A month just outside of Loveland, Colorado, minutes from a cute small city and half an hour from Roc

While patiently awaiting the birth of our latest son (exactly a month from today if all goes according to schedule ) we ve been renting haunted hotels in new orleans a house in Black Mountain, North Carolina, a small town 17 miles east of Asheville, NC . This has given me a little insight into the cost of fixed-location living vs. full-time travel expenses, and I thought I d share a little of that with you as for many folks looking to hit the road, the question of how do I make a living? is usually followed by something like well how much does it cost?
Firstly, let me say that traveling can obviously be very expensive. But there s a huge difference between renting a $1500 (or easily much, much more) house for a week on your yearly vacation vs. making a life for yourself on the open road. Let s look at some of the most common expenses in life and how they compare one way or the other. For the purposes of this post, we re talking about full-time living on the road as it pertains to owning an RV or campervan haunted hotels in new orleans vs. those folks who tend to rent other types of accommodations (like couchsurfers, hostelers or those who rent short-term housing while traveling).
Obviously the cost of a home, whether you re renting or you own, can vary widely. I ll use the average of real world examples haunted hotels in new orleans from the past six houses I ve owned or rented (between the years 2004 2007 and a couple of shorter stints since then) so that we re looking at real numbers. Obviously your costs will vary, but this can give you a great idea of how to take your own expenses and compare haunted hotels in new orleans them then to various average costs for campgrounds on the road.
Now let s look at some real world examples of campground costs. There are multiple scenarios for campgrounds (mostly haunted hotels in new orleans pertaining to RV Parks vs. state parks), and we ll look at as many as possible to give us some variety and see how flexible location independence can be.
This is by far the cheapest way to live that doesn t involve being out in the middle of the desert and relying haunted hotels in new orleans on a generator and the size of your various water tanks (though we ll cover that in a moment). These are just various haunted hotels in new orleans examples of actual places and their costs, as well as generally what comes with each one.
One month s rent for an RV park in Marathon, Texas. haunted hotels in new orleans Includes full hookups haunted hotels in new orleans (water, electric, sewage and even TV and Internet in this case) in a small town in the middle of a beautiful nowhere. Basically you re living in the Old West.
One month s rent in Pecan Grove RV Park, Austin, Texas. You re in the heart of one of the greatest cities in America, full hookups haunted hotels in new orleans included but no free Internet. Big city living at 1/10th of the cost of renting an apartment in Austin.
haunted hotels in new orleans One month at the Queen Mine RV Park in Bisbee, Arizona. A short walk from a gorgeous, vibrant small tourist town that s truly an experience, includes Internet, television and full hookups. People pay big bucks to visit this little tourist town and stay in the hotels, it s kind of like a scene out of Tombstone (which is about an hour north).
A month just outside of Loveland, Colorado, minutes haunted hotels in new orleans from a cute small city and half an hour from Rocky Mountain National haunted hotels in new orleans Park. Includes full hookups and Internet. You live at the foot of the Colorado Rockies, among elk and some of the best fishing haunted hotels in new orleans you could ask for.
A month on the shores of Lake Champlain, fifteen minutes north of the beautiful, green city of Burlington, Vermont. Includes water and electricity plus Internet. Hippy living on a gorgeous lake and minutes from downtown.
Weekly rates for RV parks are typically closer to $200 / week. This is the general average I ve found across the country, and of course rates vary as much for weekly spots as they do for the above monthly options. So for weekly movers haunted hotels in new orleans and shakers, rent is closer to $800 / month.
As for nightly stays , such as doing a weekend here or an overnight there on your way to somewhere else, you can expect to pay $30 average. There are $5 / night spots in the middle of New Mexico and there are $65 / night resort parks, but in general most places run around $30 / night. Discount clubs like Passport America and Good Sam can get you a few bucks off of some of these, but in general if you stay in a different park every night or two, you d be looking at $900 / month.
Boondocking is when you don t pay a dime to stay anywhere, because you find a spot where you can (often legally) stay for free. This could be anywhere from a county park in Texas to a Wal-Mart parking lot to a national forest. Of course, for the price you get absolutely nothing but a spot to call home. No electrical hookups (well, almost never anyway), no water or sewage hookups, usually no Internet (unless you can find an open signal nearby). Your particular rig must be able to accommodate any needs you might have (ie, backup batteries powered by solar panels, big ol water tanks for drinking, dishes, etc. or a generator to provide power, where acceptable). Boondocking isn t all that possible on a monthly basis, unless you re really rugged or very ingenuitive, but if you could, your rent becomes practically $0. More likely though, haunted hotels in new orleans boondocking is a way to supplement more expensive means of overnighting (such as occasional expensive parks near tourist destinations) with free living to help balance your budget.
