The truth is that you will spend more for gasoline on your trip than in the average vehicle we all drive today. But, that does not mean you will spend more money on your trip. And, your author will give you a real world example:
Christmas 2003, my wife and I gave the family a full week at Disney World as our Christmas present. We took a 34’ Class A and drove right at 1,100 miles on the nose from our house in Marietta, GA to Ft. Wilderness, a few side trips and then back home. Our party contained: my wife and I, our oldest daughter & son-in-law, our 6 year old grandson, our youngest daughter, and her fiancé for a total of 6 adults and one child.
Advantage: Motohome slept us fine vs. 2 rooms at Disney World. Saved Big Bucks vs. Disney’s Holiday prices. Fort Wilderness was less than 1/3 of just an average room per night.
We traveled in total comfort…had our kitchen to eat, what & whenever we wanted on the way down. And, we never had to stop to find a clean bathroom, as we had one with us.
Advantage: Motorhome. We saved time and money; and there aren’t words enough to explain the comfort level we experienced!
We ate breakfast every morning in the motorhome, except one when we ate at the Trading Post at Fort Wilderness (and it is a great buffet and a good value for Disney). We ate one dinner in the motorhome, the rest of the time we were eating at Cinderella’s Castle, or the Polynesian Village, Down Town Disney, or other fun place. Had we not been at a Disney type attraction, we would have cooked on the grill most nights.
Advantage: None. While we spent more money eating out, that’s what we wanted to do. But, the option of eating in the motorhome and saving a small fortune vs. eating at a Disney attraction for seven persons, was there for us to use.
Now comes the gasoline issue. The family Durango, which has seating for 7 (with hardly room for luggage for two much less 7 and gets 17 mpg on the highway vs. the motorhome which got 7 mpg but has all the room in the world for anything we wanted or needed to bring...especially for all the shoes that my wife and daughters just had to bring…and would have needed to take two cars to carry that many persons in real comfort with a normal family of 7’s luggage for a one week trip.
Here’s the math:
1100 miles/17 miles per gallon = 65 gallons X 3.00/gal = $195.00
1100 miles/7 miles per gallon = 157 gallons X 3.00/gal = $472.00
Advantage: Durango for the amount spent on just gasoline; I would have saved $277.00 on just this one item, gasoline. Had we eaten just one more dinner in the RV, or purchased one T-shirt less per person, then we would have broken even! We saved almost this sa me amount every day from what we would have spent on 2 rooms!
Trip Advantage: Motohome Hands Down! Saved big time on the campsite vs. the two rooms we would have needed; saved more on the road vs. eating in restaurants on the road...or stopping to buy snacks; saved time; had more comfort, not to mention the convenience and could have saved even more by eating more in the RV.
Bottom Line: It’s not just the price of one item (in this case it’s the gasoline) that determines how much a family spends on vacation. Look at everything, not just the hype!
Barry W. Blakely, Rental Manager |
