Here is a trip report with a focus on my monthly expenses during my 9 month climbing road trip!

Hope you enjoy it!

https://niceclimbs.com/2018/10/16/climbing-road-trip-expenses/

Thanks, James! Nice report, and very useful info!

Very interesting.

One question.
Did you take a lot of side trips not shown on your map? 20,000 mile seemed like a ton, and looking at your map that route is <4000miles. So in addition to the long haul drives shown you drove an average of 60 miles per day.

The map starts in Colorado but the trip actually started from Boston. I didn't include Boston to make the map look clearer. Also, after December, I kept going, back to yose, Bishop, RR, Moab, CO, then in March back to Boston.

That and all the side trips should add up to the 20k.

I took a 3 month trip last winter in my nissan nv 200 van similar in size to a small ford transit. I purposely made the appearance from the outside look extremely generic(no visible curtains bumper stickers etc...) for stealth parking and not giving the impression that anything inside was valuable. I had a plywood platform for the mattress supported by 4x4 posts with a section of the plywood removable for easy access to storage bins underneath. I bought a walmart memory foam mattress for $ 70 that needed to be cut down to decrease the width which was the key to sleeping well. I bought a cooler for $139 off the internet( a cheap knockoff of the way spendy yeti coolers) which preserved perishables quite well when stocked with block ice which was sold at any circle k convenience store. A comment about the circle-k stores they were always entertaining with the various moronic  customers. This type of rig is not for a really long trip as it is too small. It was OK for me as I am about 5 feet 5 inches tall I was ready to sleep in my own bed at home at the end of the trip. Mileage is generally 25 MPG. Remember the park pass especially if you are 62 or over(cheaper) so you can check out these places.Thanks for your post James reading it  has got me jazzed for my next trip because there is nothing better than withdrawing from the matrix.

Nice man, I'm looking into the transit connect and the nv 200. The smaller size is really appealing to me. To be able to use it as a daily driver when not on a road trip seems like it would be really nice. And I don't mind sacrificing space for that. Not to mention 25mpg is way better than 16-17. Not sure I'll be able to find one for 3.5k though haha. The econolines sure are cheap, even though they are quite big.