A toad is a car you pull behind your RV (where haunted hotels in new orleans an RV is a Class A or Class C, meaning it s both the living space and the vehicle all in one). In this case you have two insurance payments: one for the RV (which is typically incredibly cheap) and one for the car you re towing (ie, the toad). In this situation:
You pay almost nothing for RV insurance because insurance companies assume it will be driven infrequently. I ve paid as little as $400 / year for excellent coverage through Geico which also included $1500 of additional insurance to over hotel stays and damage to personal belongings in the event of an accident where we couldn t live in the vehicle for some amount haunted hotels in new orleans of time.
Car insurance on the toad will be close to whatever it would have been if you lived in a stick house, though since you can choose which state is your permanent residence, you can take advantage of cheaper rates in certain states. For example, haunted hotels in new orleans Vermont has an average car insurance rate that s about 1/2 of what the rest of America pays.
Though you ll now be paying for both car RV insurance, in all fairness you have to consider the cost of home owner s insurance, which is currently on average around $850 / year (not to mention taxes, which I don t discuss in this post at all, and various other expenses as listed below). Renter haunted hotels in new orleans s insurance might be a factor for you, though we ve never purchased it in the houses we ve rented.
Most of the above stipulations for RV + Toad apply to a towing vehicle and a trailer (ie, you ve got a big truck or van that carries a fifth wheel or Airstream or something similar behind it). What you ll pay more for insurance on a big ol truck like the one you ll need to tow your trailer, you ll hopefully haunted hotels in new orleans be able to make up for in the lower cost of a trailer that doesn t have an engine, though typically this cost won t be enough to balance out the higher insurance for a truck that s being driven more, so this route will be a bit more expensive.
This is your best scenario cost-wise, since you could get your insurance down to a few hundred dollars per year. The reality haunted hotels in new orleans of this is a bit more harsh though, as you ll be limited to where you can go and how you can get there. For example, most cities don t have RV parks right in the middle or public transportation that can get you from an RV park to town, so you ll need to learn to love a bicycle or just not visit certain places that would involve miles and miles of walking to get into town. Or, you pick up the RV and drive it to the grocery store every few days
In this scenario you pay significantly less. I ve had car insurance which ranged from over $200 / month on a newer sedan to around $150 / month on a decade old truck, both scenarios included full coverage. So even if you figure your costs would be at the lower end, $150 / month, all in all you save $2250 / year going this route. In my experience though, most people don t travel this way, and it s harder to do this full-time than any of the other methods mentioned above. So in all fairness, we ll just use the RV + Toad scenario above. haunted hotels in new orleans Of course, if you think you ve got what it takes to ride bicycles, stock up on food, and live without haunted hotels in new orleans a car, you could save thousands / year this way.
As stated above, most RV parks include all of the utilities you need water, sewage and electric plus plenty of your wants, such as television and cable. Looking at some averages for these utilities while living in rental houses or owning a home:
To be fair, RV Park connectivity haunted hotels in new orleans is not the quality of what you would expect from your own line via Comcast or a similar cable company s home service, so we ll compare it to cheaper DSL, which is around $20 / month
In theory, that s all straight profit as you rarely have to pay any utlities at RV parks. In all reality, though, you re probably going to need some type of AirCard or tethering plan with your cell phone so that you can get online even when RV Parks (or when you re boondocking, etc.) don t offer WiFi (which is rarer these days). So let s be fair and factor in the $60 / month for one of these plans that you ll need if you work online.
I m not going to specifically quantify groceries, because this is largely a personal issue. If you re the type of person who purchases in bulk from Costco or Sam s Club, that s a lot harder to do with an RV. I suppose you could have a giant plastic bin or two and keep dry goods in it, but for anything that needs frozen or refrigerated, you simply don t have that kind of space, unless you re in a rock star Class A tour bus, in which case you might. Personally, we shop once a day or every two or three days, just getting what we need for those meals. This means we have more fresh produce and