I know I must be missing something here.
How does someone say “I’m tired of spending $100 per night for a 15x20 hotel room when we go on vacation; I’d much rather buy a $90,000 motorhome which depreciates $200 every time you drive it, burn $90 worth of gasoline getting to the campsite, pay a $30/night camping fee, all so I can sleep in a 7x15 hotel room on wheels”. I just don’t get it.
I know there are special circumstances where an RV is the only option, such as you’re planning to stay in a place that has no hotel rooms. Seriously, I know a couple such places and I know that an RV is much more comfortable than a tent. Plus, I know there are some places where you can camp for free. But you’re still paying for the RV itself plus the gasoline.
The one time in my life that I thought a motorhome would be advantageous was when I was moving from one side of the country to the other and considered an RV as an alternative to a moving van. I figured it would cost a little more money than a moving van but we’d save a little on hotel rooms so it would work out to roughly the same. I also figured that it would be more comfortable because one person can drive while the other is in the back, eating, sleeping, using the bathroom, whatever. But in practice I found that it’s awfully lonely up in the cab alone and we couldn’t risk having the driver fall asleep at the wheel. We optimistically hoped that we’d get 7 or 8 mpg but it ended up being 6.
When it was all said and done, we spent about $7,000 on the motorhome (including camping fees). The gasoline alone came to more than $1,000. If I had it to do over again, I’d hire a moving company and buy two plane tickets. Or, if we really wanted to take a slow vacation and see the sights, like the statue of the Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth Minnesota, we could have driven an ordinary car and stayed in hotel rooms instead of buying two plane tickets. Either way, I would hire a moving company to haul our personal possessions.
I recently looked into the price of renting a motor home and found prices like $1,000 per week rental fee, plus $1/mile if you put more than 700 miles on the odometer.
I occurs to me that some people get freaked out trying to sleep in an unfamiliar place and they can’t stand the idea of sleeping in a bed where a total stranger slept the previous day. Could that be the reason? Also, I understand that the fuel cost is a lot easier to swallow if you drive somewhere and then stay put for two months or more before you head back. But it seems to me that all this adds up to a very narrow set of circumstances where a motorhome makes sense. And yet there seem to be millions of them on the road.
So, are there some huge advantages that I’m overlooking? Or is it simply that some people look at the exact same list of pros and cons but weigh them differently?