Two weeks ago we asked you the following question: Will high fuel prices affect your RV travels this summer? You can see the results here (but maybe wait until you vote now and see the results). But that was two weeks ago. Much has changed since then—primarily because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions that have been imposed since. We wonder if your plans have changed.
Prices have soared in the just the past two weeks to $7 a gallon in some places, even higher. In RVtravel.com’s hometown of Seattle, gas prices are now routinely topping $5, and diesel prices have reached $6 a gallon.
It seems reasonable to assume that the entire country will see higher prices ahead. Already, in very remote areas, prices have zoomed right on past $7. In Death Valley National Park, at Furnace Creek, a gallon of unleaded gas will now cost you a gas-gulping $8.75 a gallon!
So let’s ask the same question again that we asked two weeks ago, but this time let’s include an actual price—$7 a gallon! What if the price of gas where you travel hits that mark or goes higher? How will it affect your summer travels?
This SUCKS! I know no one could have predicted the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, but the gas prices were climbing long before that happened. Personally, I think its a push to force us all to buy electric vehicles. Even Colbert said “I don’t mind $15.00 A gallon gas, I drive a Tesla.” Well, there isn’t any electric class C on the market, and if I cannot afford $8.00 A gallon gas, how can I afford a $50,000 electric car? I think we’re pawns in a political game, and while there are legitimate reasons for fuel shortages (switching from winter to summer blends), A shortage of crude oil is NOT one of them.
And its not just RVs, think of those delivery trucks. When it costs more to deliver something, prices go up. And politicians don’t care, because the sales tax you pay is based on the price of the item!
And it ain’t over yet I’m afraid….
It stinks. Yet we are full timers that will travel from the west coast to the east coast chasing warm weather. We will do it by driving slower and looking for the cheapest fuel.
You are 100% correct
We are blessed to own some acreage that connects to family owned acreage on two sides for a total of 400+ acres – all located about 20 minutes from our permanent home. That’s plenty of camping space for us. There are fishing lakes, parks, and a National Park all within a 30 minute drive. We won’t be traveling to the beach this year and will miss the waves and sand, but we will enjoy being able to reconnect with family and friends.
We’ve already talked about which part of our travels plans we’re going to cancel. It’ll be cheaper to hunker down a few more weeks at a favorite campground than to travel.
We had plans to travel to OR from AZ and back through ID. But after we saw the price of fuel escalating, we decided to cancel all of our reservations including Harvest Host locations. We couldn’t imagine spending more for fuel than our campground stays. Besides there is the uncertainty of fuel rationing and we didn’t want to get stuck in another State if fuel rationing were to occur.
Only need to make a 240 mile trip to our seasonal site in Northern Vermont at the end of April. Filled the 80 gallon tank on our Super C last November when we got back and can make the round trip on less than 1 tank so no effect to us. We’ll use our 40 mpg Honda Fit to go back and forth every other week. But I’ll bet there’s going to be a whole lot less of a crowd up there this year as opposed to last!
We try to travel very little in the Summer. WAY too many other folks out there then. We travel locally in Fall and Spring, and do the long distance stuff Snowbirding in the Winter.
I plan to be homeless, and park at government offices around the country.
Sorry, can’t move. No money for gas.
I am going to stay here until the high tech jobs, green new energy, and affordable EV’s get here.
P. S. Please make sure my SS check gets delivered by an EV mail truck…
We don’t travel very far from home in our RV, usually less than a full tank of fuel in either direction. We are simply recreational RVers. Our plans won’t change, but my language at the gas pump will.
Fuel is only one of the variable cost of RVing. I made up my mind many years ago that I was not going to be the richest person buried in the cemetery. As long as we still have our health we will continue to travel and enjoy life. We have many choices to make and we refuse to get to the point where we say I wish I had done this or that after it is too late. Life is too short as it is to put off what can be done now. Stay safe, Stay well and Safe travels.
👍 Well put and so true!
Well, if you haven’t figured it out as of yet, they are finding a way to push us all into their green new energy deal and it won’t stop unless we say it will. They plan to starve us off of fossil fuel and so far, they are winning! The scariest words in our lifetimes; “we are from the government and we are here to help” Make no mistake about that one!
