For Beginners: THE COSTS of an RV Trip!

hey guys we are shawn and christy this is long long honeymoon where we are in a lolojo state of mind today we're talking about everyone's favorite topic money yes we're talking about budgeting a big rv trip we thought it'd be helpful to focus specifically on the costs of an rv trip because an rv trip is like any other kind of trip you can plan it on the super budget and stay at the really cheap stops and cheap restaurants or you can go all out and have the super splurge trip the numbers are really going to be specific to you and what your budget is we're going to talk to you about all the things you need to consider when planning your budget yeah when you ask how much it costs it's kind of like asking how much does it cost to visit new york city well are you going to be sleeping on a friend's couch are you going to be staying at the waldorf astoria are you going to be eating peanut butter sandwiches or you're going to be eating at gramercy tavern riding the subway or you're riding a limousine everybody's budget's a little different but hopefully this video will help you in your planning process get a handle on what to expect in terms of costs so there won't be any surprises when you get out there 140 128 for the truck 12 for the generator most rvs run on some sort of fuel could be gasoline could be diesel and rvs also use propano also known as propane there are a lot of variables here uh the year you might be traveling we have traveled in the best of years and in the worst of years i think the most we ever paid for fuel per gallon was in yukon territory of canada i think we're paying more than eight dollars a gallon for fuel that was back in 2012 so so i'm still bitter about that a lot of canadians get very mad when i bring that up sorry jim jim pratt he's wagging his finger at us right now don't shoot the messenger i remember in 2008 we were in california and we were paying almost six dollars a gallon for diesel in california it varies from year to year this past couple of years has been really pretty great from a fuel cost standpoint a couple things that you can do one we've mentioned the gas buddy app gas buddy will basically pull up all the fuel stations in an area and show you the price of fuel so you don't have to drive all over town trying to find the lowest price of fuel you can figure it out in advance and sometimes you can find a 30 or 40 cent per gallon difference from one station to the next exit off the interstate to the next so it might be worth driving you know one more exit down before you stop for fuel the other resource that you can use we talked about last week is rv trip wizard and also the good sam travel planner website both of those will take into account your miles per gallon and i believe the size of your fuel tank for your trip so they will tell you about how many tanks of fuel you're going to have to need for the duration of your trip so you can sort of have a ballpark idea of what kind of money you're going to be spending on fuel yeah and speaking of fuel tanks there are some cool modifications that you pickup truck owners can make to your tow vehicles some people put in larger fuel tanks and that gives you a couple of benefits first obviously you can go longer between stops for fuel and if you do find an especially good price on fuel you can really stock up yeah one other thing you can do is pay cash instead of credit there are a lot of places especially truck stops you see that advertised a lot they'll have you know the cash price versus the credit price and it can be you know a 10 or 15 cent per gallon difference so it can definitely make a difference warning total violators 25 fine well we're not going to violate the tolls but i have a feeling the tolls will violate us it's not technically fuel but tall roads are usually shortcuts yeah and so it allows you to take a shorter route but some states have some pretty expensive toll roads for example i'm looking at you maryland yeah i'm still bitter about towing our airstream through maryland and getting stopped about every 15 or 20 miles on these tow roads and being charged by the axle so if you're towing an rv how long were we on those roads oh i would say roughly 30 minutes so about 30 minutes of driving we paid 32 dollars for towing and we didn't know any better so something you can do to avoid toll roads you're traveling with the gps check your avoidances you can set your gps to avoid tolls yeah now if you're somebody that you don't want to avoid toll roads you want to stay on those toll roads because maybe they're not as crowded or busy you can look into the different states that use that sun pass and i know it's called something different in other parts of the country but in florida it's the sun pass that way you have it on your windshield and you're charged as you drive through and i think you get a lower rate when you do that we're not toll road people so i don't know the details on that but ask your friends that live in toll road happy places yeah i will say there are some states and places that have very reasonably priced toll roads and then there's maryland yeah the northeast is really where you're going to encounter the most toll roads with the steepest prices other places it'll tend to be you know a dollar two dollars whatever but yeah some places it can be in that 30 and up range so that can be pretty painful and it used to be you had to have cash to pay it what do you do when you run out of cash we had that problem one day and it was like cross your fingers