The miles per dollar idea is a good one, IMHO. Worrying about the cost of such a trip and planning for the cost of the trip, are two different things to me. While I don't feel I worry about the costs associated with a trip to Alaska, I enjoy the trip much more if I feel I have a good handle on my expenses, and are staying within the envelop I have set prior to the trip.
I like to use a lot of "rules of thumb" calculations, probably going back to when I was an active pilot flying in rural Alaska, averaging between 3 and 5 flights a week for 17 years. So I consider distance in terms of hours, not miles, fuel used in terms of gallons per hour or pounds per hour, etc.
If you ask me how far it is from Whitehorse YT to Northway Alaska, it is 3 hours, which you can roughly convert over to about 300+ and change, miles. Most of the planes I flew in Alaska, averaged about 100 knots per hours. I budget for our trips to Alaska, in the basic categories, as every one else, fuel, food, vehicle maintenance, entertainment, emergencies contingent, etc. I know from past trips north, I was using about 1,000 gallons of diesel with our Dodge and truck camper which got about 15 mpg. But since then I have switched trucks and the current one gets about 13 mpg. So now I have to figure about 1,200 gallons of fuel. Then rough guess, what the average cost of diesel is going to be, and I have an estimate on my fuel costs. My 2004 trip cost for fuel, were in the area of $3,000usd and now with the increase of fuel prices and less miles per gallon, I am looking at double the fuel cost.
Some costs my wife and I have some control over, camping costs for one, boondocking or commercial campgrounds, entertainment, eating in or out as much, etc. So we try to keep our trip costs under $10,000 overall for the trip. About $7,000 more than staying home, when you remove food costs but we figure we spend about 10% more for food when traveling. So I am getting about 3.3 miles per dollar of fuel at $4 per gallon.
What makes us feel good about our trips is traveling on cash, not on credit. We keep a bank travel account set up, that I transfer money into each of the prior 24 months before we head to Alaska so that, close to the total cost, is in that account. I then run on a debit card for the most part till I get to Canada, where I switch over to more cash and some credit card purchases. Our debit cards will go either way. I tell the fuel pump it is a credit card and it goes on through without a pin number. Then when we get to a good wifi system, I will use my electronic bill pay, to pay off any credit card charges we have incurred.
It sure makes decisions easier to make for my wife and I, if we want to spend a certain amount of money or not, for something or some service. If we are considering somewhat expensive items, we will often chose to do one this trip, and save the other till the next trip. Since I am only 72 Y/O, I figure I have lots of time left, to do the others. LOL If I don't make it, I won't ever know anyways.
