FAQs: Everything To Know About Our 5 Year, 50 State Road Trip

Whenever we tell anyone that we’re on a 5 year, 50 state road trip, that understandably raises a lot of questions.

Why five years?

Do you have an RV?

How do you afford it?

What’s been your favorite state?

I therefore thought it’d be helpful to put together an FAQs post where we answer all the most frequently asked questions about our road trip. If there’s something you want to know which isn’t addressed by any of the answers, let us know in the comments below and we’ll answer your question 🙂

Why Five Years?

When we first started seriously considering our 50 state road trip, one option was to do it in a year as that would give us one week per state. The thing is, that would only let us scratch the surface of a state and would mean we’d miss out on so much.

Five years therefore seemed like a better option as that would give us an average of five weeks per state. We reduce our time in smaller states (e.g. 10 days in Rhode Island) and increase our time in larger states (e.g. 10 weeks in Texas, although that ended up being a little too long).

When Did You Start The Road Trip?

We set off on January 1, 2018.

Do You Travel In An RV?

Nope! We have a 2004 Toyota Corolla and stay in hotels and Airbnbs. There are a number of reasons we decided against traveling the country in an RV which I listed here.

How Long Do You Stay In Each Place?

In normal times, we usually stay 5-7 nights in each city we visit. We do that to see more of a state as it means we’re pretty much always within a 1-2 hour drive of everywhere in a state at some point during our time there.

Don’t You Get Tired Of Moving All The Time?

Yep! I think packing and unpacking and moving every week is the worst part of the road trip. At the time of writing this FAQs post, we’ve been sheltering in place for several weeks at a time due to COVID-19. It’s actually been nice staying in the same place for a bit longer, so once travel starts getting back to normal (whenever that might be), this experience might influence how long we stay in each place in the future.

How Is COVID-19 Affecting The Road Trip?

My parents were supposed to fly over from the UK and join us on the road trip for 6.5 weeks, but we had to cancel that. Since then, we’ve stopped moving so frequently. When shutdowns started happening mid-March 2020, we stayed in Albuquerque for three weeks.

We then moved on to Pueblo, CO (where we are at the time of writing this) and are staying for six weeks. We’re planning on heading back east in summer 2020, but staying in various places for several weeks at a time.

During this time, we’ve spent most of our time working online. We’re not visiting museums, wineries, etc. that we would normally do on the road trip. We’ve barely even been doing any hiking, but that will hopefully change in the coming months.

Will You Extend The Road Trip Due To COVID-19?

It’s hard to know right now because we don’t know how much longer domestic travel is going to be impacted for. At this point in time it seems like 2020 is basically a wash, so we might have to extend it by a year, but it’s too early to say either way right now.

How Can You Afford To Travel Full-Time?

We’re sadly not independently wealthy! Instead, Shae and I both work online and so we fund our road trip that way as it means we can work from anywhere provided we have a good internet connection.

Check out Here’s How We Can Afford To Travel Full-Time for more details. The income from my websites and writing for Frequent Miler covers the cost of our road trip, so the income we get from Shae teaching online with VIPKid and Outschool is a bonus and is put towards additional activities and savings.

How Much Does The Road Trip Cost?

We set a budget of $100 per day for our trip which has to cover everything – accommodation, food, gas, activities, hotel pet fees, etc. Sometimes we go over budget, sometimes we stay under.

Every month we publish a post with the previous month’s stats which includes information about our budget, so check out our Road Trip Stats for more details about that.

How Can You Afford To Stay In Hotels On $100 Per Day?

Before setting off on the road trip, we built up as large a stash of hotel points as we could. This was mainly done by applying for hotel credit cards and earning their signup bonuses, such as ‘Earn 80,000 points when spending $3,000 in 3 months’. We don’t have any debt as we pay off our credit cards in full each month, so there are no interest payments.

We manage to maintain a balance of about 2.5 million hotel points spread across a variety of programs. Here’s more about how we earned all those points and here’s how we redeem them to maximize the number of free nights we earn.

Due to the number of nights we stay in hotels each year and the status that comes from some hotel credit cards, we have top tier (or almost top tier) status with all the main hotel chains. That often means we get room upgrades which helps us have a more comfortable stay than our money or points would normally afford.

What Tools Do You Use To Plan The Road Trip?

