10 Reasons RV Vacations are Better

et2 wrote:

travelnutz wrote:
et2,

I think your post regarding "costs" is way off. We always pay cash for our trucks, boats, and RV's. Nearly 4 decades beyond making any payments and not going to start now! With our RV's we both boondock if it's where we want to spend a day or even a week and we also stay at decent and nice CG's. I know the costs as we have had 51 years this year of RV'ing and they are a small fraction of the costs of other types of vacations where flying and decent motel/hotel staying along with eating in restaurants etc.

I had flown so often for many years when owning the engineering business for decades and WE have taken the aluminum thingy to go to Hawaii, across the salt water pond called the Atlantic, to the Caribbean, South America etc many times and to add creedence to my words is this: My wife was a world travel agent, trainer, investigator of new venues, and arranging vacations for individuals, couples, families, group vacations etc for AAA and Cruise Holidays for a couple decades before retiring. We've personally been on 16 cruises, many resort venues, and have taken groups as large as 35 to Alaska for as many as 12 days. Fly, rent vans and/or cars for several day tours arounf Alaska, motels/hotels, meals, take a cruise ship back to Vancouver etc, often then take the bus down to Seattle and spend a day or so there, and fly back to Grand Rapids. Some have been the reverse itinerary.

You think I/we don't really know exactly what fly, cruise, resort, motel/hotel etc vacations cost singles, couples, groups, etc???

RV'ing done smartly is so much cheaper unless you over buy or are constantly buying new every couple years, stay in deep debt with the RV/tow vehicle and will only stay in expensive type CG's/resorts. Then it could be closer to a nice resort vacation cost for a couple but still less with the RV with a family of 4. With an RV, it's you who decides where, when, what route, how long anywhere, and what an RV vacation/travel will cost in total including the RV's portion of the true cost. However, with a fly to, stay, meals, fly back, and may even rent a vehicle when staying, the cost is determined by someone else and pay it or leave it. Parking, transfers, options at added costs, you go when and on what they decide upon, etc. When the flight comes back, your butts better be on it!

I don't believe they're one bit. Even if you paid cash for your stuff it doesn't eliminate the cost you paid for it. Every dollar you spend on it with interest or not is a cost that needs to be in the equation.

Now the question is ... what did you spend on it. Are we talking about a used pop-up and a used ranger p/u? Then sure your going to beat the "traditional" vacationers driving or flying to a destination and hotel at some point. But what if you can & wish to buy a $60,000 dually and a $80,000 fiver ( $140,000 total ), or a $200,000 MH, or a $ 300,000 MH, etc., and you can afford to pay cash. There is no way most family's out there are ever going to match that with the drive/fly/hotel in their lifetime. This doesn't even take in consideration license fees, campgrounds fees, fuel, maintenance, and all the other normal vacation costs.

Example, the cost of our MH was $175,000 cash. Let's say over 10 years that would be 17,500 per year not including fuel and all the other costs mentioned above. So you can probably add another $5000 to 10,000 to that for a yearly RVing cost of $22,500 to $27,500 per year. Given, at least you own the equipment and that has some depreciated value now and over time.

We belong to a vacation club and our destination costs are $160 per week around the world and a membership fee if traveling of $380 per year. So we flew to Hawaii on our 30th anniversary last year. Keeping those fees in mind the total cost was for that was just over $5000. It could have been $2000 more if we paid the normal hotel fees like most people.

So that $5000 was way less compared to "our" RVing lifestyle as mentioned above. I don't believe for a minute it's cheaper for most people driving a nice truck trailer combo or MH. There are exceptions, but they're not the majority IMO. I suppose it depends on what you consider over buying. A million dollar MH might not be over buying for some people.

OK, how much would it cost to own, maintain and fuel an airplane? also how much to purchase a hotel? add those expenses in and RV`ing is way,way cheaper!

When we went to Disney World I priced it out both ways. flying and staying at a hotel vs. taking the trailer and staying in Fort Wilderness. in the end the price was a wash. we stayed at the Fort and we got to see Stone Mtn on the way.
Now obviously we can`t drive to Hawaii so that is the only trip I will have to fly, no choice!