Yeah it is harder this year with high costs in fuel and other things. But like many have said, you can't put a price on quality time together as a family. My kids can't wait for the weekend to come. We go almost every weekend. I guess you just have to learn to adapt to the changing costs of life. I have been taking the bike to work which saves me about $80 a month on gas, less chips and pop and more fruits and juices has saved some money as well, stuff like that. In the end we still get to go out and enjoy the precious few months of summer we have up here in Canada camping in the great outdoors with the family in our PUP.
Yea the Food thing is a non issue,,, you still have to eat if your camping or not..Keep your trips a little closer to the House and you wont notice that much of a change.
FritoBandito wrote: Fuel costs are about the same wherever you go ... so that's a wash.
Scratching my head on that one?? How come I spend $160 in gas to go on an 800 miles trip and no money to hang out around the house? I must be doing something wrong?
'04 Ford Freestar (Primary tow vehicle) '05 Subaru Forester (Backup tow vehicle) '65 Bethany popup (best popups ever made!) Looking for a tow vehicle Minivan towing
Eurocamper wrote: ... but we sure cut back on the distances we are willing to travel.
Trips this summer will be close to home. Thankfully, close to home for me includes some spectacular National forests, State Parks and National Parks.
Ron
Unfortunately Arizona in the summer, anything close is desert camping and extreme heat during day (highs 110's) and night (lows 80's and 90's). Its about a 300 mile round trip to get to the mountains to find forest and cool weather.
Just like everyone has said, time with the family is priceless and sitting by the pool in the back yard is costless. There are reasons for budgets and staying in them, good lesson to teach the kids as well.
Hope everyone enjoys their outings, we will for our 3.
* This post was
edited 06/24/08 12:41pm by webiknight *
I certainly can empathize with the OP's dilemma. With gas prices rising horribly..it is very hard for some folks to continue to take as many camping trips at longer distances.
Even though camping out as a family makes wonderful memories...those 'quality family times' can be accomplished doing other things at/around home without paying out huge amounts of money on gas.
As for us, we have cut back to one longer trip (1 week) going up to Mt. Rushmore, SD area this year and will continue to do weekenders closer to home (less than an hour away) because of gas prices. Even though we would still like to have our usual 2-3 weeks camping trip...we would rather spend the gas money on other types of trips/outings. We will continue to camp--we love it so much...but with fewer long distance trips and instead take more weekenders closer to home.
We always do local camping at COE CG and State Parks, and usually only take 1 big trip during summer..have not changed those plans, we have cut corners other
places, like not eating out, carpooling with other parents to ballgames, and being more conservative of just jumping in car and running somewhere, etc...
Even my boys are more conservative with turning things off now to help with the utility bill.
We have made too many memories camping to give that up...
Happy Camping to all!
The Williams Family & Rascal and Rebel
Regarding Gas prices, our 3 day trips to Utah (living in Las Vegas puts us at a minum 200 mi. drive for decent camping) run about 300 bucks with food, site and fuel, they now cost us $36.00 more than last summer at a $1.50/gal increase, that is not a deal breaker by any stretch, especially if we can spend more time in one spot for the same fuel cost, (BTW that is calculated at 12.5 miles to the gallon in my F150, cut that in half for a RAV or a Minivan that could post 22-25 MPG.
It (the fuel situation) sucks that is for sure but even with fuel prices where they are camping is still the best value going as far as activities outside the home go.
There is something to be said for sitting by the pool as we do that a lot in the summer also, all in what you are comfortable with I suppose (dont read too much into the pool thing, if you live in Vegas or Phoenix, trust me they are as much a necessity as a fireplace on the east coast).
I assume everyone on this forum has at least one vehicle substantial enough to pull a trailer, a PUP, and all of the accessories necessary for camping. I think when you add up the initial investments in the hardware, ongoing mantenence insurance etc. the monies invested in our rigs probably far exceed the (relatively) small increase in fuel to get to where we want to go.
At the end of the day we should count ourselves blessed to have been givin the ability to have not only one home, but a second on wheels so we can hang out in a "different neighborhood" whenever we feel like it, not to mention a means to move it and the freedom to do so.
To keep it in perspective no matter what our economic position in the US we are better off (economically anyway) than 98% of the worlds population. Wether it is cooling off atop Cedar Mountain in Utah, hiking red rock, or baking by the pool in the middle of the desert its all good.
Our family spent the last three years tent camping. This year we finally were able to get a PUP and low and behold the price of everything just skyrocketed. My three options were; just leave it sitting in the driveway, take fewer trips, or take shorter trips and keep close to home.
We live outside of Nashville, TN and would regularly go to Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge. We also went on several outings to NC, KY, and we went to Disney World as well. After we purchased our PUP in the spring, we upgraded(V8)our TV also. Now, the cost of our camping trips are considerably more than just a tent site with water/electric and the fuel for our old V6 Explorer.
It did not take me long to forsake the KOA and Jellystone's of the world, as well as most of the other commercial campgrouds. It led me to discover the vast number of state and federal parks in the TN area. We have come to enjoy them as much as most of the other places we have camped at between 1/2 and 1/3 of the cost.
We really enjoy going camping and have discovered we don't have to be 250 miles away from home to have a great time. We have planned a longer trip in early fall to Topsail State Park in FL, but other than that we usually stay within 75 miles or so from home.
It's better than just staring at our PUP sitting closed up in the driveway all year...MUCH better!
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