NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - 31 DAYS - ONE MONTH BUDGET RECAP

 We have now been on the road for 31 days.  It is time to talk about BUDGET!

We get a lot of questions about what it costs to travel or what type of prices are we paying for things. Some people want to know how much things specifically cost in Alaska. Some people must imagine that we are mega-rich and can afford to just go willy-nilly all over the place. That isn't so. We stick to a pretty tight budget. So here are our numbers for the past 31 days...

FUEL 

$800 budget per month

$1,118.45 actually spent 

For fuel we have gone over budget. But that's because we've traveled almost 4,000 mi of our entire 9,000 mi trip for 4 months. We had budgeted $4,000 for our total trip. Because we've done so much traveling in the first month, we expected to go over budget. But now for the next two months we should be way under that amount as we just travel around within the state of Alaska and not such long distances.

We are averaging 14.7 miles per gallon with the diesel engine in our motorhome. The most expensive fuel we paid for was $6.26 a gallon at Bucking Horse River Canada.

KEEP IN MIND THAT ALL PRICES OF CANADIAN DOLLARS SPENT ARE CONVERTED OVER TO US CURRENCY AS WELL AS LITERS TO GALLONS FOR THESE FIGURES. 

OUR AMERICAN EXPRESS CREDIT CARD DOES THE EXCHANGE RATE AUTOMATICALLY FOR US

Anytime we pull up to a fuel station that's under $5 a gallon, we feel we're doing okay under budget. 

CAMPING

$750 budget per month

$671 actually spent

We have done a variety of camping over the last 31 days. Two nights were free at Walmart. Five nights were free at campsites that do not collect a fee. The other 24 nights were various prices. The highest one was recently at Valdez for $65 a night. The cheapest one was $12.91 after conversion at Million Dollar Falls in Canada. 

Most of our camping is boondocking or rustic type camping without any hookups. We have solar, Bluetti power station to supplement batteries, and holding tanks for fresh and waste water.

Our entire camping budget over the trip is at $3,000 which comes out to approximately $25 a day. So anytime we find a place to camp under $25, or free, it helps our budget when we decide to splurge a little bit more on an expensive place.

GROCERIES 

$400 a month budget

$224 actually spent

Groceries is kind of a tough one because we literally cleared out our pantry and freezer and fridge before we left home. So for the first month we did use a lot of groceries that we had brought along with us. The only things we were picking up were fresh produce, milk, eggs, bread etc. Various banned things we could not take over the border, so we had to replenish once we got into Canada. And then again crossing back into the United States at Alaska (twice) we also had to use up things prior to crossing the border. So each time we did have to stop at a store to replenish items, especially things like eggs and fresh vegetables. 

But again, it's hard to budget the food because right now at this given point I probably have 15 or 16 meals worth of meat in the freezer leading us into the second month. So it's kind of an ambiguous number. If we were at home we would be spending and shopping approximately the same way too. When you see a sale you stock up. You don't necessarily use it in that particular month. But with the extra baskets up overhead in our bunk holding additional dry goods and canned goods, we don't need to purchase all that much at the stores. 

I think the highest amounts that we paid in the store were $13 a pound for a beef roast, and about $6 a dozen for eggs. I think I paid over $2 a pound for a single banana and $4.50 for a loaf of cheap bread. The grocery store prices really didn't shock us on the types of things we buy. A few of the smaller mom and pop shops are higher in prices, but they have to because it cost them so much to have items transported to their shop. But all in all, it really isn't bad. We are way under budget for the month.

PROPANE

$128 actually spent. 

We really didn't budget for propane because we weren't sure of our actual usage. The biggest drain on the propane of course is the propane furnace. During the month of May we are using the furnace more. But during the months of June, July and August it will probably be minimal. The propane is also used for our refrigerator, water heater, and our cooking stove and oven in the motorhome.  We started off with a full tank of propane so it's kind of hard to figure what we've actually used in the entire month. Our motorhome has a large propane tank built in (13 gal / 55 lb) so it's not like we are refilling little barbecue tanks like some travel trailers or pickup campers use. 

Refilling propane at small fuel stations out in the middle of nowhere is going to be a higher price per liquid gallon then filling in a larger city at a bulk supplier. So again, this price is really going to vary depending on where we are when we need to be refilled.  You can't really shop around per price. You refill when you need it when it's available. We have paid between $2.50 and $4.15 a liquid gallon.

LAUNDROMAT

$60 budgeted

$39 actually spent

We have done laundry three times in the last 4 weeks. We really hate going to city/public laundromats. Mostly the ones we used are just the coin ops located at some of the campgrounds we have stopped at. We started out with $100 in rolled coins and we will see what we have at the end of the trip.

RESTAURANTS

Nothing budgeted. 

$47.20 actually spent

Both Steve and I rarely like go to restaurants. We really prefer to cook our own food. The only "restaurant" food we bought was a pizza at Godfather's in northern Minnesota. The other two expenses were cinnamon rolls at both Tetsa River Lodge (which were fantastic!) and a small bakery in Skagway.  

