Alaska costs

lizzie wrote:
For our 2013 trip I took Joe's advice and budgeted $10,000 for our 90 day . . . I do not include food in trip expenses since we have to eat wherever we are.

In 2013, we budgeted exactly the same as lizzie and also do not include food costs, for the same reason. We cooked all our meals in our trailer except on my wife's birthday and our anniversary, plus a few lunches at McDonald's (the only reliable place for WiFi in many towns) and a breakfast at Denny's in Fairbanks. We eat out more than that at home, so that was no more expensive than being in Denver. But groceries in Canada are definitely more expensive than in the Lower 48.

Our campground costs included some free nights of boondocking, parking lot dry camping, a Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge campground, and a casino with 20A electric in Coeur d'Alene. It also included low-cost national park, monument, and Forest Service campgrounds in the US. Our most expensive campground was two nights in Kasilof for $45/night the same week that the combat fishing season for reds began on the Kenai.

The most expensive gas we bought was on the Alaska Highway at Muncho Lake. It was nearly $8.00/gallon there, so we only got enough to get to Toad River, where it was under $7.00/gallon. And, when we got into Alberta, the price was "only" slightly over $5.00/gallon.

Our costs averaged $123/day total, $27.41/night for campgrounds, and $49.43/day for gas.