$800? Holy Jeebus that's a lot. mellyB, your post inspired me to drag out my expenses spreadsheet from our 2012 USA trip. I reformatted it and set up a pivot table so I could break down totals and averages by place and date. I thought it would be a useful exercise to put together, which might help with planning for our 2015 trip.
Some basic facts about the trip:
32-day trip
We hired a car and drove the whole way
Road trip from LA to Vegas, driving up through the southern part of Utah national parks, then driving through most of Arizona, then cutting across to San Diego and then up to Anaheim.
2 adults, 1 4 year old child.
This is how our numbers came up.
Attractions (park tickets, show tickets, entry to attractions like zoos, boat tours etc) : $3,900 ($1,300 cash, $2,600 prepaid). Average $120 per day
Food : $2,110.36. Average $65.95 per day. We bought cereals to have in the hotels for breakfasts, and bread/cheese/ham/vegemite for cheaper lunch options. That gave us the budget and flexibility to have at least one "nice" meal a day.
Shopping (souvenirs, outlet mall shopping, luggage, etc) : $2,884.04. Average $90.13 per day
Transport (fuel, cabs, bus) : $542.05. Average $16.94 (does not include car rental)
So if you add up the food and shopping cost averages, we spent about $155 per day.
Of course, more people equals more cost. In addition, 10-14 days of this trip was touring national parks etc, where there are less opportunity for expensive food , entry fees and shopping sprees. Shopping in particular is prone to skewed data as it depends quite heavily on what shops are nearby, and individual shopping habits.
For our 2015 trip, I am assuming about $120 per day in food to be a bit safer (plus a larger now-7 -year-old child plus a new 2 year old child)
