How much does it take? $$$$$

[paiceman]

As to home base. Both adult kids live within five miles of us, boss says we do not sell house and go full time. We do however as posted go for what we consider long periods of time. Our expenses might seem low compared to what you have found, but we don't skimp, eat out fairly often both at home and while traveling and therefore do not consider eating out as an RV expense. Nor buying food or clothes etc. Those are costs we incur home or not.

We run an F350 Diesel and she gets about 13.5 MPG towing if I keep it around 60-65. As to the depreciation et al. We don't worry about it, we bought this thing to have a good time, not as an investment. We went to FL for two weeks and staying in a Residence Inn, due to my back issues we did not take the AS. While sitting around the pool one night we roughly calculated we could spend almost 1,000 nights in Residence Inns and still not come to the cost of the AS we have, truck, camping fees etc. So, an AS is not an investment - it's a "toy". And we love it.

[Bill M.]

We do it a lot and I do not track expenses much. For us, when traveling, it is about 20 to 25 gallons of diesel on travel days and $30 to $50 a night for campground fees. Have had to pay $75 on holiday weekends when we had to be in a certain area. When in an actual area we like the campground fees might go down because we will use Forest Service or other low cost sites. When traveling it often costs as much to drive to and from the cheap site as it does to stay in one near the highway. We use lots of fuel on non travel days also. We go on WBCCI Caravans. The cost is usually about $100 a day (for 2 people) witout fuel. But that includes a whole lot of activities at each location and the camping fees and some meals. We use fuel and eat when we are at home also.
I do not really worry about what traveling in the Airstream cost verses other ways to travel because that is what we like to do now. Plus we have a dog that goes with us. I do not think the OP meant to include ownership costs? Just user costs? That might be a whole different analysis that I would rather just not do at this stage. Maintence costs? Waiting today for people to come and replace the airconditioner. There ae definitely costs associated with keeping an old Airstream on the road.

[Aage]

Originally Posted by mwilliamsmd

great responses. The daily averages is what I was considering. I too figure 100-150 daily for the directly associated type expenses. Fixed costs are what they are.

"fixed costs" noun

business costs, such as rent, that are constant whatever the quantity of goods or services produced.(your 'business' is enjoyment of travel )

So,

1. rental space for year in year out storage of your TT
2. Annual insurance costs
3. Typical repair costs (only an estimate)
4. Et cetera (purchase price, amortized, for example)

These are the 'fixed costs'. When you travel in it is when you incur the 'incremental' costs

[bobzdar]

It depends on a lot, how much maintenance you can do yourself, fuel mileage and price, etc. For me and my family, a 4 day trip is around $100-$110 a day. That includes gas, food, campground fee and beer. If you don't drink beer (or drink cheap beer), knock off $15 a day . Maintenance costs for both trailer and tow vehicle are fairly insignificant spread over the season as I do all the work myself, maybe $10-$15 a day. Last year I had to do front wheel bearings in my truck and replace a brake line and only a small thing here or there on the trailer (not airstream last year, but they're not complicated). If you have to pay somebody for maintenance, it can change things quite a bit. For example, wheel bearings were around $170 to do myself, $600 at a shop.

Fwiw, that assumes around a 2 hour driving radius from my house (1 tank of gas). Farther is more, add $10-$15 a day for each tank of gas depending on price of fuel. Cost goes down the longer you stay as the gas/maint gets spread out over more days and the beer consumption/day goes down quite a bit (at least for me, ymmv). You can also get larger quantities of food and save on bulk pricing a bit, but we usually go with another family and buy bulk/split cost anyway so it wouldn't save too much. We use very little propane, basically just to cook breakfast and maybe the odd lunch to where we didn't even go through one full tank last year.

I didn't include the sunk costs (price of camper) as they are already spent and it doesn't matter whether we go camping or not. Also, the tow vehicle is used for a lot more than just camping and we had it before the camper so only costs directly related to towing count in the above.

