Camping in this economy

A big thing for comparing camping with hotels is number of rooms... our kids are older teenagers now, so now when we go somewhere and need a hotel, we try to get two hotel rooms. That adds up very quick!

We are probably going to camp our highest number of nights this year. We have a few short trips planned, and then one long trip to New England that will be about 1400 miles round trip. We are also looking to combine a trip to VA beach with a trip to DE to save on gas.

We just set a budget and are trying to stick to it. We all just do what we can do...though it'd help if gas was a tad cheaper!

We're going to fly to Alaska this summer and spend a week because I don't want to put the wear and tear on the MH driving it that far. Going to rent a car when we get there and see the sites. When we get back, we'll probably take a big trip in the MH but I haven't decided where as of yet.

Most of our camping is within 30 miles of the house, with occasional forays 100-400 miles away. DH is retired and I work 20 hours a week, mostly from home so we've been able to go at least once a month since last summer. Now that it's spring, we'll probably go more often. We live about 30 min from a lovely COE, so it's very easy to pick up and go. And if for some reason, I need to run into Atlanta to go to work, it's not such a long drive. I also do field work for my company, so sometimes we take the camper and go to a nearby state park a day ahead. They I can do my home visits while DH relaxes at the campground. I get paid salary and mileage anyway, so I might as well make the trip a two-fer one

Yes, it is MUCH cheaper than hotel, etc on vacation. And I think it's growing in popularity I wonder if it's because of that reason...I have to book weekend trips way in advance no matter what State Park we're going to it seems. They are very popular.
I know with our family, there's NO WAY we could vacation this much if we didn't camp (we just love camping, too, it's a bonus that it's cheaper); especially with 4 kids we have to get "suites" to hold 6 people.

It's expensive.

We both work and have 3 school aged kids.
Last year and this year, we will camp 8 or 9 times for about a total of 30 nights.

We have 3 trips that are about 3 hours from home and the rest are local.

Even staying at the more expensive Yogi Bear campgrounds is cheap compared to a hotel.

Last request to keep the political comments out of this thread.

Thanks.

12,000 miles this last winter and getting antsy to go for a little up north stuff. I expect this spring summer about 2000 miles for outings.

Terryallan wrote:

Tvov wrote:

John & Angela wrote:

On edit. Just checked the history of gas prices here. Fuel is a couple cents per litre cheaper now than 5 years ago. Go figure. :).

I just went to Gasbuddy.com and checked price history... according to that site, what I am remembering is more like 5 years ago. Interesting. Those are average prices, I swear just two years ago I had a price drop in my area. It may have just been the local station's pricing.

I do know that on April, 20, 2009. the average Gas price for the US was $2.05, Up $.10 from $1.95 in March of that year. So any way you look at it. Todays gas prices are high. Waaaay too high

Yah the graph I was looking at showed some big valleys and dips in the last 6 or 7 years. In the closing months of 2008, fuel got cheap as the banking system failed and a few trillion dollars evaporated from the face of the earth but it had some high spikes before that as well. Overall it seems about the same as 6 or 7 years ago. I think there is a regional component as well.