Cost of RVing

My wife and I are heading out on June 20 for 3 or 4 months in our 26ft class C on an E-450 chassis no tow.. So let's "estimate" per day costs. Some days will be more some less. No breakdowns. $80 for gas. We do 175 to 225 miles per day 8 mpg. $45 per day for a campsite. $25 per day for food. Looks like $150 per day. If we are taking a few days off..... $45 for a campsite and 25 for food. Our food not restaurant bought...... This is the number I'm using right now, but gas is going through the roof, so is food. So who knows. When I get back in September I'll post the real numbers. Should be interesting.

Campgrounds around here are 25-35 dollars a night. But, that is just for electric hook up and occasionally water.

But,, they are CAMPgrounds !! Not camping resorts with all sorts of extras. You get a spot on a lake or river with electric , a fire pit, usually a place to swim or fish, (if your lucky a dock) some hiking trails, a bathroom and shower, sometimes a dump station, sometimes a place to launch a boat, and generally a place to set around the fire with family and a few friends and have fun outdoors.

If you want swimming pools, wi-fi, and stuff like that, then you are not going to get that for 25-35 bucks.

Just checked in with FHU (30 amp) on Ocracoke Island, thought it was reasonable at $50 a night. Nags Head and Hatteras were over $100 most around $125.

You eat everywhere, so cooking at or in in your RV cuts that cost by 80% the same as it would be at home over restaurants. Fuel, what would you spend at home to go about life?
Site fees - heres the big question

In the ARVC and Good Sam profile, that exclude membership and longer than weeklong visits, giving better rates to monthlies and seasonals, so as to give an overnight stay basis complicated by the average of on and off season rates, and further complicated by discounts that may or not apply,
Yeah, you could make it on $ 30-40/ night in nice camps if you travel in shoulder and off season, in the hinterland -- in the coastal states, add a lot. Double in any season.
If you dont need premium sites like pull thrus, are adventurous, it can be as low as free on public lands where you can subsist on your in house systems. For this xyou must know your tank and batteriy limits
$30 / is about the average nightly fee reported for private/ public in season partially seviced in the mid section of the USA

There is a JD Power article from 2017 that shows these costs.

https://wandrlymagazine.com/article/rv-camping-cost-per-night/

Most of the article that refers to the $30/night also only refer to Camping World and their input to the RV world.

Interesting read but not today's reality.

Reisender wrote:
I would say we find campgrounds more in the mid 40’s on average. Not complaining. Just an observation.

That's pretty consistent from what we've seen.

We recently got back from a 7 month loop of the country over the winter. Stayed in 40 campgrounds. I did a quick look at our schedule and counted 18 campgrounds (mix of commercial & govt) that were $22 or less.

There were a couple that were just OK for an overnight but most were fine.

If you do a week or a month, that usually drags the cost down substantially over the nightly rate.

Fuel, what would you spend at home to go about life?

Quite a bit less money on fuel
FYI, not everyone uses their lower mpg tow vehicle for daily driving. We would drive more ave miles per day while traveling than when at home (even with my 80 miles/work day commute).

Our next trip will be 1600miles round trip for 5 days over a long weekend. If we stayed home during that time we’d typically travel <300miles using vehicles with about 3x higher mpg.

You'd be hard pressed to find any RV park here in the West for less than $35/night. And many state parks are even more. I usually dry camp at NFS campgrounds with my ATB pass.

2020 we averaged $57 per night, I would consider that somewhat on the cheap side. Min $38 Max $88

Mike

If we are looking at the cost of RV travel; we need to also compare cost of of hotels and 3 restaurant meals a day in the same places. That area that has $50 RV sites probably also has $150 motel rooms.