All six
Six weekends, side by side
Every trip on this site, with the drive, the gas, the lodging and the total for two people for two nights. The spread between the cheapest and the most expensive weekend here is about a hundred and twenty dollars, which surprises most people.
| Trip | One way | Drive | Gas | Lodging | Total for two |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago → Door County | 250 mi | 4h15 | $56 | $320 | $621 |
| Dallas → Hot Springs | 290 mi | 5h00 | $59 | $230 | $549 |
| Atlanta → Blue Ridge | 95 mi | 1h45 | $20 | $290 | $540 |
| Seattle → Leavenworth | 120 mi | 2h15 | $37 | $380 | $667 |
| Phoenix → Sedona | 115 mi | 2h00 | $28 | $340 | $603 |
| New York → the Hudson Valley | 60 mi | 1h15 | $15 | $360 | $660 |
The trips
In detail
-
Chicago to Door County
Seventy miles of peninsula with Lake Michigan on one side and Green Bay on the other, five state parks, and a fish boil.
- One way250 mi
- Drive4h15
- Gas$56
- Total for two$621
-
Dallas to Hot Springs
A national park that is a main street, forty-seven thermal springs, and two bathhouses where you can still take the water.
- One way290 mi
- Drive5h00
- Gas$59
- Total for two$549
-
Atlanta to Blue Ridge
Ninety-five miles from downtown Atlanta to a mountain town with a scenic railway, a national forest and no traffic.
- One way95 mi
- Drive1h45
- Gas$20
- Total for two$540
-
Seattle to Leavenworth
Two hours over a mountain pass to a Bavarian-themed town with genuinely excellent hiking behind it.
- One way120 mi
- Drive2h15
- Gas$37
- Total for two$667
-
Phoenix to Sedona
Two hours north and four thousand feet up, into red rock, and twenty-five degrees cooler than Phoenix in summer.
- One way115 mi
- Drive2h00
- Gas$28
- Total for two$603
-
New York to the Hudson Valley
Sixty miles up the river to mountains, a working art scene and the one trip on this site you can do without a car.
- One way60 mi
- Drive1h15
- Gas$15
- Total for two$660
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How these six were chosen
They are not the six best weekend trips in the United States. They are six trips that show the shape of the problem from six different metros, so that the method transfers to wherever you actually live.
Chicago to Door County is the long one, at four and a quarter hours, and it is there to show where the limit sits. New York to the Hudson Valley is the short one, at an hour and a quarter, and it is there to show what you get back when the drive is small. Between them sit a five-hour interstate haul to Arkansas, a mountain pass crossing that can close in winter, a three-thousand-foot climb out of a desert city, and the easiest drive on the site, which is also the one with the most expensive beds.
Between them they cover the four things that actually go wrong on a weekend trip: a road that closes, a lot that fills, a town that doubles its prices in one particular month, and a Sunday return that takes two hours longer than the Friday departure.
What the numbers have in common
Gas is the smallest line on every single one of these trips. The most expensive tank of gas on the site is $59, for a 580-mile round trip from Dallas, and the cheapest is $15, from Manhattan to Beacon and back. Lodging is between four and nine times the fuel cost on every trip here.
That is the useful finding, and it runs against how most people think about a road trip. Driving another hundred miles each way costs about twenty-two dollars in fuel. Choosing a town ten minutes further out from the center, or moving the same weekend from October to September, saves between eighty and three hundred. If you are trying to make a weekend cheaper, the drive is almost never the place to look.
The second finding is that the two-night total lands between $540 and $667 across six wildly different trips. A weekend away in America, done at a mid-range level without cutting corners, costs about six hundred dollars for two people. That is a number worth having.
What is not here
No flights, because this is a driving site. No one-night trips, because they do not work. No trip we have not driven in the season we describe. And no destination where the honest advice would be to go for a week instead, which is why there is no Grand Canyon page and no Smokies page even though both are inside the range from a metro on the matrix.
More trips are added when they are driven, which is a slow way to build a website and the only way we are interested in doing it. If you want to suggest one, or correct a number on any page here, the address is on the contact page.