that you don't get a ticket because you might one other fuel to mention briefly is propane because most rvs are equipped with propane tanks propane we found to be quite reasonably priced in most places for as much as we use propane we have two 30 pound tanks if you have the opportunity to fill your propane tank at a propane distribution facility where they actually like have the big trucks that go out and refill propane at people's homes or businesses or whatever you're usually going to get a much better price there than you are if you stop at camping world per se camping world is pretty pricey on our propane but most campgrounds i think where we get our tanks refilled are pretty inexpensive i believe there are certain truck stops like flying j that offer a small discount if you're a good sam member somebody told me one day shane shane that propane you can get cheaper propane at flying j if you have that card some other unusual places that you can find propane include costco not every costco offers it but especially when you get more kind of out in the northwestern part of the united states you'll find more and more costcos that offer propane let's find dining here next up we want to discuss another type of fuel called food fuel for your body unfortunately you're going to have to eat you know unfortunately rvers really have a wonderful advantage if you want to control your food expenses because you got your own kitchen you already paid for the kitchen you might as well use it that's right all right perfect and we do enjoy cooking in our rv you do a lot of cooking two minutes i am actually a bit of a culinary wizard with the microwave what's so funny my wife is brave enough to tackle the propane oven i'm afraid of the propane oven i know that anytime i go into light in the propane oven there's at least uh eight to ten percent chance i'm going to blow up the entire rv no don't be afraid of your propane oven in your rv don't be afraid and if your eyebrows are bushy and you want to trim them back you can just get down there and use that click lighter and you'll just get a refreshing blast scaring people stop that now she really does a lot of cooking we also use the cook top quite a lot yeah we do use our cooktop a good bit and we use our grill our outdoor grill in years past we've traveled with our weber baby q a little propane grill that you can use on your picnic table or what have you this last year we traveled with our traeger travel size smoker and that was really great pretty great we cooked a lot of great meals on that that's obviously a great thing about rv travel you know if you're traveling on a tighter budget you can control your food expenses but i will point out don't go to new orleans and eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for five days you know we do look for local restaurants and we we always visit local restaurants we're in places we try not to visit too many chain restaurants because you know you can get the same chain restaurant food all over the country but what makes our country great are all these little mom and pop places for example we were recently passing through las cruces new mexico and we've been there many times we pulled out our yelp app and we often use yelp to find restaurants when we're traveling around the country and we found the place called on delays and it was wonderful we really had some fantastic mexican food it's probably the best mexican food i've ever eaten in my life so that's saying that we've eaten a lot of mexicans eating a lot of mexican food but it was it was awesome it was awesome so i mean every time we're going through las cruces from now on i can pretty much guarantee you we will be going to on delays it wasn't that much of a detour i mean it was a few blocks off the interstate when you find yourself in these different interesting parts of the country find the great locally owned restaurant and sample the local favorites a lot of times a lot of the best restaurants are not super expensive budget that in plan on experiencing the local food wherever you go you don't have to eat out three meals a day but planning you know a few special dinners while you're you know visiting a certain location i think is smart and it will enhance your experience of the area next up we're going to talk about hemp sites campsites can cost anywhere from nothing if you're on bureau of land management land your boondocking or overnight parking at a walmart or cracker barrel or they could cost 150 200 a night tonight i've heard fort wilderness at disney during the peak season now is like more than 200 a night which is crazy to me but so if you're at disney world or some of these really upscale rv resorts then you could be paying just as much as you'd pay in a hotel room which is kind of crazy to me and when you're budgeting you need to really look and see what the prices are per season because the prices can really vastly differ between the high season and the low season i mean to the point where the price can double in the high season so when you're making your plans be sure you check the website of whatever campground you're visiting to see what their price is for the time of year that you plan on visiting one small money-saving tip would be if you're going to stay in a location for let's say a week at a time some of these campgrounds will have weekly discounts like week rates and even monthly rates for people who are staying long term you're going to stay seven nights you can pay for six and get the seventh night free right something else you