We extended one more day at the Needles Marina Resort on the western shore of the Colorado River. The original "plan" was to head about halfway to our next reserved campground near Cottonwood, AZ Verde Valley RV Campground which is another TT property and the only TT property in AZ. To supplement this, we purchased the Trails Collection package which adds about a hundred more campgrounds across the country that are part of the Encore network. More on this later. Google says that it’s 269 miles east by road (it’s not a straight line) with some significant elevation change between here and there or probably a five to six hour drive.
I’m spending the afternoon alternating between the pool and the hot tub. No running around, no repairs or mods. That makes this an unusual day that I hope becomes the norm. The monthly rate for this RV park is only $335+electricity. Something to think about...
It turns out that our biggest non-normal expense on these trips is diesel fuel with campground fees the next in line. Our normal travel days seem to be about 250 miles which cost about $70 to $110 depending on where we are. Since we left Fairbanks, we traveled 5634 miles at a cost of $1242. Of that, $502 is for the trip from Fairbanks to Sunriver, OR. So for RV travel, $735. Our normal fuel spending for the same 40 days would be less than a tenth of that. The TT membership was paid in August but we have stayed 18 nights within their network for $0 per night. We still have reservations for another 11 nights. And 16 nights at RV parks or campgrounds and these ranged from $16 to $42 per night. Six of these were using Passport America so these are near the cheaper end as it is a 50% discount. For the remaining 10, we used our Good Sam's 10% discount. So we'll average it out to about $33 per night or around $528. Instead of traveling this much, we are considering maybe finding somewhere to stay for maybe a month.
Originally, we were thinking that we could do two week stays at some of the Encore parks in AZ but most of them have 30-day minimums during their busy season. Also, some have RV age restrictions and ours is over their limit. So the Trails Collection may not have been too useful but for the $200 per year, a one week stay is past the break-even point.
I’m spending the afternoon alternating between the pool and the hot tub. No running around, no repairs or mods. That makes this an unusual day that I hope becomes the norm. The monthly rate for this RV park is only $335+electricity. Something to think about...
It turns out that our biggest non-normal expense on these trips is diesel fuel with campground fees the next in line. Our normal travel days seem to be about 250 miles which cost about $70 to $110 depending on where we are. Since we left Fairbanks, we traveled 5634 miles at a cost of $1242. Of that, $502 is for the trip from Fairbanks to Sunriver, OR. So for RV travel, $735. Our normal fuel spending for the same 40 days would be less than a tenth of that. The TT membership was paid in August but we have stayed 18 nights within their network for $0 per night. We still have reservations for another 11 nights. And 16 nights at RV parks or campgrounds and these ranged from $16 to $42 per night. Six of these were using Passport America so these are near the cheaper end as it is a 50% discount. For the remaining 10, we used our Good Sam's 10% discount. So we'll average it out to about $33 per night or around $528. Instead of traveling this much, we are considering maybe finding somewhere to stay for maybe a month.
Originally, we were thinking that we could do two week stays at some of the Encore parks in AZ but most of them have 30-day minimums during their busy season. Also, some have RV age restrictions and ours is over their limit. So the Trails Collection may not have been too useful but for the $200 per year, a one week stay is past the break-even point.
Great analysis. We haven't done much analysis on our travels, it might scare us. 😀
ReplyDeleteThe cost of traveling is what stands out too me. Reinforces the idea of longer stays and less travel.
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