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.

Planning for a Cross-America Painting Trip - Part One (1)

I spent the past one week, trying to put together a plan and budget for an all America Painting road trip. Alex Honnold's van really inspired me and I thought to myself .. wow, it is actually possible to live off the grid for a while.

 
Background
I spent almost a decade in America and completed my Bachelors and Masters from Columbus, Ohio. Despite having spent so much time in America, I never had the money or time to travel when I was there. When I first saw what these guys were doing with their van ? Modifying it into liveable space with solar generators and etc ? I immediately approached my friend Scott Stewart,who is an expert in car remodeling, and asked about the feasibility of converting a cargo van into a mobile painting vehicle.

Mind Mapping the a Painting Vehicle

The mission is simple.. To travel from coast to coast and to paint every single beautiful scenery that passes me. (en plein-air) Of course, it doesn't take long before I uncovered both the problems and solutions that lie ahead of me. Though I may never fulfill this dream ? I reckon that the effort I put into moving forward should not be wasted. Here is why I decided to blog about this....Hopefully, someone else can scaffold from what I did and complete a mission that I may otherwise fail.

Research work:

Sleep + Shower :
The first concern would be where to spend the night at inside a Van. Living in a Van is actually illegal in the U.S. and most parking lots would not allowed you to spend the night at their lots. I did some research and read that many homeless people actually live in their vehicle at 24 hours Walmart parking lots and etc. Though this seems viable for the most part, I have also read that more and more Wal-marts are against this. There are also various safety issues that people have sounded out. The next step up from that would be Truck rest stops. These are great for shower facilities and they usually charges a fees (about USD12) with clean towers and etc. I have also read that they charges lower gas than gas station and the prostitutes hustle for business at these places.
The camp site are the other alternatives with shower amenities but when you account for all the fees, the cost of the road trip quickly escalate to a budget equivalent to  car rental and motels.

Truck Stop Rest point

Truck Stop Chains:
Pilot
Campsite
http://koa.com/

Insurance and road side assistance
Since I am not an American. Acquiring a vehicle in the US will be a problem. I can defiantly get my friend to purchase the vehicle on my behalf but the liabilities and insurance coverages are things I am concerned about. Almost no auto insurance, apart from the auto rental will not cover foreign visitors and I have not yet been able to get them to provide a qoutation. I will also have to check if my friends' insurance could cover 3rd party usage on their vehicle. As for road-side assistance ? That's another issue that I have to look into.

Budget:
At this juncture, Scott informed me that I will need to set aside USD6,000 to convert a used van into a great, liveable space with these factors
1) ventilation and insulation from the cold.
2) Stealth from public so I can park anywhere and not get caught.
3) A bed to sleep.
4) Storage for Art supplies, clean clothing & dry food.
5) Solar generator for electric power.
6) Heat when its cold and detection from Carbon monoxide poisoning.
7) A portable potty system.
8) Minimum cooking but electric supply to boil water.