How will high fuel prices affect your camping plans?

[Meadowlark]

The last two years, I saw a huge increase in the numbers of people in RV's..the big road boats, and all of them wanting to get into parks. My friends in Montana called them "Swarms" and told stories of people parking their RV's next to "No overnight camping" signs, or even in spots they believed to be 'overflow' camping.
Yellowstone NP, especially, was slammed. I read of people waiting two or three hours just waiting to get through the gate in Gardiner. If you didn't have a reservation, you were out of luck.



Now, with the pandemic seeming to wane, and fuel prices skyrocketing, I'm wondering, how many of us are curtailing our plans for camping this summer?

[ShelbyM]

Originally Posted by Meadowlark

The last two years, I saw a huge increase in the numbers of people in RV's..the big road boats, and all of them wanting to get into parks. My friends in Montana called them "Swarms" and told stories of people parking their RV's next to "No overnight camping" signs, or even in spots they believed to be 'overflow' camping.
Yellowstone NP, especially, was slammed. I read of people waiting two or three hours just waiting to get through the gate in Gardiner. If you didn't have a reservation, you were out of luck.



Now, with the pandemic seeming to wane, and fuel prices skyrocketing, I'm wondering, how many of us are curtailing our plans for camping this summer?

Are you?

[jerrybob]

Meadowlark.....so nice to hear from you....hope all is well. We are not curtailing any trips....just got back from a 3000 mile trip through Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Wash without the trailer. Beautiful country....lots of snow.....went to Yellowstone through Gardiner two weeks after it opened for the season.....no traffic but lots of elk, bison and mule deer on the roads. Even saw a grizzly. We have plans for Ft Worden soon. We don't travel much in summer.....museum is busy....but will take some trips come Fall. My philosophy has always been......don't worry about things you can't control. I can't control fuel prices so.....I continue to camp when we want to. BTW.....fuel is a bit cheaper in the states mentioned except Wash. Go camping....have fun....we ain;t gettin any younger! Come visit if you get the chance.
Jerry

[AlanKilian]

We just completed our first trip this year.

130 miles one-way.

I did some measurements:
55 MPH gets us 22 MPG
60 MPH gets us 20 MPG
65 MPH gets us 18 MPG

So, the one-way cost is (at US$5 per gallon which is higher than we pay) between:
US$28 and US$36

If gas was (an unreasonably-low in my opinion) US$3 a gallon it would cost between:
US$17 and US$22

So basically, it costs us about US$10 if we drive the speed we drive to US$14 if we drive (like a maniac) fast.

I'm not going to stop camping for $10 extra cost for each leg of the trip.

(Also, "skyrocketing?" Inflation-adjusted pricing shows it's high, but not really extraordinarily-high)

[Meadowlark]

Shelby, we might have to curtail our trips, not due to the price of gas, but due to wildfires. Last summer my area had two wildfires with 40 mph winds driving them. We had the Casita loaded up ready to evacuate and we actually did evacuate. Thank god for the camper, we had a place to stay for a few days before we were allowed to return.

[ShelbyM]

It's always something, isn't it. Probably true for most of us. Our travel plans may be derailed but fuel prices are unlikely to be the cause. Hope you get some rain!

[Travellers]

For us it won’t affect us much as our tow vehicle is electric. But although gas prices won’t affect us the price of other items is definitely increasing as of course everything is trucked.

We are leaving on an 8 to 10 week, 11000 kilometre, 6 province tour and family visiting trip in about a week and a half. Should be lots of fun. Lots of places we have wanted to hike for many years. Can’t wait.

Safe travels all.

