There is no 'right' way to full time RV - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Fergizmo · RV-Dreams Family Member

There is no 'right' way to full time RV

MarkS · RV-Dreams Family Member

That is great info. some great answers for those how long, how much questions.

jrzygrl64 · RV-Dreams Family Member

Congrats on your second year!

You sure do move around a lot! I would not like that pace!

Just one question - how do you keep your CG fees so low? That is impressive!

BiggarView · RV-Dreams Family Member

Over half the year in TT CGs and boondocking will certainly keep those costs down. We are impressed by your low CG expenses also. Woohoo! smile

Technomadia · RV-Dreams Family Member

Here's our numbers from 2014 (that were mentioned above):

Campground Average: $13/day or $383/month
Fuel Average: $11/day or $344/month
Our monthly ‘rent’ for 2014– $749

We’ve done this by mixing up the pace with a couple monthly stays, some volunteer work in exchange for a site and integrating in more boondocking now that we have solar.

Some other interesting numbers I put together in review of 2014:

# of different places stayed: 70
# of Private RV Parks: 14
# of Public Parks (state, federal, county, BLM): 35
# of Dry Camping Locations: 10
# of ‘Free’ camping at a host (driveway surfing, Harvest Hosts, etc.): 14
# of stays in RV-related shops: 6
# of RV Rallies: 3
# of RV Parks Returned to from previous years: 12

This came from our 'Favorite Campgrounds of 2014' post: www.technomadia.com/2014/12/our-12-favorite-campsites-of-2014/

Now that we've got solar back in our lives, 2015 is working out to be an even cheaper year with more boondocking adventures (as long as you don't count our current renovation expense ;) ).

- Cherie

PS. We consider 2014 to be a relatively 'slow pace' year for us.

Sushidog · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thanks for the stats folks. They give us hope!

We don't plan on moving quite as much as you guys, but plan on racking up more miles, if that makes sense?

One question though Allen and Dona, studying the data from your website it appears you spend roughly $82/month in club memberships. Is this number included in your monthly camping costs or do you account for it under another line of your budget? Just curious, as I will use the info posted here to finalize my own plans. It seems like both you and Techno do a great job of keeping your costs down while still enjoying a full and active life on the road! I'm impressed. Hope to see you both on the road in a few years.

Chip

Hdrider · RV-Dreams Family Member

That's great info to share, thanks for taking the time. Instead of posting the numbers I'll just share the link to our update showing comparisons of our 1st year and second year on the road. daveanddiane.wordpress.com/2014/08/03/we-have-gone-beyond-our-2-year-anniversary/

Looking forward to seeing you guys down south again this winter.

Barbaraok · RV-Dreams Family Member

Don't be worried about slowing down the first few years. There are still lots of things for you to see, places to go, and hopefully the bodies are still pretty resilient. What until year 6 or 7 and then you will notice that you have slowed down. We've found that by year 5 most of our friends, like us, had found a place they like for the winter and spend 3-5 months there, then get back into serious moving with the coming of spring.

Barb

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Allen- great info. I do have a question as we're having to consider different alternatives due to my work situation as we try to continue at least part time down the road. Do you count your TT / RPI membership fees as part of your campground fees? Just curious, we're looking at TT as a possibility for when we have to return to Seattle if we're going to need to be a bit more static. For Western WA did you find TT to be the best option of the various memberships that are available?

BTW, you guys really beat us on that second year on the road, while we only added 1 new state and traveled 40% less miles in year 2, it seemed like you and Donna speeded up your travel rate over the first year. But as you say (and of course we all attribute that to Howard), there's no right way to RV biggrin

Look forward to hopefully seeing you guys in either CA or AZ this winter and this year we need to make sure we coordinate a little more, can't count the number of times we missed each other by a day last winter in AZ. hmm

Trikester · RV-Dreams Family Member

Okay, my inclinations as a statistician could not be understated. But I appreciate seeing what others have been doing/spending as full-timers.

As for us, we spent all last year at an RV park in Beverly Hills, Florida while my brother was ill in Orlando ($13.94/day). This year we’ve taken in two rallies so far but mostly spent the spring and summer in Iowa near family, including a grandson born in March. So, our site rental expense will be more than $13.94 per day even if we boondock for the rest of 2015.