[mwilliamsmd]

An interesting approach would be... what is my incremental cost by being on the road vs home? Food should be a wash. Campsite, gas, maintenance etc would go up. But, my "at home costs" should be slightly lower.

Secondly, someone commented on spending the night at rest stops as being illegal? Is this true? Can't you pull over for the night and sleep until the morning?

[mwilliamsmd]

Is camping overnight at rest stops illegal????

[dwightdi]

Overnight camping for free in state run rest stops is not legal in most states. Free camping is allowed at Walmart in some communities, but not all. Low cost camping at VFW is sometimes available. City Parks sometimes are less than $10. Senior Passes at COE areas can be $12. Vets get free camping on the base. BLM camping is cheap but no services.

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by mwilliamsmd

Is camping overnight at rest stops illegal????

That varies. Some rest areas are posted "no overnight parking." Others provide 24-hour security and you can ask the security guard if it's okay.

I did an overnight stay at a rest area just outside of Dallas during the Hurricane Katrina evacuation. It was anything but restful! Admittedly that was an unusual circumstance, but based on that experience I'll probably never overnight at a rest area ever again.

A long-time RVer I used to work with told me that the best place he found to stay overnight on the way to a remote destination was at a church. They tend to be in better and quieter neighborhoods than the average Walmart or truck stop or rest area, and few pastors/ministers/priests/whatever will turn you away, especially if you volunteer to pick up any trash in the parking lot before you leave. It's a basic tenet of campers to leave your campsite in better shape than you found it, so a spot of light trash pickup is not exactly an onerous chore to pay for your overnight stay.

[Wingeezer]

$100-$150 a day sounds abut right for our trips. But of course, that does not include depreciation on the trailer, running costs (tires/repairs etc), storage - if applicable, insurance.

Although it is often promoted as a low cost way of vacationing, I'm not so sure about that! I think it is more a lifestyle choice.

Of course it very much depends on your style of camping - things such as will you eat out often? (no need to if you don't want with an RV, and that will realize significant savings. In our case, my better half insists that for it to be a vacation also for her, we must eat out fairly often!).

Also, how far do you want to travel? Some folks - like us - often travel across the continent, and at 12mpg, fuel costs can add up - but maybe you won't want to be doing that?

There can be quite a difference in RV site rental costs too, depending on what you want, basic parking spot, or all the amenities, hot tubs, pool tables, etc.

Free overnight stops can often be found also - Flying J truck stops, Cracker Barrel, etc. We do that often when covering mileage on long trips - mostly for the convenience, but the $ saving doesn't hurt either, especially if you travel a lot.


Brian.

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by Wingeezer

$100-$150 a day sounds abut right for our trips. But of course, that does not include depreciation on the trailer, running costs (tires/repairs etc), storage - if applicable, insurance.

Although it is often promoted as a low cost way of vacationing, I'm not so sure about that! I think it is more a lifestyle choice.

Compared to other vacation modes, such as flying to a destination, staying in a hotel, and renting a car to get around while you're there, it's really inexpensive. Especially since the fly/hotel/drive vacation is all money down the drain. An RV may depreciate quite a lot, but even when it's fully depreciated, it still has some residual value, and you can still get some of your money back when you're done with it. Not so with plane tickets, hotel bills, and rental car receipts.

The RVIA studies I cited in a previous post assumed that the average RV owner would sell their RV in five years— which is about typical for RVs other than Airstreams— and recoup some of their expenses in the sale, thus bringing down the average cost to own and use an RV.

Depreciation is a fixed cost. It depreciates exactly as much sitting in your driveway as it does while you're using it. And since it will be fully depreciated in about 10 years, if you keep your Airstream for longer than 10 years the cost of ownership goes way down at that point. Same as if you buy a used one that is already 10 years old and fully depreciated.

Insurance is a fixed cost. You pay the same for insurance whether you use the RV or not. So the more you use it, the less you pay per day of use.

