Occasional use RV financials are almost always ugly, if you look at the whole picture. Even at ten years, the fixed costs (insurance, storage, depreciation) run about $2000 a year. I've quit considering time value of money, since most of my returns are now under 2%.
If I go out five weekends a year, 10 nights camping, my fixed costs are $200 a night. A rental would be cheaper. If I can take a couple long trips and push it to 40 nights, it is still $50 a night. That's not cost of making the trip, just cost of ownership.
You have to base it on value of the lifestyle to you. Otherwise you could be way ahead paying $200 a night for resort accomodations. Which I must do anyway when I go to places where I can't take the RV, like Honolulu or Rome.
Full timing, it is another picture. Cost of owning and keeping up a RV big enough to live in aren't much different from costs of having a home about five times the size (depending on location). Extra costs are related to moving around.
Camping? RV is an expensive way of camping, or for me, an expensive way to avoid camping. The tent I bought 40 years ago for $50 is as good as it ever was. Total package, coolers, lanterns, stove, cookware didn't come to more than $200; we already had the sleeping bags from 20 tears earlier. Let's say $2000 worth of camping gear in today's dollars, because back then my salary was only $400 a month.
But that is camping, not RVing, a different experience. It just costs a whole lot more for us to drag a house out to the campground so that we don't actually have to camp. I do it because I can afford it, but I'm still looking for ways to scale back the costs.
If RVing is something you really want to do, you need to understand the costs, fixed costs distributed over the actual use, so that you can decide if it is something you want to do. I've never found RVing to be a money saving solution, compared to lodging and travel alternatives, but it is a funthing to do.