This October we hope to attend the HDT rally in Kansas, then winter in Florida and return to the Des Moines area for late spring and early summer. After that maybe we’ll travel westward and explore the Rockies plus various national parks.

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

NWEscapes: For memberships in Washington state there are only three that have multiple campgrounds, Thousand Trails (http://www.thousandtrails.com/ 12 in WA), KM Resorts (https://www.kmresorts.com/ 9 in WA) and Sunrise Resorts (http://www.sunriseresorts.com/resort-locations/ 7 in WA). Campground locations matter and only TT has something close to Seattle. I know that both Sunrise and TT have ways to stay longer than 2 weeks and ways to pay extra and stay all season or year. KM might also, but I do not know.

Barbaraok · RV-Dreams Family Member

I agree with Bill, if you are looking for the Seattle area, then TT is the only possibility with their park at Monroe (Thunderbird). For a longer stay in the Seattle area, I would suggest looking at Lakeview RV Park in Everett. They have monthly rates (Lake Pleasant doesn't for the summer) that aren't too bad, and though it is tight getting in, once set up, it isn't a bad place for an extended stay if you need to get into/around the Seattle area.

The only other membership park anywhere near Seattle is Lake Sawyer, in Black Diamond (east of Auburn) which is a Sunrise park, but it is in such horrible shape I couldn't recommend it to anyone.

Barb

Jake62 · RV-Dreams Family Member

Great information Allen!

You have moved around quite a bit. Hope to see you on the road as we leave next month, that is, as soon as we locate our Motorhome! We plan to move around often the first couple years, as we work for Habitat and visit all our NPs in the years to come.

Congrats again...

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Barb and Bill - thanks to both of you for your answers. We were actually considering Tall Chief, it's the closest park we can find to Redmond WA. Hopefully it's an alternative I won't have to investigate, but we'll see what transpires between now and the end of the year.

I'm just hoping I get to do a 3 year review that doesn't include much stationary time and yet another winter flitting around in a warm climate this winter.

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

Ruth: Tall Chief is all water and electric and in the trees. Most sites are 30AMP and the electric can be weak, so you might see low voltages. Satellite dishes can be hard, but in winter you should be able to get a campsite for TV. Cell signals are solid. The campsites are good. It is an Encore park, so it has some association with Thousand Trails, but is not a Thousand Trails. Hopefully you will not have to come and go early in the morning with ice on the road, since it is a steep drive up from Redmond-Fall City Road. Not long, just steep.

Fergizmo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Sushidog, NWescape - We put a little each month into savings to cover the membership and club dues that are paid out once a year. So, no those fees are not counted as Campsite Fees. This is actually how Howard & Linda do it also. They have separate categories, one for 'Campground Fees, and another for 'RV Club Dues & Campground Memberships'. Our Thousand Trails membership has really helped with our 'numbers', but we did travel from Washington to Ohio without staying in a TT park, and from Indiana to Arizona without staying in one either, and spent 2 winters in Arizona without using a TT park too. Lots of inexpensive options out there.

Barbaraok · RV-Dreams Family Member

We like Tall Chief and if it were closer to Mill Creek would probably stay for a couple of months each summer. They do take C2C and RPI for one week each month, or you can get the 20% off daily rate for TT members (10% off of monthly rate). I believe their monthly rate is ~ $600 and that includes having once a week pump out. If you get an annual site, they upgrade the power to 50 amps if you need it. Most sites on the east side of the 'roads' will be able to get satellite if you have a tripod. Only a couple of sites will get satellite on a roof mount. I love the area, very quiet most of the time, great breakfast place in Fall City (Raging River Cafe), and close to Issaquah. New Haggens just 3 miles from the park.

Barb

Sushidog · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thanks for the info, Fergizmo. Accounting methods vary, but I understand your reasoning for the method you adopted. You guys are still the budgeting gods! Even with everything added together, I figure less than $3,200/yr. in CG costs total, including membership fees. That's still less than $9/day all-in!

