Fuel + tolls + lodging + food + extras — total cost and per-person breakdown.
A road trip's total cost is the sum of half a dozen variable lines that travelers consistently underestimate. Fuel is the obvious one and the easiest to compute exactly, but the per-kilometer toll cost on European motorways, the per-night lodging budget, the per-person-per-day food spend, and the miscellaneous extras (parking, museum entries, road-trip souvenirs) routinely add up to more than the fuel itself. A 5-day European tour for two can clock $800 in fuel and tolls, $400 in lodging, $350 in food, and $150 in extras — for a total around $1 700, well above the "this'll cost about $800 in gas" mental model many drivers start with. This calculator unpacks all five line items and shows them as a stacked bar so the budget shape is visible at a glance.
Fuel cost = (distance_km / 100) × consumption_l_per_100km × fuel_price_per_l.
Toll cost = distance_km × toll_per_km. Toll/km varies hugely: 0 in most of the US (besides toll roads), 0.06–0.08 €/km on French motorways, 0.10–0.15 €/km on Italian. The user enters their typical figure.
Lodging cost = nights × lodging_per_night.
Food cost = days × people × meal_per_person_per_day.
Extras = arbitrary line for activities, parking, fees, gifts.
Total = fuel + toll + lodging + food + extras.
Per-person = total / people.
Per-km = total / distance_km — a useful sanity-check metric.
The chart shows a stacked horizontal bar with the five components proportionally, color-coded.
Enter distance in km. Enter fuel consumption in L/100 km (typical 5–7 for an efficient sedan, 8–10 for a midsize SUV). Enter fuel price per litre (varies by country: ~ €1.85 in France, ~ €0.90 equivalent in the US). Enter toll per km (0 for non-toll routes). Enter nights of lodging and per-night cost. Enter people, days, and meal per person per day. Enter extras (activities, parking, miscellaneous).
The result panel shows total trip cost, per person, per km, and a breakdown of all five components.
Paris → Nice and back, 1 900 km, 6.5 L/100 km, €1.85/L, €0.08 toll/km, 2 nights at €110, 2 people, 3 days, €40 meal/person/day, €150 extras.
A grand tour of France, 14 days, 3 500 km, 4 people:
A short local week, 600 km no tolls, 2 people, 7 days:
Fuel-consumption variance. Real consumption varies with traffic, terrain, weight, and AC use. The brochure number is for ideal conditions. Use 110 % of WLTP for highway-only trips; 90 % for slow town driving.
Toll-per-km generalization. Real tolls are flat per stretch, not per-km. Across 1 900 km Paris-Nice-Paris, tolls work out to roughly €152 — but it's not literally €0.08 every km. The calc's per-km model is a smoothing.
Currency. The currency-symbol input applies to all monetary inputs. Cross-currency trips (start in EU, end in UK) need manual conversion or post-processing.
Lodging variability. Hotel prices vary 3× by season; AirBnB another 2× depending on location. The calc takes a single average.
Food per person. Self-catering camp trips cost €15/person/day; tourist-trap restaurant trips cost €60. The €35 default is for moderate restaurants and casual cafes.
Extras compound. Museum entries, parking ($30/day in Paris core), tolls on bridges (San Francisco $9 each way), tipping (US 18 %, EU rare), and souvenirs add 10–25 % to the food+lodging line. Pad the extras input.
Per-km cost is dominated by lodging at low km. A 200 km trip with 3 nights of hotels has high €/km; a 3 000 km trip dilutes the lodging across many km. The metric is useful only relative to similar trips.
EV vs ICE. The calc assumes liquid fuel. EVs need different math — charging cost is regional (€0.20–0.60/kWh depending on home/destination charging mix) and consumption is in kWh/100 km, not L/100 km. Use a separate calc for EVs.
Border crossings. Vignettes (Switzerland 40 CHF/year, Austria 9.20 €/10 days), tunnel tolls, ferries — pad extras.
Hidden taxes on lodging. City taxes (€1–6/night in EU), occupancy taxes (3–15 % in US states). Read the hotel listing carefully; the calc takes a flat per-night price.
Time has a cost. Driving 1 900 km saves €600 vs flying for two but costs 24 hours. Whether that's a saving depends on the value of the alternative use of those hours.