Road Trip Cost Calculator

Planning a UK road trip budget means accounting for fuel, tolls, parking, accommodation and food. Fuel is usually the largest variable cost: divide your total distance by your car's MPG, convert to litres by multiplying by 4.546, and multiply by the price per litre. A 500-mile trip in a 40 MPG car at £1.72 a litre, the UK average petrol price in the week commencing 21 September 2026 (DESNZ), costs about £98 in fuel. It helps to think in pence per mile as well, since at that price a gallon costs £7.82 and a 40 MPG car burns 19.5p of fuel every mile, which makes a 1,000-mile round trip £195 before anything else is added.

Britain has fewer toll roads than France or Spain, but the ones that remain are worth knowing about. The M6 Toll around Birmingham charges by zone, £12 for a car driving the full length or £10.20 with a Breeze account since July 2026. The Dartford Crossing is £3.50, or £2.80 with a pre-pay account, the Humber Bridge £2 since February 2026 (£1.50 for account holders), the Mersey Gateway £2.40 and the Tyne Tunnel £2.60 since May 2026. Neither the Mersey Gateway nor Dartford has booths, so pay online by midnight the next day or face a fine. The Severn bridges have been free since December 2018 and the Skye Bridge since 2004. City charges are the modern equivalent: £18 a day in central London and £8 in Birmingham's Clean Air Zone for older, more polluting cars, with Bristol running a similar zone at £9.

Parking swings wildly by location, from free in rural areas to £5 to £15 a day in towns and £20 to £50 in city centres, and National Trust and English Heritage car parks cost members nothing. Put the distance, your car's MPG, the pump price, tolls and parking into the calculator and it produces the fuel cost and total with a per-person split; add accommodation and food on top. London to Edinburgh and back, roughly 800 miles over two nights, works out at £156 of fuel in a 40 MPG car at £1.72 a litre, £24 of M6 Toll charges both ways, £180 for two nights at £90, and about £30 for parking and odds and ends, giving £390 in total or about £195 each for two people.

Beds and meals usually outweigh the driving on anything longer than a weekend. A bed and breakfast runs £80 to £150 a night, a budget hotel £60 to £100, a mid-range one £100 to £200 and something smarter £200 to £500, so five nights typically lands between £400 and £1,000. Eating in pubs and cafés costs £30 to £60 per person per day, against £15 to £30 if you self-cater. Those two lines are where a trip quietly doubles in price, and they are also the easiest to control.

Electric cars change the planning rather than the price. Premium models such as a Tesla Model Y or Polestar 2 return 250 to 350 real-world miles, with rapid charging stops of 20 to 30 minutes taking the battery from 10 to 80%. Rapid charging at 60 to 80p per kWh costs 15 to 20p a mile, similar to petrol, so the saving comes from charging at home before you leave rather than on the road. Network reliability varies: Ionity manages 95%, BP Pulse 91% and Pod Point 88%. Zap-Map is the best UK charger app and A Better Routeplanner builds the stops into your route, which matters in rural Scotland and Wales where chargers are thin on the ground.

Route length sets everything else. The North Coast 500 through the Scottish Highlands is 516 miles and takes five to seven days, at £600 to £1,200 a head. The Cornwall coast from St Ives to Land's End and on to Tintagel is 250 miles over four or five days, at £400 to £800 a head. The full Wales coast drive is 1,400 miles, though most people take a section such as Pembrokeshire or Snowdonia. A Lake District loop is 100 miles across two or three days, and the Cotswolds 80 miles over a weekend, with short trips coming in at £150 to £400 per person.

Timing is the cheapest lever available. Travelling between September and May costs 30 to 50% less than peak summer, and mid-week hotel rates run 20 to 40% below weekend ones. A self-catering cottage at £200 to £500 for the week beats hotels for a group of four or more, while pubs with rooms at £60 to £100 a night usually include breakfast. National Trust and English Heritage membership at £80 to £120 a year opens more than 350 properties and their car parks. Apps such as PetrolPrices.com and GasBuddy save 5 to 10p a litre, and camping starts at £15 a night, or nothing at all under Scotland's wild camping rules. On that basis £300 to £500 per person covers five days comfortably.