need to ask about if you're traveling with more than two people so if you're a family or a group or whatever some campgrounds will charge extra for having more than two or four people at a campsite so you'll have to pay an extra four dollars a night per person for every person you go over two people or if you have pets they might charge you a daily fee for having pets so you might have to pay an extra five dollars a night or ten dollars a night for having pets so those are things that you need to look into because you know that can add up over time some sites are full hookup some are electric some are what they call pull through or you can pull your rv in really easily and just pull through the site some are back in which are a little trickier to get into so they may have different prices attached to these different types of sites there will be some sites that will be premium sites that maybe have a water view or something and some sites that are less than premium and they don't have as good of you or whatever yeah so those premium sites sometimes can just mean the difference between being a paved site or a gravel site or it can mean it has a fire pit or it doesn't have a fire pit or you know it's got a picnic table versus a basic site that doesn't have a picnic table so make sure you really need those amenities that you're paying for before you pony up for that premium site because you could save yourself a lot of money if you don't need a picnic table or you don't need a fire pit or you don't need a paved spot so like sometimes if we want to keep our rig hitched we will pay some extra to have a pull through site because we know we can just pull our rig into the site maybe we're just staying one night we don't want to unhitch and re-hitch the next morning or sometimes if we're staying somewhere for a week we want the back end site because those are usually more private and we want to be away from the crowds and sometimes like for instance at a lot of koa campgrounds the premium sites mean you're closer to the amenities which means you're closer to the pool and you're closer to the playground well we don't want to be closer to the pool or playground because that means it's louder and more crowded so we especially don't want to pay for a premium site there because that's exactly where we don't want to be within those campgrounds so just make sure you know what it means when you're paying for a premium campground because you could be paying for something that you don't really even want now even if you're committed to paying as little as possible for your overnight campsite fees in other words if you're doing a lot of boon docking and overnight parking you're still going to have to empty your water tanks from time to time and refill with fresh water now we've gotten pretty good about finding dump stations there are some different resources that we use i guess campendium is the one we most frequently use these days and there are a lot of communities where you can find free dump stations their local municipal area will have a free dump station in certain counties some gas stations like out west maverick gas stations a lot of times we'll have free dump stations if you're getting fuel there yeah and they may not provide potable water so you may not be able to refill your fresh water but at least you could empty your gray and black tanks yeah but sometimes they do offer potable water if you ask for it so they may not have a big sign pointing you towards it but if you go in and say hey do you guys have potable water that we can fill our tank with they'll say oh yeah between tanks seven and nine over there there's a water spigot that you can use and we've been in other communities where they have paid dump stations for example last year we were in a town in colorado and they had i guess a credit card swipe out right on the dump station and you could swipe your card and it was 7 or 10 bucks something like that and empty your tanks and i believe they had fresh water there as well so that's just something to consider from a budgeting standpoint that you know even if you're not paying for camp sites you're eventually maybe going to pay five or ten bucks here and there to take care of your water tanks yeah the other thing you need to think about is if you're staying in a national park campground or a state park campground sometimes you forget that you might also have to pay to get into the national park or the state park just depends national parks you're definitely going to have to pay to enter the park to get to your campground some state parks you'll get free entry if you're staying at the campground and then sometimes you don't you still have to pay to get in the initial visit so it just depends but that's something that you need to budget for because it can be expensive and we always buy an annual pass for the national parks because we end up staying at enough of them where it just makes sense for us it's 80 a year and it goes by a 12 month period so let's say you buy your pass in august it's not going to expire at the end of the year in december it's going to last until the following august so overall it's a good deal if you're going to be visiting a lot of national parks yeah and if you're over the age of 62 you can buy a lifetime pass for 80 dollars and it's good for the rest of your life so definitely take advantage of that because we have that or you're over the age of 62 you can also get half price campground sites in a lot of places you can get half price tours and that sort of things within the