Article Suggesting Folks Will Be Curtailing Their RVing.

[Scott'n'Wendy]

Agree. Interesting because I'm wondering if this is kind of like customer service centers - all they ever get are calls from those with issues.

Even on these forums, you need to have perspective.

[WhittleBurner]

With only 500 responses to their quesstion , I wonder how accurate the report is on the overall grand scheme of the RV lifestyle and those participating in it.

[Second Chance]

I keep the books in Quicken with detailed budget buckets. I have a top-level category called "Full-Time Lifestyle" that includes a number of subcategories, but does not include expenses that we would incur whether we were on the road or in a stix 'n brix (such as medical/dental, expenses related to the car, technology and entertainment, etc.). Obviously, RVing-related expenses can vary a lot depending on what one does from one year to the next - such as longer-term stays vs. a lot of driving with short stays, the types of places one stays, etc. Our habits did not change much from 2021 to 2022, so the below is not a bad comparison of some of the main categories for us... from 2021 - 2022:

Personal property and liability insurance: +15%
Parks & campgrounds: +5.1%
Self storage (kept too much stuff but fixed at the end of 2022): +30%
Fuel for tow vehicle: +30% (4,421 miles in 2021, 3,670 miles in 2022)
Utilities (LP, electric when metered): +17%
Food (just the stuff we eat, excluding restaurants): +24%

That's some significant inflation from one year to the next - especially food and fuel. We did not, personally, have issues with park availability, rude campers, etc., and have never let a few bad roads stop us (we just slow down). I've told those I've spoken with since the start of the "pandemic RV boom" that a lot of folks were going to find out they bit off more than than could chew... that RVing was more work than they expected, they took on more debt than they should have (especially with inflation and employment insecurity), and there was little or no expectation management in terms of what RV life was really going to be like.

Just my two cents (ironic amount in view of actual inflation rates).

Rob

[FlyStar]

For me, the high fuel costs put a damper on short weekend trips but not so much for our cross country traveling. The fuel cost of a 500 mile outing for the weekend plus the work involved to get, provision, un-provision, and put away the RV seemed high compared to just driving and hotelling.

But. For the wedding and Thanksgiving in Florida and visiting grandchildren for Christmas in California and staying warm in Arizona for the winter, the RV is still by far the way to go. We had to make all sorts of compromises when we made CG reservations in August for Florida and Tucson. Places were filling up. Florida is still very busy and expensive especially on the gulf coast where several rv places are still closed due to hurricane damage. But, my experience in California and Arizona is that we were able to easily adjust our reservations in December to eliminate all the compromises we had to make in August. Seems things have loosened up since August.

And fuel prices have eased a bit too. Even here in California.

And. Roaming across the county, our experience is that campgrounds are busy but not full. No issues getting campsites in nice places along I-75 or I-10.

In some ways I’m relieved to be out of warranty. Based on what I read here in the forum, a visit to a RV dealer for service is a last resort. My mindset is to tackle all maintenance myself with that mobile tech as a backup. Heading to Lowe’s today to get a 2x4 to cut up for blocking that I need to jack her up so I can have new tires mounted. An unexpected expense but happy the local tire shop has 4 GYE with a recent date code and will work with me mounting them 2 at a time.

[Chad74]

I know everyone has different situations and I can't speak for everyone else but I for one is excited about 2023.
My parents have been rving for 10 years and traveling more since they retired a few years ago. I like driving and seeing the sights from the ground versus seeing them from above. So the wife and I finally decided in Dec 2021 to jump into the ry scene since the last kid went off to college. After looking at new and used units for a year we finally found exactly what we were looking for. I will admit that about half way through the search we changed to looking at just used units because we both agreed the price for a new 5er toy hauler was extreme jump for a couple of people that have zero experience in rving. But we did agree that if we loved it as much as we think we will that we will upgrade in a few years. We both work full time office jobs so we will be mainly weekend warriors with a couple of week long trips during the year for near future, but we live in north Texas and there are plenty of places to go within 4-6 hour drive.
Anyway back to the subject of the thread (sorry I like to ramble some)
I'm a newbie and have ZERO experience in #2 (campgrounds) and #4 (RV Repair) but everything else I deal with on a daily basis. I am handy and have the resources to fix or replace most items but also know when I'm over my head and need a pro to fix something. So at this point I'm not to concerned with repairs and again being weekend warriors our plans will revolve around shop time if something serious arises. And I'm sure it will, I am a firm believer in "not a matter of if, but a matter of when". As for as campgrounds go, we are currently trying to plan things out for the year but most of our travels will not be during the holidays and some of the places might not be a 5 star resort but we will do our research before hand and if we are tricked by someone's misleading description then we will live and learn.
I just see it as it might take a little more planning and saving if you plan to take long trips.

JMO from a newbie

[Ynot4me2]

As for rude campers, there's always that one that has their music to loud or parties past the silent hours but we haven't notice an increase. We have notice more and more campers keeping to themselves. They'll wave if waved at but that as far at it will go. But that has more to do with Covid adn people that never camped before then inflation.

[Soundsailor]

RV Business magazine released an article today titled "RV Lifestyle Details ‘RV Travel Difficulties Predicted for 2023’. They provided this link to the RV Lifestyle full article.

It makes for interesting reading. Their attention grabber is something like "...Big RV Travel Difficulties are being predicted for 2023 by real RVers, with many saying they will either sharply curtail their travels or stop entirely....". First they list some results for a survey as to why folks will curtail their travel, then it goes on to describe some surprises some first timers had. I don't think any of those surprises to those first times would surprise anyone who has RV'd for a while.

I'e highly recommend this reading for newbies as well as the rest of us. My take away is still that RVing is not for the faint of heart. I'll be out there again this year.

These were the top 5 distractors according to their survey. They were:

1. High Fuel Prices
2. Campgrounds
3. Inflation in General
4. RV Repair Challenges
5. Bad Roads

There were several other RV travel difficulties mentioned, like too many rude campers, bad quality from RV manufacturers, high interest rates, bad or slow Internet speeds making remote work from the RV difficult, and not enough EV charging stations....

Interesting, I'm actually hoping to increase the amount of RVing I do this year. Father time waits for no one and I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to be on the road. Depending on gas prices I may stay closer to home, but none of the other concerns mentioned would deter me.

[Redapple63]

We are also looking at increasing our use for 2023.

I think most of the increased rv use was due to Covid. People realized they could go somewhere and still be self contained, however as some have already pointed out, the complexity and expense of owning a rig is for many overwhelming. I do believe we are seeing the resulting sell off. Inflation is also a direct causal of the sell off. Many paid premium and are now finding out just how expensive this lifestyle is.

Bill

[FT4NOW]

I offer a master class on how to not let master classes grind your gears.... Only $19.99 lol

Where do we sign up? That's a great price!!![emoji1787]