[Darrell in Al]

Well not sure yet, other things going on may. But a lot of my current travel is lighter than with my Scamp. Last few years I've mainly took off on weekends with Tent-Cot or hammock, hard to double tow Scamp and 4wheeler or boat. This year I added a roof top tent to my choices. Fuel costs is a issue too, but work or maybe lack of current job may. Over last year I've been debating whether to "throw in the towel" and just traveling. If the latter my 16ft Scamp might hold me back on where I might go. Lighter less footprint, but my new T.V. is more capable than my Jeep "LJ" that was my primary before. If so I do think I need to change my Scamp's axle ride height and tire size for more ground clearance.
Many of my buddies and few friends have started to die off on me, as of last year a coworker died of cancer and a good friend he died a few weeks ago abruptly.

[NorCalTraveler]

Originally Posted by Travellers

For us it won’t affect us much as our tow vehicle is electric. But although gas prices won’t affect us the price of other items is definitely increasing as of course everything is trucked.

We are leaving on an 8 to 10 week, 11000 kilometre, 6 province tour and family visiting trip in about a week and a half. Should be lots of fun. Lots of places we have wanted to hike for many years. Can’t wait.

Safe travels all.

I noticed you said “electric” ....we too are towing our trailer electric! I don’t see too many people in the forums doing that yet. Can I ask what your tow vehicle is? We are towing our 17’ Bigfoot with a Tesla Model Y We haven’t really towed it yet on any trips, as we just recently purchased our trailer, but have our first one planned in June and looking forward to it! Would love to hear any tips you can offer...the biggest concern I have would be route planning to ensure we can charge along the way. I’ve been looking for a good app to help with that.

[AlanKilian]

Originally Posted by NorCalTraveler

I noticed you said “electric” ....we too are towing our trailer electric! I don’t see too many people in the forums doing that yet. Can I ask what your tow vehicle is? We are towing our 17’ Bigfoot with a Tesla Model Y We haven’t really towed it yet on any trips, as we just recently purchased our trailer, but have our first one planned in June and looking forward to it! Would love to hear any tips you can offer...the biggest concern I have would be route planning to ensure we can charge along the way. I’ve been looking for a good app to help with that.

If you rleft-click on Traveller's name you can select "See more posts by ..."

Here's one about their tow setup:
https://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/...ded-98399.html

And one about charging:
https://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/...nfo-98261.html

[Casita Greg]

Originally Posted by jerrybob

Meadowlark.....so nice to hear from you....hope all is well. We are not curtailing any trips....just got back from a 3000 mile trip through Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Wash without the trailer. Beautiful country....lots of snow.....went to Yellowstone through Gardiner two weeks after it opened for the season.....no traffic but lots of elk, bison and mule deer on the roads. Even saw a grizzly. We have plans for Ft Worden soon. We don't travel much in summer.....museum is busy....but will take some trips come Fall. My philosophy has always been......don't worry about things you can't control. I can't control fuel prices so.....I continue to camp when we want to. BTW.....fuel is a bit cheaper in the states mentioned except Wash. Go camping....have fun....we ain;t gettin any younger! Come visit if you get the chance.
Jerry

Although gas prices haven't stopped us from travelling, we are currently paying $5/gal at the local Shell station, ($4.99 9/10 per gallon yesterday,) it does make us plan more to get the most bang for the buck these days. The same with combining our shopping and errands to save fuel.

[Travellers]

Originally Posted by NorCalTraveler

I noticed you said “electric” ....we too are towing our trailer electric! I don’t see too many people in the forums doing that yet. Can I ask what your tow vehicle is? We are towing our 17’ Bigfoot with a Tesla Model Y We haven’t really towed it yet on any trips, as we just recently purchased our trailer, but have our first one planned in June and looking forward to it! Would love to hear any tips you can offer...the biggest concern I have would be route planning to ensure we can charge along the way. I’ve been looking for a good app to help with that.

Hi NorCal. We also have a model Y and we pull a T@B 400. Although I don’t think there are a lot of us on this board that pull with an electric vehicle (yet) model Y and small Fiberglass trailer combo is definitely getting more common. We popped into a dealer to pick something up a couple weeks ago and the sales guy said about a quarter of the customers buying various teardrop trailers are electric vehicle owners. We also see them at a supercharger here which is a couple blocks from our house.

