We had a good time, but we would never rent an RV again and buying one is out of the question. The worst part was realizing you probably couldn't park the thing where you wanted to go, like downtown Asheville, North Carolina in the arts district. We ended up renting a car and driving that around and left the RV at the campground.
When you added up all of the costs - the rental, the rental car, the campground fees, the huge fuel bill, the camping gear we needed to bring - it turned out that the per-day expense of the RV was higher than the highest we've ever paid for a VRBO house rental and we've stayed in some pretty nice places.
In the end, you're still camping, it's just that you have four walls, a roof and some amount of mobility. Wife kitteh likes camping, but I'm not much of a fan even under the best of circumstances.
Meh.
Meanwhile, for your viewing pleasure, here's eastern Tennessee at 200 MPH. Enjoy.
3 comments:
Thanks for the verdict. We had considered renting a trailer camper for our last trip, but didn't because it turned out our vehicle (which is not actually a small one) was not recommended for pulling such a load for such a long distance. And we didn't rent a full-up motorhome for the very reasons you give, we were concerned about getting around with it. So we used tents instead, which actually _are_ pretty cheap both to buy, and to find campsites for.
And then when we were camping, we saw people parking and prepping their motorhomes, and honestly it looked like making the hookups and such took just about as long as setting up a modern tent anyway. I will concede that the RVs are probably more comfortable when it rains, and have better temperature control, but if they are just as expensive as a hotel room, well heck, you may as well stay in hotels.
And then there is the question of why you are doing it anyway. Everyone seems to park them in RV parks so they can get utility hookups, but then they are all cheek-to-jowl with other RVs. The one I bike past every day looks to be one of the nicer parks, and even so the RVs are spaced every 30 feet or so. So if anything they have less solitude and less of a wilderness experience than they would have had if they had just stayed home.
Great point about the density in the RV parks. You're right, you only have privacy when you draw the curtains.
We don't have an RV. However, we belong to the Elks and most Elks Lodges allow Elks to park RV's in their lots for no fee. Some have hook-ups. (I think Sonoma's lodge does.) Some will let you park and use the locker facilities to shower. Few have real RV facilities, so at some point, people well have to pull into a real campground.
Post a Comment