Apart from the intangibles that very literally cannot be valued, there are other things that can be valued. I have been forced to live this end of my life at the bottom right corner of a spreadsheet. Everything gets careful evaluation. Our coach is saving us on the travel we do get to do even though it is forced to be less than we would like.
We have done a mess of traveling (and I would tell you exactly why we are not doing more now, but that might be decried as a political statement even though it is truth) and have done so by all means. Sailboat and anchoring out is the least expensive, but the upfront cost is a gotcha. It is also very restricted in places you can go without running aground.
We have a special case, but it is not that special. Yes, we have an antique coach, but that does not make it inexpensive. With my all in cost at close to 30K$ (some of which is sweat equity and is all paid off), an annual maintenance budget of about 1.5K that is all for about 12K miles of fuel and a typical 50+ road days a year with us and 2 dogs. We manage.
If you are going to travel on land to strange places, an RV does have a decent ROI. But if you don't include that you are eating for the same cost as at home, and you can save the left overs. You only make a reservation when you have to (like at a popular national park). You can have a place to eat and sleep at a remote location like a different music festival or a bison round up. Suddenly it starts to make sense. We do usually attend a music festival that is 5$ for the festival and 15$ (rip-off) for flatspot dry camping, but the nearest lodging is 30 miles and they know about the event (boy - don't they).
The real eye opener was last year. SIL does not like to fly. The have a tiny car and at that time had a newborn daughter. His parents live about 1K miles away. That meant three road days (two nights underway). Though they usually ate dinner with us, they did get a "breakfast" at the hotels that we dropped them at for the night. (I did not mind the as much as 30 mile diversion.) We did this both ways. The cheapest hotel was 80$. For a bedroom and a breakfast that was a roll and coffee? If going by car, they would have spent about 30 to our 100 on the day's fuel, 40$ for dinner, 20$ for lunch that would have required a stop and frequent other stops to take care of the kids needs. When I look at how we travel and out cash out of pocket expenses, I think it is looking pretty good.
I can prove that we are doing OK on all values.
Now, if you buy a new coach at XE5$, you are not dealing with the same equation. But then, you don't have to. You can travel the 200 mile days and stay at KOAs. But I would bet that even still that bottom right corner does not look too bad.
If you are going to compare this to a sofa, a big screen and netflix, it will loose, but so will you. You won't have seen the 200 historical markers on the Natches Trace, the vistas of the Blue Ridge Parkway, the 600+ hot air balloons of Mass Ascension at Albuquerque, the recovered parts of the Monitor, Miles of original Route 66 or chased the tall ships that visited the great lakes and an untold number of fascinating little museums that dot this beatiful country.
We will keep it up as long as we can.
Matt & Mary Colie
A sailor, his bride and their black dogs (one dear dog is waiting for us at the bridge) going to see some dry places that have Geocaches in a coach made the year we married.