Even storage is a fixed cost, since you're paying the same for storage even while you're using your RV— unless you can store it at home, in which case storage costs you basically nothing. The money you put into installing hookups and a storage pad becomes a home improvement cost and not an RV ownership cost, and provides at least a slight increase in your home's equity and value.

Running costs are higher the more you use your RV, but only within reason. You'll have to replace the tires every five years or so anyway, so unless you get a blowout and have to replace a tire early, that's practically a fixed cost. You'll have to replace your house battery in a certain number of years whether you use the trailer or not, so that's almost a fixed cost, too.

Plus you have to look at running costs as separate from use costs. Some things cost more the more days you spend on the road. Some cost more the more days you spend in camp. Very few of the costs go up both the more time you're on the road and the more time you're in camp. So by careful allocation of camping days versus travel days, you should be able to find a good balance that minimizes your total per-day cost.

[JimGolden]

Some very good information on here. Protagonist, your posts are especially good. I am going to look up those RVIA studies.

For us, we could not justify the cost of a new travel trailer at this point. I'm 45 and my wife is 44, but I was 35 when I bought the first Airstream. We both work, so we are lucky to camp three full weeks a year. Usually a 1-2 week trip in the summer with a few weekend trips in the spring and fall.

What worked for us was buying an older trailer and fixing it up. I started with a '77 Excella, but it needed serious structural work and I didn't have the time, at the time, to do it. So I sold it to a nice couple who was going to do a frame off on it. Wound up with an '87 Avion 34X that was similar but a little bigger. Paid about $7200 for it but within two hours put another $600 and change into it to replace six cracked to pieces tires. I've fixed about everything there is to fix on it (they are remarkably similar to Airstreams with the exception of a heavier frame, metal sprung suspension on all but the last year, and more "common RV industry" parts). Like an Airstream, the shells last basically forever but you have to replace the systems. I've done a new fridge, new a/c, new water heater, new toilet, three new roof vents, converted from 30amp to 50amp, replaced the front gaucho with a custom bunkbed for the children where the bottom serves as a couch for watching TV, a 32" Panasonic flat screed LCD/LED TV, a 300w speaker system with 100w powered sub (nothing like home theater in the aluminum tube....), new faucet, new shower rod and curtain, converted the rear twins to a rear king, had laminate flooring but got a leak that messed it up so took it out....will try again at some point, upgraded the 40lb Worthington tanks to modern OPD valves, sanded and painted the frame and suspension, new shocks, new LED lights all around, the list could go on.....

Grand total, I've got about $15K or $16K in it. I went to Jackson Center a few years ago and saw a new 34 footer on the line and it was $110K. While it was nice, it wasn't really much nicer than my old fixed up one. While I'd like to have the new one, I couldn't justify that much money for one.

Anyway, the point of my ramble is that yes, your operating costs will be about the same with any of them. But your overall costs can be much lower if you are handy and buy one that has already depreciated.

Were I retired and full timing, I might buy a new one. But, I've seen so many problems listed on here by folks buying new ones that I think I'd rather buy one a few years old instead. There's nothing on these tubes that is that hard to work on. I was scared at first, but I learned a tremendous amount from this forum.

We've pulled the Avion from Maine to FL, and everywhere in between. At least 25,000 miles. I think we got our money's worth.

Best of luck, and hope to see you on the road,

[polarlyse]

We travel quite a bit. Just recently got home from a 9 wk trip south ( getaway from a wild NE'tern winter). Stayed in State Parks, National campgrounds and military bases as well as private CG's. By-the-way camping on military base is NOT free to vets. In fact it's not open to a vet unless retired or disabled. Most military base CG's are nice and reasonably priced but not free. The most we paid for CG was $45 in Ft. Lauderdale on the way to Key West. The lowest was $13 at military bases. Most are higher but in the $25 +/- range. We often stay at COE sites if we can and have found one as low as $2. Yes that's $2 with my access pass. So the range is all over the place but I think we can travel and average the cost pretty well to make it affordable.