We rely heavily on Google, from Maps to Gmail to Calendar to Sheets and more. Check out These Are The Tools We Use To Plan Full-Time Travel where I go into that in more detail.

How Do You Get Mail On The Road?

We use St Brendan’s Isle, a mail-forwarding service in Florida. This gives us an official residential address for mail and tax purposes. We can request for our mail to be forwarded at any time, although we usually only do that every couple of months or so because we get most of our documents online.

Check out How We Get Mail On The Road Now That We Have No Home for more details about St Brendan’s Isle and how it works better with some banks than others.

How Do You Make Meals In Hotel Rooms?

I put together a portable kitchen which contains plates, bowls, silverware, etc. Its most important component though is my Instant Pot; that’s a small appliance with numerous cooking functions – saute, slow cooker, pressure cooker, rice cooker and more. It’s therefore possible to make all kinds of meals from a hotel room, so check out our hotel room recipes for ideas of what you can make without a proper kitchen.

Having said that, we often stay at hotel brands that include a kitchen in every suite like Residence Inn, TownePlace Suites, Candlewood Suites, etc. We also stay in Airbnbs that have a kitchen, so that reduces our reliance on our portable kitchen.

What’s In Your Food Pantry?

We try to minimize how much food we drive around from place to place seeing as we have limited space in our car. We do have a food box though containing some staples and essentials, so find out more about our travel pantry here.

What’s Been Your Favorite State?

My top two so far have been Vermont and Kentucky. Those are closely followed by Virginia, Wisconsin and Alabama. Before setting off on the road trip, I don’t think I expected much from many of those states, so they’ve been a pleasant surprise.

Shae’s favorite has been Vermont, with honorable mentions to Kentucky, Rhode Island and Tennessee.

What States Are You Most Looking Forward To?

For me – Montana, Colorado, Hawaii and Alaska. For Shae – Alaska, Montana and Hawaii. Although we’ve spent some time in Colorado on the road trip so far, we haven’t really done much to actually see it.

Are You Visiting States In A Certain Order?

Not really. We try to stay south in the winter and north in the summer so that we have fairly temperate weather year-round.

We also visit certain states at certain times due to events going on. For example, we visited Kentucky in April/May 2019 so that we could attend the Kentucky Derby, Louisiana in February 2020 for Mardi Gras in New Orleans, etc.

What Are You Going To Do Once The Road Trip Is Over?

We have absolutely no idea! We might enjoy the road trip so much that we decide to continue, going back around the country to see things we missed in the first five years.

It might be that we’re tired of moving all the time by that point, so we might settle somewhere. Rather than settling somewhere, another option would be to stay in some of our favorite states for several months at a time, staying north in the summer and the south in the winter.

We’ve also talked about road tripping around Canada, Australia or Europe. Shae and I have even discussed canoeing the length of the Mississippi River!

Why Not Travel Internationally Now?

We don’t have kids, but we do have a small dog called Truffles. While we still travel overseas once or twice a year, we don’t feel it would be fair to put her in pet boarding for much of the year while we travel overseas all the time. Traveling with her to other countries would be tricky too due to quarantining.

As I mentioned earlier, once our 50 state road trip is over we might travel overseas. If we did that, it would be a long-term move so we’d bring Truffles with us.

Does Traveling With A Dog Cause Any Problems?

A lot of hotels and Airbnbs aren’t pet-friendly, so that limits some of our accommodation options. Hotel pet fees increase how much we spend each month, but it’s worth it to have Truffles with us.

We try to do as many pet-friendly activities as possible, so we do a reasonable amount of hiking. There are places that are surprisingly pet-friendly like some wineries, breweries and even the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, WI.

We’ve tagged all our blog posts about pet-friendly things to do and places to stay, so that should give you plenty of ideas if you’re looking to travel domestically with your pups.

What’s It Like Being Around Each Other All The Time?

Shae and I are very fortunate because after more than 15 years of marriage, we actually still enjoy spending time with each other. There are some times where we need our space, but staying in hotels and Airbnbs affords us more opportunity to do that versus traveling around in a small van or RV.

Other times we’ll go off and do an activity on our own, usually if the other one of us isn’t particularly interested in that activity or if one of us has to work.

How Do You Handle Being Away From Family & Friends?

I’m from the UK originally, so I’m already away from a lot of my family and friends. I’m an introvert though, so not being around people is less of an issue for me.

