Find out EXACTLY How Much the Great Loop Costs

America’s Great Loop is a 6,000-mile boating journey around the Eastern portion of the United States, up into the Great Lakes and Canada, and back down the MidWest Rivers, traditionally completed in a year. How can you find out how much this trip will cost you? The answer is…. you can’t. Every person is different, every budget is different, and every Loop is different.

However, you can read our expense reports below and see how much we actually spent on the Loop during our 2022 and 2023 Loop. We tracked every expense and went into detail month by month, so you can use our experience as a reference point.

Jump to the Year Review

The Great Loop Budget Calculator

If you want to leverage our starting point, check out our Great Loop Budget Calculator, to estimate your Loop, and record your expenses to determine how much the Loop will cost you!

All Great Loop Expense Reports By Month

MONTHLY EXPENSES ON AMERICA’S GREAT LOOP – MARCH 2022

Traveling around America’s Great Loop doesn’t have to break the bank. This article explains the detailed monthly expenses of one couple’s journey around the Great Loop. By sharing our Great Loop monthly expenses with you, we hope to inspire other people that you can do the Loop on a budget at any age. NOT ALL…
MONTHLY EXPENSES ON AMERICA’S GREAT LOOP – APRIL 2022

Traveling around America’s Great Loop doesn’t have to break the bank. This article explains the detailed monthly expenses in of our journey around the Great Loop. By sharing our Great Loop monthly expenses with you, we hope to inspire other people that you can do the Loop on a budget at any age. TRAVEL SUMMARY…
MONTHLY EXPENSES ON AMERICA’S GREAT LOOP – MAY 2022

Our third month on the Great Loop was more expensive than we would have hoped. Attending the America’s Great Loop Cruisier’s Association Spring Rendezvous in Norfolk, VA put us about $1,000 off budget, but the information we gained was well worth the budget detour. Traveling around America’s Great Loop doesn’t have to break the bank.…
MONTHLY EXPENSES ON AMERICA’S GREAT LOOP – JUNE 2022

We’ve been traveling around America’s Great Loop for four months this year and one of the first things people comment on when they meet us is our age. We are not the typically retired loopers. Following the comment about our age, we get asked if we’re working while traveling, which is “yes, we are working.”…
MONTHLY EXPENSES ON AMERICA’S GREAT LOOP – JULY 2022

You don’t have to be retired or be a millionaire to travel around America’s Great Loop. As a young couple who are working as we cruise around the Great Loop, our budget is strict yet flexible with the approach of saving money where we can, such as anchoring, and spending money on unique experiences such…
MONTHLY EXPENSES ON AMERICA’S GREAT LOOP – AUGUST 2022

Budgeting for America’s Great Loop comes with challenges. Some areas of the loop have abundant anchoring options while others have very few options. Some regions have higher fuel prices while other regions have relatively low prices. There are many factors that go into creating a budget for the Great Loop, but among all is flexibility.…
MONTHLY EXPENSES ON AMERICA’S GREAT LOOP – SEPTEMBER 2022

There are many factors that go into creating a budget for the Great Loop, but among all is flexibility. We knew budgeting for our Great Loop would ebb and flow depending on the season and our location. When doing our initial budget plans, we expected Canada to surpass our lower budget months but we did…
MONTHLY EXPENSES ON AMERICA’S GREAT LOOP – OCTOBER 2022

Many factors go into creating a budget for the Great Loop, but among all is flexibility. We knew budgeting for our Great Loop would ebb and flow depending on the season and our location. We’re happy to be in the Midwest rivers with a lower price for dockage, great anchorages, and some fun side trips!…
MONTHLY EXPENSES ON AMERICA’S GREAT LOOP – NOVEMBER 2022

The Great Loop is a beautiful adventure full of challenges including the challenge of staying on budget. We knew budgeting for our Great Loop would ebb and flow depending on the season and our location and that’s exactly what it did while we spent two weeks in Chattanooga, TN to work.
MONTHLY EXPENSES ON AMERICA’S GREAT LOOP – DECEMBER 2022

December was a great month for us regarding our Great Loop Budget! From affordable marinas to getting a free boost of speed going down the Tenn-Tom thanks to some recent rain, we were able to stay fairly close to our monthly goal budget. Little did we know that the cold would follow us until the…
MONTHLY EXPENSES ON AMERICA’S GREAT LOOP – JANUARY 2023

This is our second to last Monthly Expense on our Great Loop. When we first set out to share these monthly expense reports, we were unsure if they would be helpful to other people. Over the past year, we’ve gotten a ton of great feedback which really makes the work that goes into writing these…
MONTHLY EXPENSES ON AMERICA’S GREAT LOOP – FEBRUARY 2023

In this blog post, we share our monthly expenses as we travel around America’s Great Loop – a 6,000 nautical mile journey around part of the US and Canada by boat. This month was a perfect example of the power of anchoring and why anchoring is our best tool to saving money on the Great…
How Much it Costs To Do America’s Great Loop in One Year

In this blog post, we share our total expenses as we traveled around America’s Great Loop in one year. After sharing detailed, month-by-month expenses, we have totaled up the past 12 months in this post. By sharing our monthly Great Loop expenses, it will inspire prospective loopers that you don’t need to be retired or…