I made a list of all the expenses to expect if you drive your car across the country. Some of them, like gas, are pretty obvious, while some you need to think about a little more. Aside from fuel for your vehicle, you will need to budget for accommodations, meals, maintenance fees such as an oil change and tire or brake usage, car depreciation and in some cases, the daily loss of income if you need to take extra vacation days.

The table below shows the inputs for my mock move.

Note that these values are subject to change, depending on the person and the move conditions. For instance, I set my food budget at $15 per meal, three meals a day. In my case, I will most likely have a small breakfast, stop three times for coffee on the way, eat a sandwich for lunch and have a good meal for dinner. That’s personal. If you are well equipped, camping may also be a cheaper alternative than motels; while most hotels will be more expensive than $65 per night. Gas prices vary constantly over time, and also between provinces. I used a mean value as of June 2015. As for maintenance and depreciation of your vehicle, I used values from a study conducted in Canada by the Corporate Fleet service. If you are driving an older car, the depreciation cost per kilometre may be lower. Maintenance and repairs will also vary with manufacturers and models. 

Finally, the second table gives the detailed results calculated from the inputs above. One striking fact is that nearly half of the cost does not actually occur during your move. Your car depreciation, for instance, will only be felt when selling your vehicle.

If these results do not represent your situation, I invite you to use this spreadsheet to calculate the cost of your own move. Please leave comments if you have trouble with the spreadsheet.