ROADSIDE INSURANCE

Our American Family automobile policy for the motorhome has excellent roadside assistance and windshield glass breakage. In the past years with our other motorhome, we have had to make claims and never had a problem. We know it's great coverage. And we do carry it year-round so it really didn't add to our trip. We made sure in advance that we had out of the country coverage from our agent already included in our policy, and a special insurance card was mailed to us prior to leaving to show we do have coverage in Canada in case of an accident or a claim.

But we did also purchase an additional policy from CoachNet. It is good for one year. It cost $249. Not only is it roadside assistance, which covers us also for tire changing, fuel replacement if we run out, locksmith, and of course towing. But in addition to that it also includes a medivac policy that if you are hospitalized and wish to return home they will transport you and your partner as well as have someone return your RV back to your home. So we felt it was good to pick this up as an additional coverage, just in case.

INTERNET/CELL PHONE

We really didn't have this in the budget because we already pay it whether we are home or on the road. Our cell phone plans are $25 for Steve's Visible phone, which gets boosted up to $40 when we leave the country per month. 

My cell phone is covered under our children's network as a family plan, So there is no additional cost there whether I am traveling or at home.

Our internet is through Starlink, which runs $165 a month. We have the Gen 3 unit which we keep on a post at home. When we leave to travel we telescope the post down and remove the unit. We take it along in the motorhome where it resides up in our skylight. It functions while we are enroute moving down the road. If we are parked under trees, we can take it out and set it on a long cord in an open area.  Either way, we pay for our internet if we were home or on the road so it's part of our regular household budget. Not really part of our special traveling budget. But it's how we handle internet when we are traveling.

TOLLS/TRAVEL

We haven't had any toll roads on this trip, but we did splurge on taking the ferry with the motorhome on board from Skagway to Haines. The total cost was $187 which included the 2 passenger fares, and the motorhome rate for 26 ft. It saved us 400+ miles in travel going around by land, so that is kind of a trade off of costs. Plus, it was fun!

MISCELLANEOUS

We had a few miscellaneous expenses pop up. 

One of them is my wireless microphones. They went to heck and aren't working properly. I have a backup corded Purple Panda mic that I've been using but it's not reliable. So we stopped and bought an additional one at a Radio Shack. (Yes we have seen four Radio Shack stores in Alaska!) It turns out it doesn't work with either of my GoPro cameras. So we returned it but also we bought a USB/C hub for my laptop hookups. That was $39.

I might invest in some cordless mics when we reach Palmer or Anchorage at Best Buy. They have the Rode brand which are compatible with the GoPros. They run $150 to $200! But that would be something I would have long after we are done traveling. So I'm not sure if it needs to go in the budget or not.

Before we left, we had looked at refill kits for the small 1 lb cylinders for our portable grill, gas camping light, or small Coleman catalytic heater. Instead of throwing away the green cylinders and buying new ones each time, Steve has been refilling them with a little adapter device. But the temperatures have to be exactly right and we have to put these 1 lb cylinders in the freezer to be able to refill them in a couple hours. We really just don't even have the freezer space! Plus the after a few refills they don't refill adequately anymore. 

So we had looked at a refill kit made by Mr Heater and cylinders that are specifically made to be refilled over and over again.  We were thinking of ordering them from Amazon but they would not have arrived in time for this trip. Imagine our surprise when we saw the refill kit and the additional cylinders for sale at Three Bears in Tok. They were only $2 more than what Amazon would have charged us. So Steve invested $32 in the kit and $20 each for the refillable bottles. Total cost $72. 

Here are the links to the ones on Amazon that we were going to purchase: 

Mr. Heater Propane Refill Kit for Fuel Keg 1 lb. / 16 oz. Refillable Propane Tank 

https://a.co/d/jegNtV4​

 MR HEATER FUEL KEG REFILLABLE BOTTLES: 

https://a.co/d/1BBuSRe​

At about every 2500 miles of travel Steve needs to add a 2.5 gallon jug of DEF fluid to the engine. This is supplementing the diesel emissions with exhaust requirements for our Mercedes engine. He bought a jug at a Canadian Tire Store of a good quality brand that was $41.42 Canadian which converts over to $29.44 US. We expect we will probably be buying two or three more jugs of this while we are traveling for 4 months. 

I did do a splurge of buying myself some gorgeous mukluks made by the Manitobah Indigenous crafters. But because this is kind of a piece of clothing that I will use for years, and a souvenir for myself, I did not really add it into the budget. 

I did splurge on two pieces of beautiful Alaskan quilting fabric and a hand carved seam ripper in Skagway for $39.

BACK HOME EXPENSES

Of course our household budget still has the same costs back at home. We are paying the security camera costs, the electric bill, the water bill, and house insurance and taxes. Those are not included in our traveling budget because we would be paying them anyhow.

So here is the grand total of what we spent over the last 31 days 

$2,386.85

divided by 31 days 

comes out to $76.99 per day

for the memories, 

that is 

PRICELESS!