Cost of RVing

We're full-time. Before we outfitted our rigs for boondocking, we stayed in parks, usually taking advantage of weekly and monthly rates (staying 2-4wks per location), and tracked our nightly costs. We averaged $31.87 a night over several months, before we decided parks were not for us. Unfortunately for vacationers, those rates aren't usually available for shorter stays but do bring down the national average if considered.

prichardson wrote:
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.

Well, of course they do, however sometimes that's the way we like to travel.

So, on a 500-mile day, our extremely comfortable car getting 35 mpg on unleaded regular more than makes up the difference of our DP getting 10 mpg on diesel.

We can massage the numbers any way we like, but all in all, RVing is a lifestyle, and definitely not a way to save money when traveling.

lbrjet wrote:
How does stuff like that even get published.

An article written by CW, and this is a CW forum. Their game, their rules, and they answer to nobody. :C

Funny thing was somebody recently asked what kind of mpg I was getting, I laughed and told them I never calculated in 3 decades of RVing. It would be simple enough since our tow vehicles and motorized RVs all have that feature available in addition to what our scangauge can report. I don't want to base my travels on mpg, rv park costs, or fuel prices, what's the use of having an RV if those factors weigh heavily on your mind. That's why we enjoy being fully self-contained, wherever we park we can utilized every amenity available as if connected to shorepower.

I guess overall we are lucky as we do the majority of our RVing in the four corner states where a few hours in any direction gets us where we are going, plus our NM state parks are just $14, so roomy with shelters and concrete or metal tables they are easily our top destinations. There are many private RV parks along I-40 in our neck of the woods that are under $30, mostly because Casinos charge $20 or less for their RV parks so they have to keep prices down to compete. I travel extensively for business and we do occasionally stay at hotels, speaking for my DW and I, we much prefer the comforts our coach provides without worrying if it is more economical to do so.

Funny thread.
IMO, I equate the folks that have to go to the $80/night KOAs or whatever every night with the same folks who will spend $250 at the Marriot for a king suite and dont' blink an eye at $50/person for dinner and drinks on a normal Tuesday night...

It's all relative. We stay at an expensive RV park when necessary or preferential due to the proximity of other activities and we stay somewhere that is $0-30/night the rest of time, because even though we've become glampers (in my book), I'm not looking for the manicured lawn doggy doodoo stations and complimentary happy hours at the clubhouse type of places.

Complaining about the price of campsites, or luxury RV sites, more appropriately, is like complaining about the cost of anything else....it's just complaining.

Sandia Man wrote:
Funny thing was somebody recently asked what kind of mpg I was getting, I laughed and told them I never calculated in 3 decades of RVing. It would be simple enough since our tow vehicles and motorized RVs all have that feature available in addition to what our scangauge can report. I don't want to base my travels on mpg, rv park costs, or fuel prices, what's the use of having an RV if those factors weigh heavily on your mind. That's why we enjoy being fully self-contained, wherever we park we can utilized every amenity available as if connected to shorepower.

I guess overall we are lucky as we do the majority of our RVing in the four corner states where a few hours in any direction gets us where we are going, plus our NM state parks are just $14, so roomy with shelters and concrete or metal tables they are easily our top destinations. There are many private RV parks along I-40 in our neck of the woods that are under $30, mostly because Casinos charge $20 or less for their RV parks so they have to keep prices down to compete. I travel extensively for business and we do occasionally stay at hotels, speaking for my DW and I, we much prefer the comforts our coach provides without worrying if it is more economical to do so.

I calculated my fuel mileage at first so I could better plan out necessary stops, etc. I like to camp in forests. Some campgrounds require me to think ahead in regards to fueling.

If the campground I'm headed to is 60 miles from the nearest station and I get 10 mpg with a 30 gallon tank and the campground is 250 miles away, I know I will need to stop and fill up BEFORE I get to camp. If I don't stop before camp, then I won't have enough fuel to get to the closest station when I leave camp.

On the otherhand, if the round trip is 175 miles, I know I won't have to stop for fuel at all for that trip.

So determining fuel mileage isn't always about costs.

Now for me, I do budget my trips and keep track of what goes where. My first trip, I went to Hawaii and had spent all my cash halfway through the trip with no clue where it all went. I hated that feeling, so now I budget for the entire trip and keep track as I go. I overbudget on some things (calculate total fuel costs at a higher fuel cost than current, a lower mpg than expected, and a greater distance than planned for). As I travel and the overbudgeting starts showing, I will use that excess for splurges or unplanned activities.

we've tracked our cost/day when camping. Now we usually look for state parks, FS parks, county parks, prefer more "primative" or "natural" parks vs. Rv parks. and we usually stay at a given park for at least several days as we site see etc. As for costs, not including the trailer cost, (1) it is way less /day than when we travel and stay in hotels (2) less/day than we spend at home. And the relaxation, site seeing, pleasure is worth every dime, or dollar, or $100. It's one of our pleasures of retirement.

Often campgrounds are $6/night (senior golden eagle pass rate) at FS/BLM campgrounds, state/county parks run about $25-35/night and BLM etc. dry camping is $0.

I track our costs for fun, just cuz I find it interesting. Here are some of the costs of our last 3 winter trips, about 9 weeks each, a mix of resorts, boondocking and everything in between:
Campsites:
2019- $31/night avg.
2020- $21/night avg.
2021- $37/night avg. (Florida skewed this)
Total daily cost:
2019- $115
2020- $112
2021- $112
We do not park and sit, average about 3 nights per stop, some 1 night, the most at Quartzsite for 10-14 days.
JK

This misleading report is part of why the RV industry is in the state it's in. During the pandemic, folks drove up the demand for RV's and thusly CG's at the same time. Understandably but it has caused several things. Mainly it has driven up the cost of RV's and diminished availability, and saturated CG's making some totally unavailable for the near future. If you have recently tried get a reservation at a State park you understand what I mean. This baseless reporting just exacerbates the issue. If it gave a realistic representation of the costs, not just CG's but holistically, people may think twice. The result will be that in the near future, once people understand what it really cost and entails, rv values will plummet as used ones will saturate the market and I predict as a result, demand will drop off and new production will have to stall again.

On edit - most of the above is by design. If CW can make RV travel so attractive, people will buy more RV's and more camping gear, from who else? CW. CW- the Wal Mart of the camping industry.

Our summer season campground was sold to new owners this past winter and the rates immediately went up 25%.

Looking at the total cost of camping, my wife and I figured that we would save about $500/month if we gave up camping in the RV.