auman wrote:
Hi,
I was planning a whirlwind tour of most of the colleges you visited. Just wanted to know how much it cost you for all of it.
Sure,
There were three groups of material expenses: transportation, accomodation and food. I tried my best to fit into 1 month and spend as little as possible.
My itinerary and transportation costs:1. New York – Yale (New Haven) – New York. Took the Metro North train; ~30 USD.
2. New York – Philadelphia. Bus; ~10 USD – some special fare.
3. In Philadelphia I rented a car to visit Darden, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell and Tuck – in that order. The latter four are somewhat remote, so car was the cheapest option if viewed holistically. I.e. bus might be cheaper for the trip, but then I‘d have to spend an extra night in town.
4. Car rent cost ~200 USD for a week plus another 200 USD personal liability insurance. Not sure whether I name the insurance correctly, since in EU we usually have a car insured and it does not matter who drives the vehicle, whereas here I think the insurance insured the person driving, not the vehicle. I clocked around 3000 miles, so ~350 USD was spent on gas.
5. I returned the car in Philadelphia even though that meant a rather pointless drive from Hanover (Tuck). All for the sake of minimizing expenses – returning car in different location that it was picked up costs quite a lot, ~400 USD or so.
6. Philadelphia – Boston. Bus; ~40 USD.
7. Flight Boston – Chicago. ~100 USD.
8. Flight Chicago – Los Angeles. ~150 USD.
9. Los Angeles – San Francisco. Bus, ~50 USD.
10. Flight San Francisco – New York. ~180 USD.
11. Various inner city tickets / passes – ~100 USD (in NY, Chicago, San Francisco).
Accomodation costs:Wherever I could, I stayed in youth hostels. If no hostel was present, for example when driving on the East Coast, I stayed in motels. Hostels cost ~35 USD per night; motels - ~50 USD per night.
Food:Did not really track minutely. My guess is that I spent between 10 and 20 USD per day.
All in all, the journey took 30 days; transportation cost ~1400 USD; accomodation - ~1200 USD; plus food.
Plus, I had to arrive in NY from Europe. I flew in from Warsaw. Cost ~600 USD, roundtrip.