And so it begins...

[Laredo Tugger]

A lot of realities beginning to surface.
If you're in the market for a new camper I would wait.

https://www.rvtravel.com/campfire-ri...vers-road-1042

RMc

[JRTJH]

My "story" is not unique, it's shared by almost everyone who bought a travel trailer in the 2010-2015 part of this decade. Our Cougar 27RKS with optional equipment listed at $32,000 and we bought it for $23,000. Today, a comparable trailer is over $70,000 and diesel is double the cost. What for us was a $50K truck and a 25K trailer/equipment investment, is today going to cost $80K for the truck (if you can find one) and another $70K for the trailer. That's scarey, if not outright absurd.....

I've no doubt that if we were "just now getting into RVing" it would not be at the level of our Cougar, if we were even brave enough to buy into the lifestyle with all the uncertainty in today's recreational choices.

Granted, for us, it's been a 50+ year experience and buying the Cougar was just another step along the journey, but just starting out ??? I'm not so sure we'd take that kind of plunge into RVing.....

[GHen]

2017 Duramax truck with 30k and 2017 5’r. Got lucky bought them right and don’t plan on upgrading anytime soon.

I feel sorry for anyone trying to get into an RV anytime in the next few years. Once air travel is easier again there will be a bunch of expensive used units on the market.

[bsmith0404]

I never used to dry camp with our Alpine. I figured why bother trying to get a 40’ 5th wheel into some spot in a national forest when I can have a nice full hookup site for $35, well that has changed. I’m not taking it off the beaten path, literally. We do have a big trip planned for this summer, out the entire month of July, but several nights will be at military famcamps which saves us a lot.

[dutchmensport]

Well, rising costs may be insane right now, but I'll never sell my Montana High Country because I can't afford it any more. I may stop traveling, but my fifth wheel is completely paid for. There is no loan. I park it on my own property without restriction. So it costs absolutely nothing to store it.

If push comes to shove, I just park it and continue using it as a spare bedroom. But, I'll never give it up. Nothing says you have to keep insurance on an RV if it's never on the road. Nothing says you ever have to insure an RV if it never moves, never leaves your own property, and you don't mind a total loss if something did happen. Nothing says you need to keep current license plates on the RV if it's not on the road. Eliminate a loan, license plate fees, storage fees, and insurance fees, and keeping an RV is not different than building a shed in your back yard.

No, I'll never get rid of mine. I may park it forever, but I'll keep in until I'm dead. It's paid for. Why get rid of it?

[Laredo Tugger]

My fifth wheel is also paid for and is on my property near some nice beaches. It is more of a beach home than an RV at the moment. We have traveled to most the places on our list and I have no problem using the RV for this purpose.
I feel lucky not to dealing with most of the items in that article and with the property being paid for I can "camp" for way less money than any park would want to charge. If I need to tow it I can.
At first I thought GHen's comment was off about a bunch of expensive RVs becoming available on the market, but I think he(she?) may be right. With the prices that have been paid for all of those RVs in the past few years, folks are going to expect to get their money out of their used units. Will they?
It just sounds like a lot of factors are lining up that will make camping and RV travel a whole lot more expensive.
RMc

[bsmith0404]

Heck, it’s still cheaper for me to pull it 100 miles to spend 5 days in the mountains than what I’d spend if I stayed home. This year we’re planning on heading out on Mondays when everyone else is at work, and come home on Friday when they’re all running out with their RVs. We’ll back it up along the house, dump the tanks, restock, refuel and head back out on Monday. Gonna finally try to enjoy being retired and take advantage of it.

By the way, guys that I used to work with in RV sales are telling me things have slowed down to a crawl and inventories are back up to before COVID levels. Prices won’t stay sky high for long.

[Badbart56]

Originally Posted by Laredo Tugger

It just sounds like a lot of factors are lining up that will make camping and RV travel a whole lot more expensive.
RMc

I think everything across the board will increase substantially given the inflation that has set up residence here now. I was looking at buying a new car for my wife but the prices are high and apparently nonnegotiable coupled with the chip shortage and low inventories. And interest rates will soon follow I'm sure.

My Fuzion cost $64K new in 2010. Last I checked the replacement was selling for $106K! I'm afraid to see what they're asking now.

[hlh1]

I'm new to having a TT and I found a good deal on a like new TT so I've avoided the high cost of a new TT. I bought it last December. I also made sure my existing truck could tow it so I didn't have to upgrade the truck. The rising expenses that will affect me are gas and camp ground fees. The cost of beach houses, hotel suites, have doubled. I was paying around $200 per night and now they have gone to $400 per night making the full hookup campground nightly fee of $60 seem cheap and the savings more than makes up for the rising cost of gas.



my .02.

