Ever since I was 16, I had an idea for a road trip that would take me to all 50 states, without touching the same state twice.

From time to time, I think about this trip.

This last weekend, since I was on a road trip, I tried coming up with an estimated cost. I came up with roughly $15k.

Then I did some mapquesting. I came up with a little over 17k miles and about 13 solid days of driving. This visits each of the state capitals except Honolulu. In order to get to Hawaii, I'd have to ship the car (costs ~$1k).

If I figure that I'll also see the sights in many states, I figure this would add 50% to the mileage, so I roughly estimate 26,000 miles, and about 20 solid days of driving.

At 30 mpg, this is 875 gallons of gas. At the current local price of $2.39, this would be a little over $2k in gas.

Plus about 9 oil changes, at approx $30 apiece (conservative estimate) for $270.

Now there are items that I must get while in each state. These include:

Shot Glass
Refrigerator Magnet
Bumper Sticker
State Flag Sew-on Patch
Postcard
Silver Spoon

Average Cost for items per state is $25, for a total of $1275(counting DC). Since my wife would go with me, it makes it $2550.

Also, there are pictures to take of each state. The required ones are:

One at the "Welcome To Statename" sign.(doesn't apply for DC)

One in front of the state capital building.

Since all of these pictures need to be taken, I figure I have to stay one night in each state and DC. While I know that many states are low cost for hotels/motels, I know that many are not, so I'm figuring $150 for 60 nights (may have to stay two nights in a single state...) for $9000. Likely, it will be lower than this. I'd have to hotels.com it to be more exact.

And food... three meals a day, figure $10/meal/person/day, two people, for 60 days... $1800... so call it $2k.

And adding it all up: around $16k, which is close to my original estimate.

But I haven't added in Hawaii. Costs $1500 for a cruise for me and my wife, and an extra $2k to ship my car there and back (need to drive my car to/in the capitol, or it doesn't count!)

All in all, somewhere in the neighborhood of $20,000 would take care of it.

Yikes.

Well, at least I've got a number now. That's way better than I had before.

And maybe I could not bother shipping the car back and save $1000.

but yes, the car has to be shipped there.