, but I would estimate it was somewhere in the teens with our van. Looking back, we traveled at a crazy fast pace. I would love to be able to take a slower paced trip where we could spend more time at the parks, more time for relaxing and hanging out without having to pack everything up and move almost every day.

I'm super happy with our lodging expense totals. Traveling in the van was definitely a big money saver in that department! We told the kids that with all the money we saved sleeping in the van, we could afford to splurge on the resort for the last night. I did also keep track of our food expenses (groceries and restaurants), and it was on par with what we normally spend at home, so I didn't include it as an extra trip expense. 

The above total doesn't include items that we purchased that we plan on using for multiple road trips. For example, the cost of purchasing the van, and outfitting it, and things like tents and camp mats and sleeping bags that we will use on multiple trips. The van was $10,532.13, and the other expenses totaled $803.29. These things are going to be "amortized" over what I hope will be many, many, many future road trip adventures. We are also planning on putting our camper van up for rent, and using that income to offset the cost of our road trip adventures. Happy trails!