Trip Budget Calculator

Quick answer: five nights in Orlando in July for two people cost $1,605 in hotel and meals at the US government’s own travel rates: $145 a night for the room and $80 a day each for meals. Pick your place and month above, add flights and tickets, and the total, per person and per day update as you type.

How to use it

Choose the country and the place: every city GSA sets a rate for in the United States, “anywhere else” in each state, and every city the State Department lists abroad. Pick the month and the number of nights, people and rooms. The tool prices the room night by night, because rates change by month in the US and by season abroad, and it prices meals per person per day. Then add what only you know: flights, tickets and activities, a car, and a buffer for the unexpected. Enter how many months you have to save, and it tells you how much to put away each month.

Where the rates come from

A per diem is the most a US government traveller may spend on a hotel room, and the fixed amount for meals and incidentals (M&IE), each day in a given place. The General Services Administration (GSA) sets them for the 48 contiguous states and Washington, DC, for each fiscal year from October to September. The State Department’s Office of Allowances sets them for every other country, updated on the first of each month. They are real, published prices for a comfortable business trip, which makes them a fair starting point for a holiday budget. Your own hotel may cost more or less; type its rate in Your own nightly rate to use it instead.

Hawaii, Alaska and the US territories are missing: the Defense Department sets their rates, and its tables are not in this tool yet.

Meals and incidentals, by tier

Every US place falls into one of GSA’s five meal tiers for fiscal year 2027. On the day you leave and on your last day you get 75% of the day’s amount (41 CFR 301-11.101), and the tool does the same, so a 5-night trip counts 4 full days of meals and two days at 75%.

What the government allows in popular places

The lodging cap is per room per night; meals and incidentals are per person per day. US rates change by month (the range shows the cheapest and dearest month); Athens changes by season.

Worked examples

Orlando for a family of four. Five nights in July with two rooms: $145 × 2 rooms × 5 nights is $1,450 for the hotel, and $80 a day each for meals over 4 full days and two at 75% is $1,760. That is $3,210 before your park tickets and flights, which you add in the form.

A week in Tokyo for two. Seven nights in April at the State Department’s Tokyo rate: $346 a night is $2,422, and $122 a day each for meals is $1,830. Hotel and meals come to $4,252, about $532 a day.

New York for a weekend: December or January? Two nights for two in December, when the room rate is $358, come to $1,176. In January, at $189, the same weekend is $838: the month alone cuts the hotel bill almost in half.

Common mistakes

• Counting meals for the nights, not the days. A 5-night trip has 6 days of meals, two of them part days.
• Forgetting the second room. The lodging rate is per room: a family of four in two rooms pays it twice.
• Budgeting from the low season’s rate for a trip in the high season. Pick the real month.
• No buffer. Leave room for the taxi, the forgotten charger and the dinner that ran long.

Plan it for less

For the ideas that cut these numbers, see how to travel on a budget and finding cheap flights. Going to Florida? Read which month is cheapest to visit Florida and what a trip to Destin costs. For short breaks, try these cheap weekend getaways in the USA.