budgeting on the road

So you're buying a RV here to travel in? If so then start your trip in either spring time in one of the snowbird areas(AZ, FL) or early autumn anywhere else so you can get a deal on a used RV. I'd reccomend a snow bird area. Could get one completely outfitted with everything you need from someone who just took their last trip and is done RV ing. Market is flooded with RVs in the spring in these areas. Buy in the spring in snowbird land and sell it the next spring farther north. You may be able to do the whole trip with zero depreciation on the RV or even make a buck on the right deal.

If you plan on seeing the natural attractions of America, NP's, NF's, lakes rivers, mtn's etc. I would budget $100-$120 per day for the basic trip. Insurances,gifts,club memberships,fishing licences,major vehicular repair etc would be extra.

"Road Less Traveled" said it right. Boondocking and dry camping can save a bundle. And in cities you can stay not only at Wal-mart parking lots but also at Cracker Barrels. Of course there will be some times you will need to stay in campgrounds. National park campgrounds are the cheapest. Some are 8.00 and up to 16.00 per night in our region.

Depends on your lifestyle choices, where you choose to go, types of places you choose to stay, how much you move per day.

I find the cost of moving is 40 to 50 cents a mile for the RV I own, and as it has aged, cost of ownership has slipped from abiut $8000 per year to $4000, but if my RV were 10x as valuable, ownership costs would rise proportionately.

On the average, when traveling, I pay $30 a day for my parking site, $10 per day per person for food. But those costs can vary greatly, because parking at popular tourist destinations, or near metropolitan areas may often exceed $50 a day, $150-200 at the top RV resorts in peak seasons or for special events; at the other end of the scale, the site cost can be zero on public lands and some municipal campgrounds, up to $20-25 in developed public camprounds, sometimes more at beaches. I most often pay $8 a night to camp at a lake on the Arkansas River system.

Similarly, it is pretty easy to push food costs over $50 per perso per day, if you want to eat out and eat well. Some resorts, and better restaurants, may be on the order of $50 per meal, but that cost and quality level can be hard to find outside major urban areas.

So costs are about choices. When trying to cover ground, 600 miles a day, I'll be spending $300 a day on fuel, for family of six about $120 for low cost restaurant meals, $35 for a campsite. To keep up that pace indefinitely, upwards of $3000 per week. Slow that pace to 200 miles a day with sightseeing, it is $100 for fuel, $35 for campsite, $30 groceries, maybe $30 admission fees (although that can go much higher at major destinations like theme parks) for about $1400 a week.

When I'm just camping, it is about $30-50 mileage cost for round trip to a lakeside campground, about $100-150 worth of groceries, $56 for the campsite for the week, $200-320 per week overall.

How much of the U.S. do you want to see in a year? It is pretty easy to run 15,000 to 20,000 miles and not see everything (that barely covers a loop around the perimeter and one trip across the middle. That's about $10,000 in travel costs, maybe $1500 a week living costs. A maximum pace, might be able to cover 150,000 miles in a year, not a lot of time sightseeing but you coul cover most of the country, 75,000 travel costs pushing total weekly cost to about $4500.

We wrote up a detailed page about our full-time RV budget, costs and expenses

We spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $1700-$2000 a month on everything from gas to insurance to food to our National Park Pass. Full-timing is so inexpensive for us because we boondock 100% of the time and have no overnight costs (this is our page for Boondocking Resources - a "How To" guide for RV Boondocking. (Boondocking is a beautiful way to RV -- gorgeous views, deer and elk going by the rig, acres and acres to spread out... and it's free)

When you first start out there are some up front costs to outfit your rig for full-timing that you may or may not need to incur. We installed a full-time solar power setup that paid for itself in 6 months because we no longer had to stay in RV parks.

That might or might not be necessary for a 12 month jaunt. Probably in your case it makes more sense just to bite the bullet and stay in RV parks and campgrounds and possibly get a gas generator (the Yamaha 2400i is excellent) for occasional boondocking and dry camping. You can then sell the generator at the end of your trip.

We also wrote up lots of notes about full-time RVing-- with resources for all kinds of things that may be worth a quick read...

For insurance, have a look at the full-timer products offered by Good Sam Club, National Interstate and GMAC.

(I believe Good Sam Club sells the insurance packages for the other two companies).

Good luck and have a blast!! We hope to do some long-term RVing in Australia someday!!

We are getting ready to set out. After much research and figuring we think we can go on $115 a day. This is everything included for us, insurance, food, entertainment, meds, dogfood, the works.
RV-Dreams is a great source to work from.

2gypsies wrote:


Wow!!! We've never spent anywhere close to $750-$1000/week. No way!! Gulp!!! How do you figure? I guess you could if you went out to a restaurant for every meal and stayed at the most expensive parks. There are many ways to cut down on costs. Even if you figure $40/day for a campsite which would be extremely high for us, that's only $280. We eat meals in our RV and occasionally go out but not to a 5-star restaurant. We could never have lasted as full-timers if we spent $750+/week.

True 2gypsies. Our answers are geared to folks who are going to be in "vacation mode" for a year. We don't spend that much when we aren't doing the tourist stuff - tours and excursions and almost always lunches out.

Wow, all of your advice is really good. So appreciate your knowledge on being nomads. We are getting a clearer picture on everything. thank you xx

restlesswind wrote:

ddfoster wrote:
I guess this is a pretty broad question about expenses, but I was more interested in whether people spend $500 a week or $1000 per week on day to day living while travelling.

Naturally it will depend on your lifestyle,but I would guess close to
$750 per week.Lots of variables,eat out,eat in,"resort" living or national parks,miles driven per week...and the list goes on.$1000 plus
per week would be closer if you travel in "vacation" mode

Wow!!! We've never spent anywhere close to $750-$1000/week. No way!! Gulp!!! How do you figure? I guess you could if you went out to a restaurant for every meal and stayed at the most expensive parks. There are many ways to cut down on costs. Even if you figure $40/day for a campsite which would be extremely high for us, that's only $280. We eat meals in our RV and occasionally go out but not to a 5-star restaurant. We could never have lasted as full-timers if we spent $750+/week.

ddfoster wrote:
I guess this is a pretty broad question about expenses, but I was more interested in whether people spend $500 a week or $1000 per week on day to day living while travelling.

Aside from gas, eating out will eat up a lot of your cash. No pun intended. If you want to save money, eat in your rig. Avoid restaurants. And dry camp as much as possible as those CG fees really add up.