They’re not going to be in office long enough to pull off a move to the Green New Deal, the country is way too dependent on fossil fuels and there are not electric solutions for all modes of travel yet. How many Electric Boeing 737’s does Southwest have? Maybe a couple more decades will bring clean travel in the mean time not so much.
Gov. only cares about increasing their power over us and extending their tenure. “Alternative” energy is a political myth, pushed by the complicit MSM.
I’ve had to delay our Alaska trip for 2 years, we’re going.
I’m not traveling this year….with 7.2mpg on flat land and 4.5mpg in the hills….I can’t justify spending that much money on fuel. I’ll stay home and do something else.
I will adjust our travels this year to try and lessen the impact. But i have a question, will the high prices slow down the rising rv sales?
Just can’t afford that. Will have to adjust our travels.
Seven dollars a gallon? I’d drive north and stay in one place for as long as possible.
Among our toys were years of great enjoyment from diesel motor yachts. Each fill up ranged from $800-$1500. The 150 gallons to fill our coach is nothing. Enjoy today because tomorrow may never come.
Want to avoid $7.00/gallon diesel? Just stay out of California and Canada!
True; can’t afford to leave Canada!!
Our diesel at the most expensive place here is $5.499, Murphy is $4.99. Average is 5.08 or so. Aint going nowhere with those prices. I can afford it, just refuse to increase bottom line of all of the folks involved in the issue. If we do go, less than 100 miles one way. This issue will surly thin herds in RV parks, as many people need to decide if getting to work is more important than taking RV trip. Watch for RV industry Crash, orders at these prices will plummet, suspect it’s 2008 all over again. Cannot have Real Estate Pices high, energy prices high and stock market prices high, something breaks every time. Wait for it.
It’s not affecting our plans. We are still going out camping twice this summer, with our longest trip in August.
Our Sequoia 5.7 gets about 7-10 mpg towing our 5200# Rockwood MiniLite out here in the West. Lots of big mountains, but deserts, too. We typically tow several thousand miles each season. We’ll try to avoid the asinine-pricey California gas as much as possible. I figure our budget will stay pretty stable- but we’ll now give more of it to the oil companies and less of it to the local merchants. Remember- this all happened since 2020….keep that in mind!
Be careful or you’ll step on someone’s toes who can’t stand the truth.
We are from South Dakota. I have a daughter that lives in Massachusetts and my wife is from Tennessee. We plan on leaving South Dakota and traveling east to Massachusetts. Then we have one of our goals to tour every state capitol so will be doing that while in that area. Then will head down the east coast stopping at various places until we get to Tennessee and stay there for about a month then make our way back to South Dakota. I think we will be traveling 4-5 thousand miles this trip. We have a 2014 Sunseeker towing a 2014 Honda CRV. We get 6-7 mpg with motorhome. We have been traveling 6-9 thousand miles every year and will continue doing our traveling regardless of gas prices! We are not wealthy people but I want to enjoy life so will spend the money on gas regardless of the price!
I’m (self) debating between cancelling all plans and dramatically cutting. At the current $5.50/gal I will probably limit my trips to within 200 miles, at $7 I probably won’t travel this summer. It’s painful as I just put in a big solar/battery system.
It will be disgusting, knowing America has more known oil fields/reserves than the next highest producing oil nations combined, but our travel is very important to us. We visit relatives and friends, and see the beautiful wonders of our nation, as we enjoy our Motorhome! We will vote for those who care about Americans this November!
Be careful you’re getting political with the truth, some can’t stand the truth, especially those of the party in charge.
Yep…prices so high in Calif we are quitting and selling the trailer. Diesel approching $7 a gallon now……sucks, and was preventable. The current administration caused it to happen because they want us in electric cars!
Two years ago, we had planned a big family vacation to Oregon where my family lives. We were going to take the fifth wheel and fly the kids and grandkids out. COVID killed that so we are planning it for this summer. Not going to cancel it again. We’ll do what we have to to make it happen.
