38 Budget Road Trip Tips: Answers to Your Road Trip Questions

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Since we started travelling full time nearly 4 years ago we’ve learned how to stretch our budget pretty darn far. This is pretty easy to do in Mexico, but it’s proven to be a bit more difficult in Canada and the US. But we are definitely road trippers at heart so it was basically essential that we come up with the answers to common road trip questions in order to stay on budget.

We’ve spent over 12 months road tripping around the US and Canada on a very tight budget. During that time we’ve learned a lot about planning a road trip on a budget so I’ve put together this list of budget road trip tips to help you plan your next adventure!

Budget Road Trip Tips- Plan an Unforgettable Road Trip on a Budget

From saving money on food to getting a deal on activities, these budget road trip tips will all help you keep costs down so you can enjoy your road trip without stressing about money!

Budget Tips for Snacks and Drinks:

Obviously food is a pretty significant part of any road trip. Choosing the appropriate snack is a task not to be taken lightly. But when it comes to eating meals on the road, it can be hard to stay on budget. And even harder to eat healthy! Here’s a few tips to help you master snack shopping and meal times while keeping your road trip on a budget.

• Buy (or make) your favourite powder drink mixes like hot chocolate, lemonade, tea or mocha and bring along in resealable containers. Add the dry mix to travel mugs and use hot water from fast food places, restaurants or gas stations to make your drinks.
• Instead of buying expensive gas station road trip snacks, make a stop at a grocery store like Walmart to pick up some favourites. Use your Ziploc bags to repackage them to save space if needed. Dollar store chip clips are a great way to seal bags on the go, too!
• Bring a ‘snack bin‘ to help stay organized and keep your car clean. I use a Rubbermaid bin to keep our snacks in one place
• Buy larger jugs of water from the grocery store instead of buying small bottles on the road and use refillable water bottles. A 4L jug is usually about $0.80-$1.50, instead of $1 or more per 500mL bottle at gas stations.
• Fill up water bottles for free at most gas stations: There is almost always a water option on the fountain soda machine! You can ask permission if you feel uncomfortable just grabbing it yourself- we did at first- but staff generally trust that you’re just getting water and don’t require approval. Don’t abuse the system and you won’t have an issue.
• Buy a Flying J/Pilot travel mug for $2-4 and sign up for their free MyRewards program. Save on each drink refill, get every 10th fill free, and get a number of other offers in store. (Many other truck stops have reusable drink cups for purchase, we just liked the Pilot program)
• Buy bread, buns, tortillas and sandwich fixings at a grocery store and make your own each day instead of eating out. This works for salad fixings, too. Most grocery stores (Walmart being our favourite for low cost food) actually have single serving salads and sandwiches for much cheaper than those you’ll find at truck stops, gas stations and restaurants.
• Bring hot or cold cereal and add milk or hot water for a quick meal in the morning
• Carry a few packets of dry soup mix and use your reusable mug to add hot water for a quick lunch

Budget Road Trip Tips for Dining Out:

If there’s one thing we’ve mastered as budget travellers, it’s how to eat out for CHEAP! I’m constantly asked how we manage to stretch or budget so far, and how we’re frequently seen eating at restaurants for crazy low prices. When it comes to budget road trip tips, these tips for dining out on a budget are an awesome way to learn how I do it.

• Visit a Costco or Sam’s Club for a cheap lunch. No membership needed! While we’re pretty bummed that American Costco’s don’t have fries, you’ll still find hotdogs, pizza, salads, sandwiches and ice cream. Try the cheesy garlic sticks at Sam’s- they’re one of Seth’s favourite snacks! If you have a membership you can also do a sample run to see what they have. There’s been times that there’s been so many options that we walked out full just from free samples!
  
• Stop into our FAVOURITE fast food place: Del Taco and check out their dollar menu (mostly on the west coast & south central US). We’re generally fans of dollar menus anyways (they’re much better in the US than Canada!), but Del Taco’s is one we basically dream about. Delicious, filling, fresh and cheap! And who doesn’t love tacos?!

BUDGET ROAD TRIP TIP: Keep your receipt and fill out their short online survey to get $1 off your next $3 order. We’ve even been known to pay separately so that we can each save $1… (Everything in the photo to the right came to only $4!)

