A trip costed end to end: route, fuel, two budgets, break-even

You get a costed itinerary, not a travel blog. Built from real road routing and published prices, with every number labelled hard, computed, or planning range. What you get: - Route and daily distances from actual road routing, with the long days and the fuel gaps flagged. - A fuel model by province, using the latest published retail price table. - Two full budgets side by side (for example hotels and restaurants versus trailer and campgrounds), including the fixed extras people forget: hitch, brake controller, insurance, ferry surcharges. - A break-even line: how many days of the cheaper option before it actually is cheaper. - The three things most likely to flip the decision, with what each costs if it happens. - Your overnight stops, with what is within walking distance of each, if you want that. What I need from you: start and end point, the vehicle, how many people, and the two options you are weighing. Delivery: 4 days, as a document you keep. If your own numbers differ from mine, the document shows you how to rescale them. I do not quote prices I cannot source. Where a figure is a planning range, it says so on the line.

SAMPLE: structure of a finished cost model (numbers below are representative, from a real job).

ROUTE AT A GLANCE
Halifax -> Victoria (Trans-Canada)      6,111 km road
Return leg                              4,335 km road
TOTAL                                  10,510 km, 18 driving days, 17 nights
Average 585 km/day. Longest day 725 km. All distances from OpenStreetMap routing.

FUEL MODEL (hard numbers, sourced)
Consumption: 23 L/100 km towing 7,500 lb (21 flat prairie, up to 27 in mountains and headwinds), 11 L/100 solo. This is a planning figure, not a specification.
Prices: Statistics Canada table 18-10-0001-01, regular unleaded, self-service, September 2026 (latest published), cents per litre:
  NS 193.2 | NB 192.5 | QC 195.0 | ON 183.7 | MB 171.5 | SK 174.0 | AB 167.3 | BC 209.5
Blended for this route: $1.82/L.
  Towing: 2,417 L = about $4,395
  Solo:   1,156 L = about $2,102

TWO BUDGETS (planning ranges, CAD)
                          HOTELS + EATING OUT     TRAILER + CAMP + OWN FOOD
Rooms/campsite            17n x 2 x $210 = 7,140   17n x $55 = 935
Food                      18d x $225 = 4,050      18d x $110 = 1,980
Fuel                      2,102 (solo)            4,395 (towing)
Ferries                   350                     600
Sightseeing, parking      500                     300
Upkeep, tires, oil        300                     400
Propane, ice, laundry     -                       200
TOTAL                     14,442                  8,810
Rental add-on             -                       3,200 (17d x $150 + hitch/brake + insurance)
TOTAL IF RENTING          -                       12,010

BREAK-EVEN IN DAYS
Per day actually camping: saves about $480, burns about $142 more fuel, nets about $338. A rented trailer nets about $188/day, so it breaks even on day one of camping and pulls ahead of hotels after about four days.

THREE THINGS THAT FLIP THIS
1. Late-season campground closures: assume three nights forced into hotels, +$1,095.
2. Rental mileage caps: 10,500 km in one rental is often outside them. Get unlimited km in writing or buy used and resell.
3. Mountain passes in late autumn: BC requires winter or M+S tires on designated highways from 1 October. At 7,500 lb you need brakes that work.

WHAT I AM NOT PROMISING
Hotel and campsite rates are planning numbers, not quotes. Fuel moves weekly. If your truck's own towing average differs, I show you the scaling: every 1 L/100 is about $190 on this route.

SAMPLE: how I label a source, from a finished job.

Every figure in a report I make is one of three things, and it says which:

HARD. Can be checked against a published source that I read. Example: fuel price per litre, by province, from Statistics Canada table 18-10-0001-01, September 2026 release.
COMPUTED. Arithmetic on hard numbers, shown so you can redo it. Example: 2,417 litres x $1.82 = about $4,395.
PLANNING RANGE. An estimate with a stated assumption. Example: hotel rooms at $210 a night for five people. If yours is $160 or $260, the difference is $850 or $850 the other way, and I say so.

Where a source has a limitation, I write the limitation on the same line as the number. Where I could not find a source, I say "no source found" rather than filling the space.