TL;DROur 2017 Canada–USA road trip meant three months living out of a converted campervan (Dodge Grand Caravan), running from Calgary through Alaska down to San Francisco and back, with a final three-day stop on Long Island — over 13 US states and 3 Canadian provinces, and more than 100 stops along the way. It followed two weeks of camping in Hawaii, which came to 2,839.95 CAD. Sorting the van and gear cost around 70,000 CZK, and the trip itself, once we’d sold the car, worked out at roughly 236,190 CZK. Summer’s the best time for a route like this — we set off on 29 June 2017.
On 29 June 2017, we set off on our first big Canada USA road trip across North America. We spent two weeks in Hawaii, then three months driving through 13 US states, 3 Canadian provinces — from San Francisco all the way to Alaska and back. We wrapped it all up with three days on Long Island. We documented the entire journey meticulously, including daily expenses and detailed write-ups.
Our Road Trip Series
- What’s Camping in Hawaii Like and How Much Does It Cost
- We Built a Bed in Our Car and Headed to Alaska
- Heatwaves, White Nights, and Guns Everywhere. Welcome to Alaska
- Why You Need to Visit Alaska at Least Once in Your Lifetime
- 10 Magical Experiences You Must Have in Alaska
- 15 Breathtaking Places in Western Canada
- Two Months Living in a Car: The Highs and Lows of Our Western America Journey
- The Bizarre Side of Tourism: Why People Queue to See a Tree in the Middle of a Forest
From Calgary All the Way to Alaska
Calgary, Canada was our starting point. We’d been living there for a year, saving up and preparing for the trip. We bought a Dodge Grand Caravan and converted it into a campervan — you’ll find the full gear list further down. Essentially, apart from a toilet and a shower, we had a complete home on four wheels. We slept wherever we could: sometimes in Walmart car parks, occasionally at campsites, and most often on some remote desert or forest track.
Our Route
We kicked things off by flying to Hawaii on 14 June for a fortnight. Budget camping there was absolutely incredible. After getting back, we hit the road from Calgary towards Alaska.
In a nutshell: Calgary (Canada) – Fairbanks (Alaska) – San Francisco (USA) and back again. But that’s a massive simplification — we stopped at more than 100 places along the way.
What We Did Along the Way
We visited dozens of national parks. We’re mad about hiking, so most of our time was spent either driving or scrambling up mountains. We cooked on roadside picnic tables, did our laundry at launderettes, and worked from McDonald’s. Throughout the trip, we produced videos, photos, articles, and sent you postcards. 🙂
Our Gear
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📶 DATA FOR YOUR TRIP · Canada
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How Much Did It All Cost?
The biggest expense was obviously the car — but we sold it at the end of the trip. 🙂
Total preparation costs came to around CAD 3,900, which is roughly €2,700. The gear without the car cost us about €770.
That might sound like a lot, but in Canada you can save that amount in just two months of work (when there’s two of you). Our wage was around CAD 15.50 an hour, bringing in roughly CAD 4,000 a month between us, and we always managed to put half of it away.
Here’s the breakdown of what we spent (prices are in CAD):
- Flights to Canada in February
- 2 weeks in Hawaii (including flights) cost us a total of: $2,839.95
- Buying + kitting out the car
- 2.5 months travelling through the USA and Alaska
- Flights to New York
- 3 days at a yacht club on Long Island with a Mustang Convertible
- Flights home
The grand total came to (after deducting what we got for the car) roughly €9,100. That’s exactly how much we’d deliberately saved over the previous 4.5 months working in Canada (we worked in a café and at the airport). We usually say it cost a bit more in practice, because while in Canada we also bought multi-day trekking gear, which set us back a fair few hundred euros on top of that.
Day-by-day expenses during the trip — from campsite fees to petrol station coffees — can be found in this spreadsheet:
Experiences & tickets
★ Our pick
Niagara Falls, Canada: Zipline to The Falls
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I want this experience →Niagara Falls: Boat Ride, Journey Behind the Falls & Tower
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Niagara Falls, ON: Jet Boat Tour on Niagara River
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from €59See dates →
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Tips and Tricks for Your Vacation
Don’t Overpay for Flights
Search for flights on Kayak. It’s our favorite search engine because it scans the websites of all airlines and always finds the cheapest connection.
Book Your Accommodation Smartly
The best experiences we’ve had when looking for accommodation (from Alaska to Morocco) are with Booking.com, where hotels, apartments, and entire houses are usually the cheapest and most widely available.
🚗 Car rental on the roadVerified rental cars in CanadaSearch with the DiscoverCars comparison engine — it compares prices from dozens of local and international rental companies, and most bookings come with free cancellation.
Compare car prices in Canada →✓ DiscoverCars comparison✓ free cancellation on most bookings✓ no hidden fees
Don’t Forget Travel Insurance
Good travel insurance will protect you against illness, accidents, theft, or flight cancellations. We’ve had a few hospital visits abroad, so we know how important it is to have proper insurance arranged.
Where we insure ourselves: SafetyWing (simple monthly subscription) and TrueTraveller (for extra-long trips).
Find the Best Experiences
Get Your Guide is a huge online marketplace where you can book guided walks, trips, skip-the-line tickets, tours, and much more. We always find some extra fun there!
