RV Travel Costs (Part 2) – Is RV Travel Worth It?

Is RV Travel Worth It? Has Our RV Been Worth The Costs After 4 Years, 10,000 Miles, and 28 Trips?

This video is part 2 of 3 about our experience with the costs of RV Travel.

Part 1 is here: https://youtu.be/Xr0faCFqIS0

The full write-up is on my blog here: https://deanorolls.com/2024/02/24/rv-travel-costs-part-1-rv-travel-versus-traditional-travel/

From video one we learned that RV travel was more expensive than traditional travel. Was it worth 22% More (an extra $4k) to travel with our RV?

Answer for me = YES! First off, I lean towards RV travel. It suits the way I like to travel better than the alternative.

Reasons:

• Destinations Matter – primarily because of our destinations (sights versus cities). I don’t live for the nightlife or shopping of the big cities. I prefer nature, hiking, and biking. Our goals are to be in state parks and eventually national parks. A campfire each night is a preferred option. So flying into a big city isn’t helpful for us anyway. It was totally worth the ‘extra’ $4k over four years because I don’t even think a hotel would have been a good option versus what we did. If you are traveling to a city, however, it is definitely cheaper than RV travel. I’d say if you are visiting big cities the last thing you’d want is an RV.
• Greater Flexibility – I prefer driving versus dealing with air travel. I can control my own destiny a little more in most cases. Dealing with flying is a huge pain, so the tradeoff has to be a simpler/cheaper trip when it is used. We can change our plans more easily as life happens. Much harder to do that with traditional travel (changing flights, rental cars, and lodging arrangements quickly and easily while traveling).
• Having Your Own Stuff With You – I like to be able to have my own stuff with me (bikes, kayaks, computers, gear, etc.). If I need to work I can do that easily. Being in our own vehicle, then staying in our own trailer (often with our own bathroom), with all of our own stuff with us makes things pretty simple. I’m not staying in someone else’s home or hotel (and all the issues that come along with that).
• Minimize The Bad Part of RV’ing – I don’t mind the added issues of equipment maintenance, setup/teardown, the stinky slinky, and hauling/travel. We have good systems in place so this all goes quickly and fairly easily. For us it is as simple as packing for a long trip of “regular travel”. Watch my first video of each season for more about our systems. Caution – more nerdiness.

The Verdict (Better or Worse):

Ultimately even if you spend more RV’ing it might be worth it if that is the way you prefer to travel and see the world. It isn’t all about dollars and cents. It is about the experience. If it makes it more enjoyable in general that is good. If it makes the experience miserable that has to be taken into consideration. Different strokes for different folks.

Other Considerations:

• RV’ing Takes Practice – The last four years have been in TN seeing all the state parks. We started close to home and have extended further and further as we learned more and got more comfortable.  I think we are pretty good at RV’ing now. Ready to hit the road for longer trips. Our goal is to see all the National Parks.
• The More You Use Your Rig The Better – The more we travel the more the cost of the rig is spread out so that the incremental costs are the mileage and campground fees. Our rig is matched well with the way we like to travel and is cost-effective. We have used it a lot (but honestly still not enough). Use it or lose it!
• RV’ing Can Make Longer Trips Possible – We will take longer trips (i.e. further distances). The “getting there” will take longer and longer. You can eat up a day flying there and back. Two days of traveling for a week-long trip is a high percentage of the trip. Driving an RV to the destination also takes a long time. But if you can hit the road for a longer time AND hit a lot of locations while in the area that makes the traveling to and fro much less of a consideration. For me, this was the biggest reason I wanted to RV (and learn to RV).  I didn’t want a good minority of all my travel to be spent “getting there”.  I want to go somewhere, explore it, go down the road a bit, rinse repeat. Knocking lots of places off my list one area of the country/world at a time.
• RV’ing Can Allow For Greater Flexibility – In some places I don’t know how long I even want to stay. I’ve been to plenty of places where I could have easily stayed longer. Then other places where I was “done” early.  If you are RV’ing and able to stay agile you can change your plan with minimal trouble. I believe it will be cheaper/easier for us to travel and see the things we want to see if we are smart about planning where we go and how we travel through the area. Much cheaper, easier, more flexible, and much more enjoyable than doing it ‘traditionally’.  The more we travel the more the cost of the rig is spread out so that the incremental costs are the mileage and campground fees.
• Different Setups For Different Types Of Travel – Our setup will need to be a little different to pull off longer trips (both longer mileage and longer duration). We’ll need to be able to boondock at times. We’ll need to figure out our power solution for that (and water).  We’ll need to have connectivity in far-off places (because I still work). We’ll need to have ways to plan all that better. We haven’t really had to do that much with our existing trips too much (as we’ve been mainly weekend warriors and very planned in advance weeks). RV’ing can be more flexible but it will still take planning. This will take some practice and add a different dynamic than what we’ve done so far.