national park so it just depends on what national park you're at yeah it's a total no-brainer to get that lifetime pass as soon as you can next category we'd like to discuss we're going to call entertainment and activities and you know this is especially applies when you're in really interesting destinations like the grand canyon or grand teton national park or maybe in yellowstone and you want to alaska or alaska where you want to take a guided tour or boat ride you know you want to go kayaking what have you you know sometimes you're going to have to rent a kayak or a bicycle or whatever you need yeah and sometimes in certain places the only way to see the place you're visiting is to take a tour and i'm thinking about kenai fjords national park in alaska the only way to see it is to get on a boat or to take a seaplane out somewhere and then like pictured rocks national seashore in michigan you had to get on a boat to do the tour to see the pictured rocks you know so that's just part of it if you want to explore some of these places you know in the grand canyon you can do the the mule rides down into the canyon in yellowstone you can do the horseback riding you can do that in glacier there are a lot of places you can do that but it's just experiences like that that are going to give you a different perspective at the park that could be worth budgeting for because it's going to enhance your overall experience and to point out the obvious a lot of our favorite activities are free in these national parks for example we love to go hiking yeah and grand teton national park beautiful hiking they're not charging for hiking yet thankfully here in the land of the fee other things to consider as well are museums you know a lot of really great museums are out there that you do have to pay an entrance fee for now if you're in somewhere like washington dc and you're going in the smithsonian well those are free so you don't have to worry about it there but other places you know like the world war ii museum in new orleans there's a fee to enter it but it's worth it what kind of damage oh yeah finally we're going to talk about something we like to call the oh crap fund or miscellaneous your emergency repairs accidents broken feet broken fingers hopefully you don't experience any of these things blown engines well blown engines for sure yeah if you own a ford six liter you know we've had many many rv trips go very smoothly without any problems whatsoever and then we have other trips that have been a disaster from the moment we left the driveway you never know what you're going to get no you really don't first thing you can do obviously is double check every aspect of your rig and just make sure that you've got good tires on it and it's you know mechanically sound and in good working condition when you embark on your journey the second thing you can do is just kind of budget that occasionally something might go wrong it might not even be your fault you know maybe somebody runs into you so unfortunately these things happen probably the longer your adventure the greater the odds are that something's going to go wrong i really think it it helps to have a positive attitude as much as possible and expect something to go wrong from time to time yeah so it doesn't just completely throw off your karma on your trip if you have a strict budget then you need to allow a certain percentage of that budget to be for just in case stuff the oh crap stuff because i think what will absolutely ruin your trip is if you have maxed out your budget and you don't have any wiggle room and then something goes wrong and you've got to have something fixed and you don't have the money to do it and so you've got to put it on a credit card or you know whatever and then it's just gonna sour your trip so put a little padding in when you're sitting down to work on your budget you know whether it's five percent or ten percent or whatever and just make sure you got that set aside that okay we want to leave this little cushion here for the just in case stuff yeah and really that's just good practice in life period yeah and we don't really want to create this fear of something's definitely going to go wrong when you go out on a trip because we have many smooth trips where nothing goes wrong right but it's just a good practice to be prepared in case something does go wrong absolutely and the final thing that i will say that you need to consider in your budget is your time and i know it's a little different than everything else we're talking about because it doesn't involve money but it kind of does involve money because money time is money money is time right and if you're somebody that you have to be home on a certain date like your vacation ends or somebody's getting married or you're you know you've got some hard deadline of when you've got to be home give yourself some wiggle room because you never know what's going to happen somebody could get sick you got to blow a tire and you have a part that has to come in or you know give yourself a couple of days of wiggle room especially if you're on a big long cross-country trip where you're thousands and thousands of miles from home just to make sure that you're not going to be pushing yourself too hard to make a deadline because rv travel is not like traveling in a car it takes longer you move at a slower pace there's a lot more involved stops are more involved so budgeting your time i think is really important because we meet a lot of people that they buy an rv and they think i'm gonna drive 12 