Often we travel by car and stay at hotels as it is easier to do at the last minute and the overall cost is the same as traveling with our camper. When we camped as a family we used tents and sleeping bags and a Coleman cook stove and kerosene lamps so the dollar investment was small and it did not matter if the camping gear sat on a shelf for months at a time.
Even having paid cash for our rig there is still the monthly storage costs whether the camper is in use or not. We know we are not saving money but we eat better and have a much more healthy diet when traveling with the camper and cooking our own meals than eating in restaurants.
In general the faster it is to get the camper ready before heading out and the less time it takes to empty it when we return home, the more likely we are to take it out for short trips. The bigger the camper the more stuff it holds and the more stuff that gets put inside before the trip and the more stuff than needs to come back out at the end of the trip.
Two couples we know who moved from mid size trailers to 35 foot 5th wheel trailers mentioned the amount of stuff to move in and out as a reason why they used their rigs only for one or two long trips during the year. Both have sold their trailers and bought class B motorhomes so that they could simplify the process and make it easier to do more short trips throughout the year.
