Planning for a Cross America Painting Trip (Part 2)

After much research on the cost of building my own vehicle, I thought it would be wise for me to do a research on the actual cost of renting a vehicle, motel or cheap hotels. Since I needed a better estimate, I decide to account for all possible cost that may incur throughout this trip.

Duration + Itinerary :My visa grant me up 90 days in America. On my calendar, I have Aug 24 until October 11 for this trip. This put me on an estimated 50 days in America. For the start, I need to figure out my itinerary.

I tried a couple of websites and eventually found roadtripper.com to be the most useful. The website and its mobile app allow you to discover nearby attractions and amenities. However, there is one draw back on road tripper... It only allows you to log 40 locations on any given trip. To work around this situation, I decided to approach this like painting by first blocking out the general states that I will like to drive by, noting down important landmarks that I need to visit & paint.

Assuming I will fly to Seattle, Rent a Car and travel across America and leave from Connecticut

A simple calculation of the distance from this plan put me at an estimate of 8000+ miles. Conservatively speaking, I will easily cross 10,000 miles and would certainly need to budget USD$2000 for gas alone.

A more detailed plan of the places of interest exponentially raises my distance and cost

I think the west coast is just full of spectacular scenes. From Death Valley, Yosemite to the Pacific Coast Highway. The west Coast alone can literally pack up my 50 days and clock 5000 miles to this trip.
 
Air Ticket:
Suppose I take a plane from Singapore, drop into Seattle, WA. Hop onto to a rental car. drive all the way to the east coast, drop the car off in Connecticut and fly home from Bradly International Airport. Flying with Northwest Airline will set me back about $2,156 SGD.

Car Rental:
I did a quick check on the cost of rental with Budget car rental
Car rental alone will set me back about SGD $2,800
Roadside assistance will put me at  SGD$1750

Accommodation: 
Assume there are variation in prices. I allocated an estimate of $100 per night for 50 nights and that put me at $5000.

General budget for this trip.
( Did not account for fluctuation in currency. USD is expected to gain against SGD)

First pass estimate of a 50 day trip to America will set me back SGD$21,537

Of course, there are probably many things I can shave off or condense to tighten up the budget. Generally speaking, I will need to allocate around SGD$20,000 for this entire trip.  Suppose if I went with building my own vehicle. I will not be able to drop off the vehicle and fly off. There are certainly advantages to a Van. With more space and supplies with me, I can probably do more and paint larger pieces. The panels on the Van can also potentially be used for advertising for this trip.

Speaking of which I have to think about how to raise this money to make this trip happen.