Right now, I'm living in a mobile home for the next 3 years, spending about $28/day on rent/landscaping and renters insurance. When I had my S&B, my housing costs were about $59/day (for mortgage, taxes and insurance, but not counting variable, yet certain additional expenses such as home repairs, maint. and sky high utilities) So your numbers look very good to me indeed!

I'm preparing to go FT in 3 yrs when I retire, on about 1/2 my present income, so these numbers are a big help, giving me a realistic framework to plug in my own numbers based on our planned lifestyle. As you said, everyone's different base on one's FTing style. I expect my FT CG costs and fees to be right in line with yours (though I would go about it a little differently, boondocking more, with about 1/2 the time spent in affordable monthly RV parks (in the $300-$350/mo. range), but with no membership parks fees (or discounts). With only two years under your belt so far, I'm sure your expenses will drop even lower, as most folks do once they get settled in and they're on the downhill side of the learning curve.

Thanks for generously sharing your personal information. I'm sure others in the planning stage will find it helpful too.

Chip

Camper Chronicles · RV-Dreams Family Member

I am loving all the numbers in this post :) Allen and Donna thanks for the Year Two numbers..gives me hope that we will get better at this!!

Jeffmarl · RV-Dreams Community Member

We are getting ready to finish our 3rd year as Fulltimers. Here are some facts and figures from last year.

5095 towed miles

14038 total miles driven

1102 Gal. Fuel $4005.00

28 Campgrounds $6117.00

13 States, 6 new and DC.

We camphost in Iowa for 5 months and have no campground fees for that time. The campground figures represent the 7 months we spent traveling. Some of the highlights was a week at Williamsburg, Virginia, the Outer Banks and Cherry Hill park just outside D.C. We spent a month in the Keys and then 2 weeks at other Florida State Parks through the winter months.

Neil and Connie · RV-Dreams Family Member

That's way too many stops for us…we like to have 30 or so stops during our April-November travel season at most…although we're going to be way over that this year due to our Alaska caravan…which added 29 stops to our schedule for the 60 day trip. We're at 58 stops so far and have another 8 or so before arriving back in North Fort Myers on Nov 1. We're also going to be way up on towing miles this year over our previous years numbers of 8,000 to 10,000…we'll be close to or over 17,000 by the time we get back.

Our preferred mode is to stay a week at a time and drive 250 to 350 miles between stops…with multiple travel days in a row being uncommon for us. That way Connie can do her work for the college back in Virginia remotely and we have plenty of time for Fun Stuff© along the way.

We knew going into this travel season that it would be long due to the Alaska trip…it was 5,000 miles just for the portion from Dawson Creek BC through Yukon, Alberta, and Alaska back to Prince George BC plus the distance from Florida to BC and back…but we're glad that the travel year is almost over…we're looking forward to being parked for 5 months to see our winter friends and get back to our winter routine down in the southland.

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

I have met fulltimers who travel 20,000 miles a year. Most of these are selling stuff at rallies and fairs, with 2,000 mile repositionings. But others do yearly trips to Alaska with no work requirement and think nothing of it. I have also met others who put less than 1,000 miles a year, moving to high elevations in Arizona for summer and to low elevations in Arizona for winter. Some friends used to have lots in Washington State and Florida, but would do crazy trips between them, including Yucatan Mexico, traveling only 3 to 4 months a year and doing 500 mile days.

We are all different.

-- Edited by bjoyce on Friday 25th of September 2015 09:51:27 AM

Big Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

I am not full time yet, but I am wondering how you kept your camping park fees so low? Can you explain?

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

Passport america.....worth the 40 bucks to get half off....other memberships........searching out lower priced gem parks.........Boondocking.......boondocking......booondocking...Moochdocking....state parks.....fairgrounds and if all else fails.....Walmart!!

The Sages · RV-Dreams Family Member

We keep our fees low (although not as low as some of these folks!) by staying put for at least a month. Monthly fees are so much cheaper than daily or weekly. This year our average monthly rate is including electric is around $400 give or take a dollar or two. When we travel from place to place we utilize the Walmarts of the country. $400 is a lot cheaper than the $1000 + everything else we paid for our house. Or the $720 + electric that we paid for our apt. while we were transitioning to FT RV life. Might look into a CG host position in the future.

Fuel? Geez that's a whole nuther story ;)