By the way, the big foot factory is about 20 kilometres from our house. .

Safe travels and enjoy your EV RV combo.

Here’s a pic or two.

[Meadowlark]

We're seeing high fuel prices, too, the entire West Coast is pretty high.


I wonder about towing with an electric vehicle. I'd be afraid to tow into the hinterland, so to speak, where do you plug in? The charging stations appear to be concentrated in cities. I don't know much about them, I am guessing that if you get a campsite with electricity, you can plug in your TV, although I understand that it takes a while to recharge that way.


What I wonder though is how the high prices will affect the people who drive those enormous RV's. I know they get horrible gas mileage, but then again, the people who can afford them can afford the gas. Covid seems to have flushed a lot of folks out of their homes and onto the roads in RV's, they were everywhere.



We, too, have lost several friends and family to Covid. It's not over yet, folks.

[Travellers]

Originally Posted by Meadowlark

We're seeing high fuel prices, too, the entire West Coast is pretty high.


I wonder about towing with an electric vehicle. I'd be afraid to tow into the hinterland, so to speak, where do you plug in? The charging stations appear to be concentrated in cities. I don't know much about them, I am guessing that if you get a campsite with electricity, you can plug in your TV, although I understand that it takes a while to recharge that way.


What I wonder though is how the high prices will affect the people who drive those enormous RV's. I know they get horrible gas mileage, but then again, the people who can afford them can afford the gas. Covid seems to have flushed a lot of folks out of their homes and onto the roads in RV's, they were everywhere.



We, too, have lost several friends and family to Covid. It's not over yet, folks.

Good morning meadowlark.

There is really no easy answer to your question. It depends on infrastructure where you are. We do mostly dry camping at provincial parks etc so don’t usually have power at the campground. But just like gas you need to do the math to know if you can make it there and back. Our comfort zone us a 200 kilometre return trip there and back counting on no en route charging. That gives us a fairly comfortable safety zone. The reality is the charging infrastructure is quite good here so it’s seldom that we need to worry about it.

We are leaving on an 8 week, 6 province, 11000 kilometre tour and family visit trip next week. The infrastructure is good on the route and we are looking forward to a lot of hiking and visiting of family. Woohoo. Summer is almost here.

Cheers.

[Glenn Baglo]

Avoid long weekend line ups.

[Travellers]

Originally Posted by Glenn Baglo

Avoid long weekend line ups.

Heh heh. I'm sure it happens. Although in 7 years of driving electric I have never seen anything like it. And the infrastructure is pretty much doubling now every 18 to 24 months. And of course the gas bar at costco still looks like this pretty much every day.

To each his own of course.

Safe travels all.

[parmm]

Don't like it when it cost $80 to fill up my Chevy Colorado, but I have to stop and remember that hauling bulk petroleum all those years paid for my pension. So keep buying gas and diesel!!! I smile every month when my pension gets deposited!!!

[Iowa Dave]

For the first time yesterday I compared towing milage that I know I get to vehicle only milage and tied that back into a trip we took without the camper to a park we had not visited with camping in mind and then estimated our round trip fuel cost. Milage towing is about half of not towing so estimated costs were double double but on our little show me trip I still felt that a campout with a 140 mile round trip was real reasonable all things considered.
Iowa Dave

[Glenn Baglo]

Originally Posted by Travellers

And of course the gas bar at costco still looks like this pretty much every day.

At least the lineup at Costco moves. Takes maybe five minutes to fill the tank, not 45 minutes.

[AlanKilian]

Originally Posted by Glenn Baglo

Takes maybe five minutes to fill the tank, not 45 minutes.

I guess you don't have lotto tickets where you live.

I almost never see someone take less than 20 minutes to fill up with gas, go in, wait in line to buy tickets, buy tickets, scratch, wait in line again, buy tickets, scratch, then leave broker than they came in.