I Did an 11-day Road Trip for $57/Day

Quiz Time!

Question: What do most people do after they leave their job without anything lined up next?

a. Soul search

b.Call their ex

c.Try to redefine themselves

d. Get scolded by their parent(s)

e. Listen to the influencers and spend 3 months in Bali for what was supposed to be a 2-week yoga retreat

f. All of the above

I've seen most of those. I almost chose option "e." But don't worry, I did not pull the trigger on Bali. I strongly considered it though...

I shared how I started it. But I left out some key pieces of information that I wanted to share after I finished the trip. I'm back now and it's time to spill the beans 🫘 (there's a beans emoji now?! What a time to be alive).

Here are some questions I got asked since I got back👇🏻

How much did this cost and how long was it?

I budgeted $60/day. The biggest cost to me was just charging my car during travel days. I was able to save a ton by crashing at friends' places and buying food from grocery stores.

Some days I spent almost nothing.

I averaged out to $57/day.

I was gone for 8 days. Not bad!

Why did I do this trip?

Like most middle-class white boys who have a quarter-life crisis (1/3 life crisis if there's a stickler reading this), we are confident that our problems can be solved via escaping through travel. Instead of going to Bali, I decided to take a 1-week road trip along the west coast.

I know most people think escaping to Mexico, Europe, or Southeast Asia is a fantastic option. But honestly, I really do think I can get most of that beauty right here in the US.

I didn't have much spare time because I was planning on spending part of my time off home in Ohio with my niece and nephew the following week.

What Kind of Car Did I Drive?

I drove my Tesla Model Y Long Range. This was also to serve as my final trip before I sell the car 🥲. That story coming soon... Super charging in California is widely accessible for almost anywhere I need to go. I only ran into one range anxiety hiccup in Big Sur due to a road closure.

Why Did I Choose this route or Direction? 

I initially wanted this to go along the northwest side of California, through Oregon, all the way up to Seattle.

Instead, I took advantage of an opportunity and sent it down south to Sunny SoCal.

See previous post for why I decided to go south.

Plus... I may as well enjoy beautiful California for the crippling high amount of taxes I have paid over 6 years of living here.

Where did I stay?

I did some couch surfing, slept in my friend's bed while he and his girlfriend were out of town, slept in my car at a rest stop, slept in my car while it was driving (shout-out FSD) (this was not intentional), and slept at my friend's parents' house.

I got resourceful.

Do you have Pictures?

I tried something new. I didn't do the best job, but I tried REALLY hard to stay off my phone. Honestly, I didn't get off as much as I would have liked.

A consequence of going at it 50% is that I didn't take many pictures.

Sorry, no photography bangers this time.

But here’s a few…

Did you decide what's next?

No. I wasn't expecting to have an "aha" moment and say "I know exactly what I want to do next." I intentionally didn't want to think about what's next for me. The intention here was to disconnect and NOT think about how to make money. Admittedly, I wasn't too successful there. But I was able to think a little more about what type of areas and things I do and do not want to work on next.

One thing I was reminded of was why little-to-no work gets done in San Diego. Its a beautiful place that demotivates the hell out of you. I love it there. But damn it’s so hard to be motivated down there.

I think if I did a HARD disconnect, I would have benefited a little more, but I'll take that as a lesson learned.

In retrospect I wish I did a couple things differently. Such as plan a little more where and how I could have done some hard hikes and car camping. The other end of this was that I intentionally had ZERO plan. I winged it, which was also fun.

I’m glad I did it this way and look forward to doing more of my hardcore camping soon too.

The coolest part about this was that you can do cool stuff like this and not have to break the bank to travel. That certainly broke my frame for how little it could cost me to do fun things.

Of course being resourceful is good but having freinds that were gracious enough to provide a bed, couch, free workout, free food, or place to stay made achieving my daily cost target possible.

Some of you are likely reading this now.

So I want to make sure you know I appreciate you for that.

Love ya,

Jared

I Dig So You Don’t Have To

1 Set:

2 IDs:

Gentlemen’s Agreement 🤝🏻

I need a favor from you. Every week I spend several hours crafting this email to give you entirely for free. Banger, after banger. Except it’s not actually free.

I love doing this, but I also love seeing this grow (You might say I’m flawed. But you’re not my therapist). To keep this free it would mean the world to me, and my ego, if you shared this with just 1 person who you think would also like this.

They can subscribe using this link here 🙌🏻