State Parks and Fuel Costs

[Pete Dumbleton]

One way to enjoy camping without spending a young fortune on fuel is to take a state map and draw a circle on it, centered on your house, of about 100 miles in radius.

Then put pins in every state park inside the circle. Visit the places marked by the pins...

Then mark Natl Parks, Natl Forests, county parks (harder to find but sometimes lots nicer than other places), etc.

Lots to see and do without wasting time and fuel on the road.

[Chester Taje]

One way to enjoy camping without spending a young fortune on fuel is to take a state map and draw a circle on it, centered on your house, of about 100 miles in radius.

Then put pins in every state park inside the circle. Visit the places marked by the pins...

Then mark Natl Parks, Natl Forests, county parks (harder to find but sometimes lots nicer than other places), etc.

Lots to see and do without wasting time and fuel on the road.

Well said Pete----Discover your own back yard first. You will be amazed at what you find.

[CD Smith]

That's a great idea to visit all the parks withing 100 miles.

However, we leaving on a trip to Branson, MO this coming Tuesday. I have estimated we will be paying $1,00 more per gallon than the average of what we paid on our trip to Florida last February.

I guess by this fall when we are going to River Vally Rally (Van Buren, AR), Pineknot Rally (Tyler, TX), and Matagorda Madness Rally (Matagorda, TX) we will be paying $2.00 a gallon more than what we paid last year ($5.00).

[Gina D.]

$1,00 more per gallon

wow. And I thought so. cal prices were terrible!

[Capt Ron]

I estimated the fuel cost difference between traveling with the egg behind us and just driving the truck (our only vehicle) on our annual trip from Florida to the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts. We estimated the mileage at 3000 for the round trip (not counting side trips usually done without the Scamp). This is for me and the admiral with the marvelous Miss Molly fully loaded (the rig not Miss M.) We'll leave in June returning to Florida in October.

Our 4 banger, 5 speed 2004 Colorado pick-up truck will usually get 26mpg driving 65 by itself and will get 20mpg dragging the Scamp if we keep the speed to 55.

At $4.00 per gallon it will cost us about $140 more to drag the Scamp and at $5.00 per gallon about $175 more.

Total cost of Fuel with the trailer will run $750 at $5/gallon with the Scamp behind us. Last year we spent less than $500 on fuel when towing the trailer and we didn't pay that much attention to keeping the speed down.

All in all the cost of fuel doesn't seem high enough to leave the Scamp home. We like having the smoke free sleeping space and traveling with a dog is easier when you don't have to fly or stay in hotels.

[CD Smith]

For gas prices past February, see my post at Casita Club.

[james kent]

Look at it this way. Our trip from Ontario to Alberta and back, in 2003, cost about $1000.00 in fuel bills. This year the same trip would be almost $3000.00. If it weren't for the Boler it would be completely out of our reach. Got to save our pennies between trips as it is. I'm glad that camping costs haven't risin at the same ratio. This is real hard on a pension.

[Adrian W]

There are a few State Parks, one Nat'l Park with camping (didn't count White Sands), couple of Nat'l Forests, some BLM Rec Sites in the 100 mile radius of us, about 1/4 of the area is in Mexico (out of bounds for us). We would have to push it to maybe 250 or so, and get much more places to see. We plan on doing New Mexico and Arizona some in future. Five or six hundred woundn't be so bad. Even with the high cost of gas, we will still take the egg up to North Dakota to see our son and family. Grandkids are great. Fuel cost are even higher up there than down here. This is more like a 1,200 miles or so one way. Without hotel fees and we disperse camp as much as we can, such as Wal-Mart, etc. on the road. It helps a little in the over all cost of traveling. It is so nice to have your own bed, frig, shower, etc on the road. We also plan on spending about a week camping with them in the Black Hills. Nearest area with forests somewhat like New Mexico for them to visit. The plan is to meet them up in the Custer, SD area. Then follow them home. Hopefully, we can do some sight seeing on our way back.

[HaroldB]

Whenever possible, we patronize state parks and federal campgrounds, even if more than 100 miles from home.



Barren River Lake State (KY) Park 5/20/08



Great Meadow campground Daniel Boone National Forest 5/25/08



Pickett State (TN) Park 5/27/08



Cheatham Dam COE campground 5/28/08

Most are spacious, sometimes not crowded and usually have the type of amenities we enjoy.

Harold

[Pete Dumbleton]

We also plan on spending about a week camping with them in the Black Hills.

Get yourself a gold pan and make a little $ panning for that Black Hills Gold to offset your fuel costs.

Harold and other Tennesseans shouldn't overlook the Senior Access Pass (if 62 or disabled) from the US gummint because many Tennessee State Parks honor if for the 50% campsite discount!

[Gina D.]

I think I have camped at every inhabitable campground within a hundred miles of here ...

I went up to one in my neighborhood this weekend. I was truly stunned that the rates have not been raised this year. Even with volunteers as hosts, you have to consider running cost have gone up simply due to gas.

[Pete Dumbleton]

Sometimes the gummint contracts out the running of CGs and pays the hosts, etc. The contract may not have provision for raising rates.

Or, it just takes the gummint a long time to react to rising costs.

[HaroldB]

Sometimes the gummint contracts out the running of CGs and pays the hosts, etc. The contract may not have provision for raising rates.

Or, it just takes the gummint a long time to react to rising costs.

Don't know about the others, but the host at a COE campground told me everything was contracted out. He was contracted, another contract for the grass cutting, another for the garbage pick-up and another for the bath house etc cleaning. There is a COE employee that inspects the contract work. But one thing I believe the Engineers do for themselves is design the layout. At the COE campgrounds I've stayed in the sites are level.

Harold

[Pete Dumbleton]

What happened is that the Corps decided to get out of the campground business as much as possible (they are stuck with it in many places because it was a condition of building the dams, etc., laid on them by Congress -- Another condition is free campground or campsites within certain area of project, but that is little known [read fine print of big notice that should be posted] and contractors usually are unaware of it.

In some cases, the Corps was able to cede the campground to the state as a state park.