[jxnbbl]

In our family our daughter found a new car at a dealer that didn't tack on 3-5K to the sticker and at the same time sold her other car at a premium to carman so basically came out with a better deal than she would have a couple of years ago. Probably wouldn't happen for truck, never mind something worth buying to tow.

The way I look at it our kids are flying their families to Disney world and paid ?? $350-400 per ticket where they would have paid $200-250 last year. I looked at that weekend for tickets and there is not ONE airline less than $800 for any area airport now and for their days all Delta flights are $1800 RT.

So driving 2500 miles RT towing a trailer and enjoying ourselves will work out cheaper anyways.

[flybouy]

Originally Posted by bsmith0404

Heck, it’s still cheaper for me to pull it 100 miles to spend 5 days in the mountains than what I’d spend if I stayed home. This year we’re planning on heading out on Mondays when everyone else is at work, and come home on Friday when they’re all running out with their RVs. We’ll back it up along the house, dump the tanks, restock, refuel and head back out on Monday. Gonna finally try to enjoy being retired and take advantage of it.

By the way, guys that I used to work with in RV sales are telling me things have slowed down to a crawl and inventories are back up to before COVID levels. Prices won’t stay sky high for long.

You'll love camping Sunday night thru Friday night. DW and I have been doing this for several years now. It's of course been ann increase in weekday campers but still not like the week enders. I think the price of fuel will slow sales. Seems like every since the oil embargo of the early 70's it's happened every 20 years or so. Inventory is reduced, prices skyrocket until folks cut back on use, the prices "rebound", always higher than they were before. Folks afe greatful the cost came down when actually they don't and the cycle repeates. Sort of like those "sale prices" when an item cost is raised by 30% and the " big sale" is 20% off.

[bsmith0404]

Originally Posted by flybouy

You'll love camping Sunday night thru Friday night. DW and I have been doing this for several years now. It's of course been ann increase in weekday campers but still not like the week enders. I think the price of fuel will slow sales. Seems like every since the oil embargo of the early 70's it's happened every 20 years or so. Inventory is reduced, prices skyrocket until folks cut back on use, the prices "rebound", always higher than they were before. Folks afe greatful the cost came down when actually they don't and the cycle repeates. Sort of like those "sale prices" when an item cost is raised by 30% and the " big sale" is 20% off.

Yeah, we did a couple mid week trips last year, but not as many as we wanted to. Always seemed to find something else that “had” to get done. This year I’ve already made up my mind, I’m not looking for anything else to do, just hope those things don’t find me anyway. Committing to and having reservations for the entire month of July up in SD and WY is going to help with that as well.

[flybouy]

Originally Posted by bsmith0404

Yeah, we did a couple mid week trips last year, but not as many as we wanted to. Always seemed to find something else that “had” to get done. This year I’ve already made up my mind, I’m not looking for anything else to do, just hope those things don’t find me anyway. Committing to and having reservations for the entire month of July up in SD and WY is going to help with that as well.

They only time we stay weekends any longer is to either accomondate kids staying with us or if we are on the road for longer trips. Sure don't miss long check-in or dump station lines.

[JRTJH]

We live in the "recreation center" of Michigan and every weekend is "grand central station" with people filling every campsite, every boat launch, every ATV trail (spring/summer), every snowmobile trail (winter) and every B&B/daily rental cabin... Come Sunday afternoon, it's "ghost town" and come Friday afternoon, it's Grand Central Station again....

We apply the "retired schedule" to all our activities. We shop on Monday after the shelves are restocked, we fish during the week when the jet skis and power boaters are at work, we camp when the campgrounds have 1 or maybe 2 occupied sites, we snowmobile on "freshly groomed trails" during the week and ride our ATV's on empty trails with no competition from "kids on daddy's Polaris" attempting to make more dust than anyone else on the trail.

Old farts ???? Yep, but still enjoying the lack of overpopulated recreational activities, 5 days a week.... (we do, however, lose one of those days on 3 day weekends) ....

[sourdough]

Being able to operate on the "retired schedule" is priceless. When I first retired 16 years ago I took my "work" mentality with me and still tried to camp/travel on weekends and holidays - a bad mistake. Over the years what used to be a big inconvenience on weekends and holidays has now turned into pure chaos and pandemonium. It took me about a year back then to realize I could dodge the busy times and enjoy everything when all the weekend warriors (and wackos) were not around. It's still better in the off time but these days it seems no one works and everyone is trying to stuff themselves into any spot they can put their RV.