• Get a Groupon account, and check it out along the way. To make the most out of Groupon, watch the app for additional limited time promotions. Every 2-3 days Groupon will put out a new promotion- often 20-25% off certain categories (local deals are almost always included, which is what restaurant deals fall under).
  Using this discount you can often get $20-30 worth of food for around $10! Every now and then you may luck out and get a $10 off discount, which can mean $15-30 at a restaurant for only $2-3. Spam emails suck, but Groupon ones are great if you like discounts!
• Happy hour is your friend! Most restaurants and even some fast food places offer discounts of up to 50% off certain items during happy hour. One of our favourite fast food happy hours is at Sonic, where you can get half price corn dogs and drinks from 2-5pm. Steak and Shake has a similar promotion every day. Late night happy hours are an awesome budget hack too. Restaurants like Applebee’s offer a second happy hour after 9 or 10, and for night owls like us this is an awesome way to score some discounts. (Applebee’s chicken wonton tacos for $4 have called me in on more than a few occasions! I’m a sucker for cheap tacos, what can I say!)
• If road tripping with kids, know that many restaurants offer a special for kids once a week. Often this is a free or low priced kids menu with an adult entree, so this can save you some money on the road.

Road Trip Supplies:

• Large freezer-sized and sandwich-sized ziploc bags come in handy many times on your road trip! We use ziploc bags for food, snacks, dirty cutlery/dishes, keeping odds and ends together, and more.
• Pick up a couple of those reusable Rubbermaid or Ziploc lunch containers for your snack bin. These containers are awesome for cereal on the go, making a salad, storing fruit in the cooler, keeping leftovers, as a snack cup and so many other things! Having a lid means you can close up the dirty container and wash it at the next stop.
• Bring along reusable utensils– either metal or plastic- that you can wash as you go. Not only is it great for your budget to not have to worry about finding cutlery as you go, it’s also great for the environment!  
• Bring a couple large margarine containers or ziploc bags into gas stations and fast food places to fill with ice for your cooler. If you’re already making a purchase and bring your own bag, most stores will not care (we’ve asked MANY times!). If necessary, pay their $0.50 ice charge- it’s still cheaper than buying a big bag of ice that probably won’t even fit in the cooler! The benefit to using maragarine containers rather then bags is that they don’t leak. We go tired of dumping water out of the bottom of our cooler every day, and since switching to containers life has become so much easier!
• Make sure you bring along a power inverter that will plug into your cigarette adapter and provide a wall plug or 2. This is great for charging electronics, boiling hot water and powering a cooler. Just be careful to not overwhelm your battery… we learned that the hard way!
• Shop around for a bank account that will offer no foreign transaction fee and that is easily accessible in other countries. As Canadian’s, Scotiabank is a top choice for us, largely because of it’s presence in Mexico and it’s membership in the Global ATM Alliance.
• Order window covers from Amazon. If you’re sleeping in your vehicle this will help maintain your privacy. There’s nothing creepier than sleeping in your car and having people be able to look in on you and all your stuff! With these window covers on the sides and sun shades on both the front and back we are completely sealed in and don’t have to worry about hiding our electronics, having people look in at us, or the sun waking us up super early. Plus, we can still roll down the windows if it gets hot inside!
  We started with 2 sets of these ones that are more for covering the sun while driving, but doubled up they are basically impossible to see through, especially at a distance. I also used them as a beginner pattern to make larger ones for our front windows, so we could finally stop playing around with towels as window covers.

Admissions and Activities:

• Search Groupon & Google for discounts before purchasing any admission or event tickets. More than a few times we’ve saved quite a bit of money. From movie tickets to museum admissions, all it takes is a quick search to see if the location has discounts. I typically pop ‘(attraction name) discounts’ into Google, and look for a Groupon result, or any other promising result before buying tickets. Sometimes it may take 5-10 min to weed through the responses and go through the process of buying tickets, but saving $10-20 or more is always worth it. I figure we have more time than money, so it’s a fair trade to me!

• Stop by Costco & Sam’s Club to check for discounts on local restaurants and activities. Often you’ll find gift cards for different local activities that you won’t find anywhere else. In Los Angeles we picked up 2 for 1 tickets to Universal Studios!
• If you homeschool like we do, use the Homeschool Buyers Co-op site to create a free student and teacher ID card. Many activities offer a discount to students or teachers. Most won’t advertise, but it doesn’t hurt to ask! I got 10% off our computers with this card and can participate in the Chapters/Coles teachers appreciation days with it!
• Carry an AMA/CAA/AAA membership. Not only are these are invaluable in case the need for a tow, gas, or locked key rescue arises, many places offer a discount for card-carriers. Stop into locations along the way, too! Many local attractions offer discounted tickets through AAA, so your budget road trip can stay on track.