hours in a day to get to my destination it's not smart for you to do that i'm not saying you can't do it i'm saying it's not a wise choice especially if one person is doing all the driving we know a few people who will drive those super long distances in a day but we're definitely not those people i mean it starts to become more like truck driving if you're really punishing yourself with these super long days yeah and you never know i mean when you're gonna get stuck in a traffic jam or there's gonna be a wreck on the interstate and you're gonna get stuck sitting still for two hours or something so just be wise with the way you budget your time listen to seasoned rvers when it comes to travel days and budget your time accordingly don't expect that you're going to drive 10 and 12 hours a day for three days straight to make it from new york to california you know for your two-week vacation time really is the ultimate luxury when you travel i think you probably would be better off having a shorter distance trip where you spend more time doing the things you really enjoy right than trying to drive to fairbanks alaska and back within a 10-day period of time and we've had people tell us we're going to go to alaska and back and we figured it out and we can do it in less than two weeks they're like you're going to drive 14 000 miles round trip in two weeks two and a half weeks i don't think so i don't think you're gonna enjoy it you're not gonna enjoy it you're gonna just be like you know hardcore the whole point is to enjoy yourself enjoy the journey yeah and you're going to enjoy the journey more if you're not under that relentless pressure every day to cover so much ground i mean give yourself the time to see the world's largest ball of twine if you want to or you know the world's largest ear corn or whatever you know it's part of the adventure it's an interesting sort of philosophical question because i mean there's no denying we've spent a lot of time driving on interstates and you do get from point a to point b more quickly however sometimes there are more interesting experiences on the smaller highways and the side roads and so like you know last year driving through texas we went a slightly different route yeah and we're on a small highway it was great until we hit that really terrible pothole yeah it was it was and then it was then it was terrifying i'm done you know it's like let's go find an interstate that was scary yeah it was scary that was probably the scariest moment of our trip so i think that was not the exact point i was wanting to make but you know a lot of times it's the small highways the small towns that really will reveal the character of a place in a part of the country where it's really going to feel different and you're having a true travel experience as opposed to being in another big you know shopping mall or shopping area right looking at the same name brand stores and fast food places that you could see anywhere else in the country so that's it guys a look at budgeting for rv travel we hope this has been helpful just to give you some ideas of what to expect especially those of you who've never taken a big cross-country rv trip there's a lot of things to consider it's really about your personal travel preferences are you somebody that wants to stay in those corps of engineer campgrounds that are 20 a night with water and electric only but they've got amazing views of the water or do you want to be at the malibu beach rv park you know where you're front row for the pacific ocean and you're paying 200 bucks a night don't go there please they weren't very nice but it's it's really your personal preferences and what you want to have what what sort of experience do you want to have it's your vacation pick what appeals to you and if something doesn't appeal to you don't feel pressured to do it as always thank you guys for tuning in this has been yet another episode of long long honeymoon the long longest running rv channel on the interwebs where we get into a low loho state of mind so we hope you get into a low loho state of mind in the upcoming rv travel season we're excited about it the birds are singing the leaves are springing out yeah and lo lojo is getting ready to hit the road once again that's right comment down below and let us know where you're going on your next rv trip if you enjoyed this video click the like button please subscribe share this video with your friends and family and until next time what do we say low low ho guys what we're back that's right want to give you a quick update on the ceramic coating at vinnie's north bay airstream repair vinnie is booked up so solid he is not accepting new clients for airstream repair however he does still have some slots for the ceramic i mean i think they're booking out several months in advance but if you're interested in getting your airstream ceramic coated with the best stuff in the industry talk to vinnie or talk to brian we'll have both of their numbers on the screen because we had that done last year and we are loving it yeah it's made watching our airstream like a breeze so easy it looks so pretty yeah i mean our airstream really looks better now than it probably probably didn't ever has yeah it ever has when we've owned it so just wanted to give a shout out to those guys alright thanks guys catch you next time

Channel: Long Long Honeymoon

Views: 189,461

Keywords: airstream, rv, camping, travel, loloho

Id: x6RPEE5oRwQ

Length: 28min 20sec (1700 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 15 2021