As has been mentioned, I think this will cool off, folks will actually have to go to work again (I wouldn't keep folks on the payroll when I had no idea of what they were doing) and the unbridled craziness we're seeing now on weekends and holidays will subside - I hope. When you factor in the population is growing, people are making more and more while doing less and less....it might not get better. In the meantime I'm an "old fart" too as well as grumpy; maybe "grumpy old fart". If I go anywhere for more than a night or two I insist on the biggest site farthest away from anyone. Anti social? Probably. Impatient? Absolutely. DW was telling me the other day that over time I have lost my patience. I told her that yep it was gone along with my memory and a couple of other things.....

[notanlines]

Let me move this to a little different slant. We spend May through September in an RV park that is packed every Friday thru Sunday, same as y’all, also half empty during the week. We enjoy the screaming little urchins, campfires of families til 2 in the morning, non-stop boating, fishing, etc. the reason? We’re both over 70. We get invited to every fat gram, beer, campfire, pizza, bourbon shots event in the camp. Every weekend. I usually drive someone’s ski boat/pontoon while they ski with their kids. All we get asked is: Jim, can you bring your bread pudding? Brenda, can you bring your pasta salad? No sweat. We’re back in bed by 10:30 and SOUND asleep. Free is good!

[sourdough]

Originally Posted by notanlines

Let me move this to a little different slant. We spend May through September in an RV park that is packed every Friday thru Sunday, same as y’all, also half empty during the week. We enjoy the screaming little urchins, campfires of families til 2 in the morning, non-stop boating, fishing, etc. the reason? We’re both over 70. We get invited to every fat gram, beer, campfire, pizza, bourbon shots event in the camp. Every weekend. I usually drive someone’s ski boat/pontoon while they ski with their kids. All we get asked is: Jim, can you bring your bread pudding? Brenda, can you bring your pasta salad? No sweat. We’re back in bed by 10:30 and SOUND asleep. Free is good!

I think that's great actually. I used to be that way but the longer I'm retired the further I get from it. I spent my life dealing with the public; all day, every day 10-16hrs a day. I told DW that when I retired I wasn't going to sit on a phone, have a conference call, wear a tie OR deal with people unless I wanted to. I've pushed that pretty far....probably a little too far, although I do like to visit with people from time to time. DW misses just hanging out with people and "shooting the breeze", cooking out etc. I really enjoy my company and hers....I think she finds that a little lacking. We're over 70 as well so might have to try to "re-center my nav system", if that's even possible at this age and having been retired so long. I do think she would be happier.

[hankpage]

Originally Posted by JRTJH

We live in the "recreation center" of Michigan and every weekend is "grand central station" with people filling every campsite, every boat launch, every ATV trail (spring/summer), every snowmobile trail (winter) and every B&B/daily rental cabin... Come Sunday afternoon, it's "ghost town" and come Friday afternoon, it's Grand Central Station again....

We apply the "retired schedule" to all our activities. We shop on Monday after the shelves are restocked, we fish during the week when the jet skis and power boaters are at work, we camp when the campgrounds have 1 or maybe 2 occupied sites, we snowmobile on "freshly groomed trails" during the week and ride our ATV's on empty trails with no competition from "kids on daddy's Polaris" attempting to make more dust than anyone else on the trail.

Old farts ???? Yep, but still enjoying the lack of overpopulated recreational activities, 5 days a week.... (we do, however, lose one of those days on 3 day weekends) ....

John, We have the same weekend activity here in SW FLORIDA. Problem is, our weekend is four months long.

[bsmith0404]

For years I avoided dragging the Alpine into the wilderness and joined the fight for the best RV site. Now with my PTSD, I find a “need” to be aware of everything that is going on around me. The crowded RV parks actually tend to create a little anxiety and make it difficult for me to relax and enjoy it. Now, I’ve adapted back to dry camping for the most part. If it wasn’t for the need to dump/flush the tanks and refill the fresh water, I’d leave the RV out in the national forest the entire time and just drive back to it, but it’s not that bad to bring it home, clean and restock over the weekend. It’s actually only 75 miles each way. The only bad part is leaving the mountains where it’s 75 degrees and driving down into the valley where it’s 100+ During mid summer. That 15 mile drive is depressing.

[LHaven]

It's insane and it isn't abating. We have guests at our park near Wickenburg that have business in places like Central Phoenix and South Scottsdale, 40 and 60 miles distant. They are staying with us because they were entirely unable to find anything closer. That's almost terrifying.