Shae certainly finds this a lot harder as she’s an extrovert and loves spending time around other people, particularly family and friends. We tend to see her mom and stepdad a few times a year, sometimes when we stop back through Virginia but more frequently when they come to visit us. They joined us at the Kentucky Derby, spent Thanksgiving week in 2018 with us in San Antonio, TX, came to stay with us in Knoxville, TN for Christmas 2019, etc.

We’ve seen her dad as well when traveling through Virginia and stop off to see friends around the country when visiting their states.

What Do We Do For Doctor And Dentist Visits?

Due to the cost of healthcare, we don’t have health insurance right now. We’re in somewhat good health and so rarely need to see a doctor. If we did get sick enough to need to see one, we’d attend an urgent care center which is what Shae had to do a couple of years ago when she ended up with pneumonia.

As for dentists, when we need any kind of treatment or teeth cleaning, we find a dentist and then take out a plan from DentalPlans.com to help reduce the cost of the treatment. We can usually get 20% cashback on the cost of the plan from DentalPlans.com by clicking through from an online shopping portal, so that helps offset some of the cost.

What Did You Do With All Your Possessions When You Left On The Road Trip?

Although we got rid of most of our possessions before setting off on our road trip, we did keep some personal items. Those are kept in a storage unit that Shae’s mom has.

What Do You Do With Seasonal Items?

We have a suitcase in the trunk of our car that we use to swap out items by season. It tends to be very full in the summer because it then contains winter jackets, Christmas items (e.g. a mini Christmas tree, stockings, etc) and more. In the winter, it contains our summer clothing and a few other odds and ends.

Shae’s written in a bit more detail about what we do with our seasonal items.

Do You Drive A Foreign Car?

Shae and I record a live video on Facebook as we leave each state where we share a few of our favorite things from our time there. Because of how Facebook mirrors the video, it always looks like we’re driving on the right hand side of the car.

Rest assured though, although I’m a Brit we drive on the left hand side of our car!

How Do We Explore An Area To Know Where To Book?

With hotels, we tend to stay with “nicer” hotel chains like Marriott, IHG, Hyatt and Hilton and they only tend to place their properties in safe areas. Wyndham and Choice Hotels properties can be OK, but many of their properties are much more shady, so we check out their reviews before booking.

It’s a little harder with Airbnbs, but reviews can be helpful here. We pretty much only book properties that have at least five reviews and have a rating of 4.75/5 and above. Although that doesn’t guarantee it’s not in a shady area, we’ve found that reviews will mention that if that’s the case.

There was an Airbnb we stayed at for a few days in Columbus, GA which was in a bit of a dodgy location. The description mentioned that there was a high homeless population and some reviews mentioned it wasn’t the greatest part of town. We’re not worried about homeless people though (in terms of the danger they present rather than not being worried about the issue of homelessness) and the Airbnb was so cheap we figured we’d book it anyway. The stay was perfectly fine and we didn’t have any safety issues. The homeless population was there because of a church opposite that provided services and they were always respectful as we walked by with Truffles.

Do You Ever Sleep In The Car?

Only when taking a nap while the other person is driving. We have too much stuff in our car to be able to recline the seats back, so it wouldn’t be comfortable to sleep overnight in it.

How Do You Pack Your Car?

It’s a little bit like Tetris – everything has its own space and we always put items in the same place as that seems to be the optimal location for each thing. I (Stephen) tend to do all the packing as it’s easier that way. While I pack the car, Shae checks out of the hotel and walks Truffles around so she can go to the bathroom.

Have You Built Out Anything Special In Your Car For Extended Road Travel?

Not as such, no. We recently got a car rooftop carrier, but that’s about it.

What Do You Do About Bathroom Breaks And Showers?

Showers aren’t an issue because we stay in hotels and Airbnbs. As for bathroom breaks, we just use rest areas or gas stations if we need to while driving along. We don’t tend to drive much more than four hours when driving to our next location, so our need for bathroom breaks are fairly minimal.

What’s Your Typical Gas Budget?

Up to this point on the road trip, we’ve spent an average of $140 per month on gas which is actually a little more than I thought it would be. We’re spending less now than we were, partly because gas prices have been going down. For example, we spent almost $2,000 on gas in 2018 but only $1,430 in 2019.

Other Questions

Are there any other things you’d like to know that we haven’t answered above? Let us know in the comments below and we’ll get those answered.