Transportation:

• Become a points collector! From Air Miles to hotel points, gas station rewards to credit card points. Flash those babies everywhere and start racking up those points. I haven’t gotten into this yet as much as I should, but I’ve been following The Points Guy on Facebook and I’m working on earning pro status to round out my budget road trip skills.
• Use Priceline’s ‘Deal’ or ‘Make an Offer’ feature to get a great deal on a hotel, flight or rental car
• Get the GasBuddy app and check it every time you need to get gas. Gas prices vary SO much in the US, even between stations that are side by side. This budget road trip trick will easily save you several cents per gallon/litre by driving an extra minute or 2!
• Check Groupon when it’s time for a oil change. Bigger cities often have multiple options, and you’ll likely get a fantastic discount! We found a full synthetic oil change in Albuquerque (and again in Kansas City!) that came to $25 with one of Groupon’s additional 20% discounts!
• Use your Costco & Sam’s Club membership to save on gas. Check GasBuddy, of course, but we’ve often found that gas prices here are quite a bit cheaper than surrounding stations.

WiFi & Phone Service:

• Make use of the free WiFi connections and charging outlets at fast food places, coffee shops and truck stops. Some places will want you to buy something in order to sit for an extended period, but that’s a fair trade for their internet and outlets!
• If you plan to park at a Love’s, Flying J or Pilot truck stop overnight you can buy a month of unlimited internet for $20, or daily use for about $4. It isn’t necessarily streaming or gaming quality but it’s fast enough for general use.
• Bring an unlocked cell phone and just buy a prepaid sim card to put into it. I use AT&T because they have a month to month plan that offers unlimited calling, texting and data in US, Canada and Mexico so it fits our needs well. You can get a sim card from any convenience store, Walmart or cell phone shop. I went straight to AT&T to have them set it up for me and it was basically effortless.

Budget Road Trip Tips for Accommodations on the Road:

• Make use of truck stops, Walmart, Home Depot and Sam’s Club to park overnight for free. If you see other campers and semi-trucks around, you’re likely clear to park anywhere. If not you’ll want to ask a manager inside to be sure they allow it. Some Cabela’s offer parking as well. Allstays offers several helpful apps to find a parking spot!
  After more than 200 nights of sleeping in our car, we’ve learned that we generally prefer truck stops over the other options. They are open 24 hours, so there is always a bathroom accessible (as night owls this is important for us), the attached restaurants are often supportive of us setting up shop with our computers for a couple hours, and it’s comforting to know that there are people around and a store we can run into if something goes wrong.
• Truck stops have showers, and nice ones! For $10-12 you can have a hot shower with towels provided. Time is unlimited and they are very private. If you have children, request the handicap shower so you can have the space to shower together.
• Buy a membership to a Planet Fitness gym to shower (and maybe squeeze in a workout…). Each location varies with their pricing and cancellation policy, so call around before you commit. You’ll need a back card membership to make use of it around the country, which is usually about $20/month. Look for a location that doesn’t have a cancellation fee so that you can cancel if you need to after your road trip. I actually really like this gym as a whole, so I’m super bummed they don’t have any in the areas we base when not travelling!
• Airbnb is a great way to live more like a local than a tourist, and not have to pay hotel prices! This is our favourite way to stay since prices are usually pretty cheap comparatively, and most come with kitchens and good WiFi. While we have found some duds, the vast majority of our stays have been excellent. We prefer ‘entire home’ bookings, but have had great experiences renting just rooms, too.
  

  Use this link to sign up and get $20 off your first booking!

• Start house and petsitting. Sites like Trusted Housesitters, Nomador, House Carers International, Mind My House and others help to connect homeowners looking for help and travellers ready to offer it. This is generally a cash-free exchange You can also join Facebook groups local to where you are going, and post your availability and info in there. If possible, gain a couple references by housesitting for friends and family to help solidify your resume.
• Try out Couchsurfing. Join the site and create a profile to enjoy the free network of travellers and hosts around the world. There are also some groups on Facebook that can help facilitate these relationships, too.
• Get to work at a Workaway or WOOFing experience. If you’re willing to work in exchange for accommodations and food, there are great opportunities worldwide. There seem to be less options within the US as there are in other countries, but there are definitely still options. Be careful with this one though.. It is considered ‘work’, so you may need a work visa in order to legally do this in some countries.

Now it’s time to plan your road trip!

This list of road trip tips will help you plan your next road trip on a budget, so I hope you found some of them useful! Do you have any tips that I missed? Share them in the comments below!

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