But we have had to rethink some things. We wanted to sell the S&B and go full time. Now we are not so sure it’s the right time. Fuel prices are playing a big part of our decision making.
All of our trips this year are close at state parks or more localized campgrounds. Our longest trip in 260 miles (each way). For that one the gas may cost more than the site for 6 days.
Being seasonal and only 40 minutes from home, the gas price won’t affect our camping.
Well, the price sucks but one thing we can not save is time. I plan to use my time to go and do the things I want to do. You can not get back the lost time and CoVid did a number on that already. I will not just sit an watch my trailer sit and go nowhere.
We planned to RV to Alaska via Banff and Jasper CNPs the summer of 2020 and Covid caused us to postpone that once in a lifetime trip. We plan to make the trip this year and have made most of the critical reservations. We presumed gas would average $5.00 per gallon. $7.00 per gallon gas will increase our fuel cost by about $2000.00 but we are going. No one knows when their last day on earth will be and we don’t want to wait another year to make this epic trip.
I have already made paid in full reservations, and many campgrounds have computer problems when you ask for your money back. However, with the $12.00 a gallon diesel fuel, the campground should be less crowded.
Just sold our house last December and winter camped in our motorhome in NYS. Secured a seasonal site this summer so we will not be traveling too much with the RV. When the campground closes for the season, mid October, we will be traveling south. This was our dream of being full timers and the higher fuel prices will not stop us but we have to be smarter and will stay longer at a campground than originally planned. Maybe by this fall the prices will stabilize or even drop.
We are fulltimers and we aren’t going to live forever. We will go where we want and stay as long as we want. Until the government physically pulls us off the road, we’re traveling.
That may be sooner than you think as government wants to be your nanny and control every minute of your lives, that’s what socialism is.
We just decided to cancel our trip from our home in AZ to FL (visit family) to NC (fishing at the Outer Banks) to MD (my home state) to PA (husband’s home state) to OH (visit friends) and back home. Diesel prices were part of the reason but we have been having problems finding oil and DEF recently. We have a concern with what other things (parts for repairs) may not be available and leave us stranded somewhere for who knows how long. We live in the middle of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest and will likely just camp close to home for the time being.
Although it hasn’t been mentioned—yet, we can’t forget the gas shortage back in the mid 70s. We were stranded in our car, unable to even buy fuel in Oregon, because stations reserved their fuel for local customers. (Friends filled gas cans to enable us to “escape”.) If fuel becomes scarce, it may extend beyond higher prices. It wouldn’t be surprising for drivers of big rigs to find buying fuel difficult or impossible. That is a consideration for us in maybe curtailing a long trip we had planned. Wait and see.
Might take a 200 mile trip to the Maine coast this summer but many local camping trips this year.
I don’t really know, but gasoline doesn’t matter much to me. My RV burns diesel. Depends on where the price of diesel goes, not gasoline. We’ll see.
I sure don’t like to think about this price. My truck uses diesel and I have estimated this exact price for our trip this summer. I’m sure hoping it doesn’t go this high. We will be traveling about 5000 miles on a planned trip so this will be a large expense on the trip.
Gas in my area today is anywhere from $3.469 to slightly over $4 a gallon. Diesel, with my TSD card, is $4.365 to slightly over $5. Both have actually fallen a few cents over the last week.
We plan to camp more, but in home and neighboring states.
We have one Bucket List type trip planned with my sister. We’re going. Most of our other RV use is when we go to dog competitions & stay free or very cheap.
What do you mean will $7 a gallon affect my driving? $4.59 has all ready affected my driving, we just bought a permanent vacation home in FL. I said I’d never buy an EV in my lifetime, but the electric golf cart came with the house, not bad, but I keep forgetting to plug it in every 3-4 days. Lol
Fuel prices have gone up because of Biden’s ineptness Not because of the Russian invasion.
Misinformation! Fuel prices are set by OPEC and the US is not a member. Biden has nothing to do with it….
My concern now is if Putin starts a cyber war and shuts down a power grid,,that will be a problem. . No power,,,no gas, no travel. We are planning a trip to calif. Next week for a funeral.we want to be able to get home too. What will happen to RV..ers