The Numbers
We've been home for about two weeks now, and I figured it was time to sit down and write this one. It seems counter intuitive to take a long road trip in a vehicle that averages less than 10 miles per gallon, so I wanted to break down a few numbers here and show how we SAVED over $1,700 on this trip by pulling our trailer. Here goes:
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| Screenshot of the log I kept. I'll break down the numbers below... |
Throughout the trip, I kept a meticulous log of all the money we spent, down to the cent. I tracked all purchases into five categories - fuel, food, lodging, entertainment, and other. For the purposes of this, I'm only going to look at the ones that directly transfer over to the cost of travel, fuel, food, and lodging. My logic is that no matter how you travel, entertainment costs are going to be the same (a ticket to a ballgame is the same whether you arrive in a car or truck), and 'other' costs are going to vary depending on how you define them. Fuel, lodging, and food are the basics of vacationing, so those are where I'm going to make my comparisons today.
Fuel
Let's start with fuel. I know there are different options for vehicles with different fuel economy, I am going with the average EPA highway fuel economy for cars, light trucks, and SUV's of 24.9mph. No matter what we drove, we still had to cover the same amount of miles, 3,126. Our average cost of gas per gallon was $2.25. Throw all those numbers into the calculator, and the cost of driving a car would be $282.47
With a truck and trailer, it's a little uglier. We averaged only 9.89 miles per gallon over the course of the trip. For the sake of transparency, not all miles were done with the trailer, increasing that number slightly. However, we are going to stick with it. Cost per gallon and miles are the same, so running in through the calculator comes out to $711.17. Compare the two of these and we are $428.56 WORSE OFF towing a trailer for the length of the trip.
No surprise here, though. OF COURSE it's going to take more gas to pull a 5,500 pound trailer behind a truck! It's like having a giant parachute tied to the bumper that slows you down and makes the engine have to work harder. Car travel wins this one.
I put the numbers below for comparison's sake, and there's a running total below that. Let's move on to food.
Food
Food cost is where we made up a lot of our money. When traveling in a car, there isn't enough room to keep a week's worth of groceries, so more likely than not, you're going to have to eat out every meal. Since I'm doing this for my family with five people, that's what I'm basing all my numbers on. Assuming we stayed in hotels that have a free breakfast bar each morning and only had to eat out for lunch and dinner, I'm estimating about $80/day for food. Below in the table you see I have 15/14 listed for # of meals. We would have needed 15 lunches and 14 dinners based on when we left and when we got home, so that's why it reads that way. Add all this up and we come to a total cost of $1,150 for food for the 15 day trip.
When it comes to RV's, it gets a lot simpler. On nine of the days, we were on the road during lunch. Instead of having to find an exit with restaurants that had foods our kids would eat (I see you, McDonald's...), we typically pulled off into a rest stop or travel center and made lunch in the trailer. We had boxed mac and cheese, sandwiches, and boxed pasta along the way. When you pull a trailer, it's as simple as turning on the propane and cooking lunch on a hot stove, or opening the pantry and fridge and making a cold cut sandwich. We always had cold Wyler's juice from the fridge to drink so the kids weren't having soda every meal, and we didn't have to worry about whether or not they would find something on the menu they liked because we could plan ahead. I don't have a day-by-day breakdown of food for the RV, because we didn't spend money on food every day. The day before we left, we went to the grocery store with a menu in mind, bought what we needed for the trip, and loaded it straight into the trailer. Roughly half our food cost ($164.72) was from grocery stores. We only ate out four times in 15 days, and one of those was an emergency stop because of a blow tire (read about that here). Our total cost for food on the trip, including sodas in rest stops and smoothies at the mall came to $327.49.
Our total savings on food over the course of the trip was $822.51, not to mention the time we saved by being able to cook where we were. If you think of the last time you went to a restaurant, think about the time it took to do it. And I'm not just talking about from when you walk in to walk out. Think about how long it takes to decide on somewhere that everyone enjoys, is close enough to drive to, and is healthy enough that you won't be fighting over the bathroom later that night. We were able to cook our own favorite recipes either on the stove or the small charcoal grill we brought along and save time, hassle, and a good chunk of cash along the way. RV takes the food category. We're all tied up...
Lodging
Lodging is the third part of the cost triangle of travel. Anywhere you travel, you have to have somewhere to stay, and hotels/AirBNB are the way to go. While AirBNB tends to generally be cheaper per night, they also have a cleaning fee that moves the nightly total average right up with hotels. From the digging I could do, I settled on a number of $125/night for lodging. If we stayed in a hotel, we could all share one room (for now) since the kids are still small (either one sleeps on the floor or all three kids share a bed), and if it was an AirBNB, we would need somewhere we could have the entire place to ourselves. $125 seemed to fit both of these based on the locations we stayed. The great thing about hotels is they typically have breakfast included in the cost, so we wouldn't have had to eat out for that meal too. $125 a night for 14 nights totals out to $1,750 for the duration of the trip.
This is where RV's really show their worth. You may be wondering why the chart only shows 10 nights of lodging for RV travel. Well, one of the great parts about them is they are mobile and can be parked anywhere for the night. We only had to pay for lodging for 10 of the 14 nights we were out, and if we really wanted to, we could have gone cheaper on it. Our total cost for lodging was $422.10, averaging out to $42.21 per night. And we didn't go without anything we could have found in a hotel, either. We had air conditioning and power every night but one (we camped in the mountains), had heated running water every night, had a flushing toilet and shower, and had enough beds for everyone to sleep comfortably. The setting is familiar each night, so the kids aren't trying to turn on every lamp, call people on the hotel phone, and push every button in the room each time we were in a new location.
In total, we saved $1,327.83 in lodging costs over the course of the trip, but what we really gained was the convenience of it all. We could live out of closets and drawers instead of duffel bags and suit cases, and we felt like we were 'home' each night. It only took about 15 minutes to get set up and 15 minutes to take it down each time we moved, which is about how long it takes to get checked in/out of a hotel. All in all, RV wins by a landslide in the lodging category, and takes the overall win!!
Final Thoughts
Dollars and cents don't always explain the whole story. Sometimes convenience is worth the extra cost. That's why people choose to stay at higher-end hotels. It all looks the same when you're asleep, but it can sometimes be worth the cost to splurge. So, what's the verdict here? In the days where environmental sensitivity is at it's peak, it doesn't make sense to drive a <10mpg vehicle for 3,100 miles for fun. But add in all the other stuff, and it starts to make sense pretty quick. Over the categories of fuel, food, and lodging, we SAVED $1,721.78 over doing the whole trip in a car. We were able to stop anywhere we wanted on the side of the road for bathroom breaks, cook food our kids would actually enjoy, and sleep in the same bed every night. We were able to enjoy the vacation without worrying about all the other typical 'road trip' stuff like checking into hotels and finding a restaurant to eat at.
We bought our trailer on January 2, 2020 for $5,000. With the savings of $1,721.78 on this trip if we didn't have it, we only need to use this trailer for two more similar trips (which we are already planning out) to save the cost of it. Yes, it is a large investment up front, but camp trailers definitely pay for themselves in the long run. We learned a lot about RV travel, too, that maybe I'll write about some day. If you ever want tips or tricks for easier RV travel, leave a comment below and I'll do my best to answer. Until next time, thanks for reading!!!
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