Trip Planner & Budget Calculator

The calculator is built to give a realistic budget estimate, and defaulting to the lower of the two nightly rates you enter reflects that a cost-conscious traveler would typically choose the cheaper option unless other factors matter more. The full accommodation comparison table still shows both options side by side, including their per-night rates and feature differences, so you can override that assumption based on which you'd actually prefer to book.

Accommodation, food, activities, and miscellaneous spending are assumed to cost roughly the same regardless of how you get there, so isolating just the transportation difference — fuel cost for driving versus flight cost plus any rental car — gives a cleaner read on which travel mode is actually cheaper, without those other categories diluting or obscuring the comparison.

It subtracts 2 from your total trip days as a simple assumption that a typical trip includes one weekend's worth of already-free days, so a 5-day trip is estimated to need 3 vacation days off work. This is a rough planning estimate — it doesn't know your actual work schedule, so a trip that spans two weekends, or one where your weekend falls on different days, would need a different number of actual vacation days than this simplified formula assumes.

Flight time uses a fixed 500 mph cruise speed plus a flat 4-hour allowance for airport time on both ends, while drive time uses the average speed you enter applied evenly across the whole distance — neither accounts for real-world variables like layovers, security wait times, traffic congestion, or rest stops that can meaningfully extend actual travel time in either direction. Treat these as ballpark estimates for comparing travel modes, not precise itinerary planning figures.