Getting expensive

And because the Fed is keeping interest rates low so that RV sales continue and campgrounds can borrow to build and expand, those who have saved for retirement can not get a decent yield on savings and investments. There is no longer any such thing as compound interest...what do you get on 0.1% or even 0.99%
Oh well. Happy Trails.
And I don't care what it costs, I love traveling in the Motorhome.

I do believe that some tent camp to save money but I doubt that most RV with the same financial return. RVing cost a lot in various types of fuel and then of course there is the actual living accommodations. No matter how ya pay for it, up front or financed.....well you have to pay for it, lOL.

So when everything is said and done I suppose people RV for the comfort and ignore the cost because they feel they are worth spending their vacation time as they see fit.

I don't see camp site costs as particularly expensive but can't say if the cost of an RV has gone up substantially or not since I've never tracked the costs.

Of course it's going up, but we take advantage of membership sites such as Passport America (Amazing BTW) and Thousand Trails (Amazing Again). You can stay at the sweetest campgrounds for very reasonable. Of course diesel is still expensive, but what can you do about that?

If you can't afford to get it out of the barn DON'T CRANK IT. jmo

Everything always goes up in the long term. There are good camping deals out there. You just have to get off the beaten path and find small out of the way campgrounds.

In MN, the State Park Campgrounds have gone up in recent years and are scheduled to increase again in 2015. Now $28 for a site that has electricity (but no other hookups) and scheduled to be higher next year. This is on top of either a $5 daily or $25 yearly fee to enter the state park. And if you ride a horse or cross-country ski, there is $5 or $6 daily or a $20 or $21 annual fee to be able to do that as well. Add to this that they prohibit bringing firewood in (EAB prevention, which is fine) but they sell you green wood at a price of $5.50 for a small bundle. Just last week, we stayed at a state park campground. They had wood bundles and smaller bundles of kindling. I asked how much the kindling was and was told that it wasn't kindling, it was just more finely split firewood, and it was the same price as the larger pieces in the bigger bundles. They said that the contractor had provided them with green wood that was harder to get lit and burn, so they went to another contractor to get "more finely split wood" (the kindling) and that we should buy some bundles of each in order to get the wet wood burning. So instead of either lowering the price of the wet wood, or selling the kindling at a cheaper price, they were making twice as much money by selling twice the bundles of wood, all for $5.50 each.

The firewood problem isn't at all MN state parks. Another we camped at a few weeks ago was selling nice very dry wood for $5.50 and a very nice bundle of kindling (kiln dried survey stakes) for $1.50.

We do enjoy camping at MN state parks and for the most part they are well kept, but they are getting expensive and the side costs, or extras do begin to add up.

kalynzoo wrote:
And because the Fed is keeping interest rates low so that RV sales continue and campgrounds can borrow to build and expand, those who have saved for retirement can not get a decent yield on savings and investments. There is no longer any such thing as compound interest...what do you get on 0.1% or even 0.99%
Oh well. Happy Trails.
And I don't care what it costs, I love traveling in the Motorhome.

I hear you. I had a few extra thousand I wanted to save this summer. After looking at interest rates it really wasn't worth it. Could just as well have dug a hole in the back yard and buried a coffee can full of cash in it. If you find a way to save money that earns a few pennies of interest PM me and let me know.

I don't think that the cost of camping has gone up anymore than anything else.

In Ontario an average night in a provincial park with hydro, no water or sewer hook up, will cost around $40. Gas has dropped this last month to $4.35 a gallon or $1.15 a litre. Groceries cost us exactly the same camping as they would be at home. It would be hard to determine the cost of TT per night.

When we hotel we pay on average $ 140 a night for a hotel room, some have been $200-300 however. Meals out, 70 to 100 per day.

When we holiday we really don't question the cost once the decision has been made. We know roughly what a holiday will cost and then tuck away an extra weeks expense. We seem to manage to spend it unless we are camping.

After the initial output of money for equipment the actual costs of camping are quite low.

ccbb088 wrote:
True but is it still worth it?

Only you can make that call....RVing is not cheap, folks don't go this route to save money over a Motel 6.....it's a lifestyle, and if not worth it to you then time to move on.....

In '81 when it cost $7 to camp in my $1500 trailer pulled by my $3200 car burning $1.10 gas, I really had to budget in order to go camping.

In'14 I paid as much as $65 dollars a night to camp in my $22,000 trailer pulled behind my $48,000 truck burning $3.79 gas and never even thought about the cost.

In '81 It wasn't expensive for some and it broke the bank for me. Today it is reversed.

I guess it is all about where you are in life and your own economics.