By Chuck Woodbury
T
he RV Industry Association (RVIA) issued its annual press release recently that claims, again, that yet another study confirms traveling by RV is the most affordable way to take a vacation.
The headline on its recent press release was:
Families save money by vacationing in RVs
The release begins:
“A new study conducted by an outside, independent firm has found that RV vacations cost much less than other types of vacation travel, even when factoring in fuel prices and the cost of RV ownership.”
I say that’s a lie! The sad part, and this is why I get so upset when I read about this, is that many people (including those in the media) will believe it.
One of my favorite classes in college (way back when) was Advertising 101. One subject we discussed at length was “Lying with Statistics.” What I learned is that you can prove just about anything you want by twisting the data in a way that proves your point. Advertisers and politicians do it routinely.
In its most recent press release, to prove its point that traveling by RV was cheaper than other means, the RVIA compared a vacation with a Class A motorhome to a vacation of luxury without an RV.
I asked Monica Geraci, the Director of PR and Communications for the RVIA, this: “Is the following statement regarding your latest study correct?”
“The class A motorhome, typically the largest and most luxurious RV, was compared to travel options such as flying first class, renting a premium car, staying in upscale hotels/resorts, and eating meals in restaurants.”
She responded: “Yes, Class A [vacation] is compared to a luxury vacation.”
I own a Class A motorhome but I do not fly first class when I take a vacation without my RV. Do you? And how does the RVIA define a “Class A” motorhome? Is it one that someone buys used for $10,000, or a half-million-dollar diesel pusher purchased brand-new?
I asked her if camping with a tent was included in the study. I mean, wouldn’t that be a cheaper way to take a vacation than with an RV? Her response was no. “We were comparing ‘comparable vacations’,” she said.
So camping with a pop-up trailer, for example, can’t be compared to traveling with a tent, but camping with a Class A motorhome can be compared to flying first class, renting a premium car, and staying in luxury hotels? Huh?
Note the chart below
Look at the 14-day vacation from Seattle to Yellowstone. According to the RVIA study, the cost is $11,328 if you fly and stay in hotels. But it’s only $4,606 in a Class C motorhome. Okay, fine. But what if you’re traveling from, say, Atlanta or Boston? In the real world might the cost of an RV trip be a bit higher?
When I get home from a trip I take by flying and staying in hotels, my expenses for the trip are over the minute I walk in my door. But for an RV owner returning home, the costs keep going. For most RVers, there are payments to make. More than half our readers pay to store their RV, typically from $150 to $300 a month. And they have insurance to pay, and maintenance costs, and licenses. The RV depreciates every day. The RVIA says it calculates those ongoing expenses into the cost of the 14-day trip. I don’t believe that for a second.
I live in Seattle: I can take a cab to the waterfront and board a cruise ship for 10 days to Alaska and back for less than $1,000. Might that be cheaper than driving my motorhome to and from Alaska?
Meanwhile, another RVIA statistic shows that the average RV owner uses his or her RV an average of 20 days a year. So for the other 345 days, their RV does nothing but suck up money while its paint fades.
Why am I angry about this?
I’m angry because people believe this. I’m angry because nobody but RVtravel.com that I know of challenges the RVIA on such a contrived report. They all just print the press releases without checking the facts. It’s free editorial. Add a juicy headline and ka-ching, money in the bank.
That’s all I have to say. Call it a rant! Call it what you want! But I feel better for saying it.
Finally, this essay will not earn RVtravel.com (and me, personally) any friends in the RV industry. The big companies don’t advertise with us and likely never will. They wish we would just get lost! If you believe in what we are doing, sticking our necks out like this, please consider donating whatever you can easily afford to help us keep going without going bust. Here’s where to do it. Big or small, your support fuels our efforts and our spirits. This website is not a hobby, but work and income for about a dozen people who care about you.
##RVT1108
Interesting, thank you for the common sense. I’m a long ways from a Class A. I always chuckle at Class A people looking for free spots to park. I’d never find such places where I like to go. Some folks don’t care about the expense, but the advertising is definitely misleading.
The friends make up for the costs. Experience America, one day at a time.
We trial-show- our dogs, Jack Russell Terriers. We could not do this without our class a motor home. It isn’t cheaper; it allows us to do it. It would take a whole page to list the reasons with a cost analysis to support it. It is our passion and we pay to do it. End of story.
It would be great to have an RV trip cost calculator that gave us a way to estimate costs for different kinds of trips with different types of RVs so we could compare costs to non-RV vacations. It would also be interesting to see the assumptions underlying the study cited in today’s editorial. My naïve assumption has always been that you could take a lot of fancy vacations for the cost of an RV plus all of the associated expenses and depreciation but it seems like an apples to oranges comparison because there are so many differences. It’s also a lifestyle choice which has no dollar equivalence. I wonder how many billionaires own RVs and actually use them? Maybe not a lot but certainly some do and it is most likely not because they want to save money on their vacations.
Well said.
Well Chuck I could make this a two page response why I prefer to travel with my class A. But to narrow it down, 1,my own bed. No worries about room service changing the linen. I have stayed at 4 star hotels and my black light that I travel with tells me don’t sleep in that bed. Stains you wouldn’t believe. 2, my own food. I just don’t trust restaurants anymore. I have seen such poor conditions in the kitchens. 3, Flying has become such a hassle, TSA, long lines, unable to carry any type of protection. And so many other reasons. Yes I probably pay a little more to travel but I am more comfortable and feel safer with my family.
Agree totally. That black light thing is a new one for me!!!! Yikes
So, who out there bought an RV to save money on travel? Probably some of those that travel for work. Otherwise, if you want to vacation on the cheap, just get a back pack, head for the highway, and stick out your thumb. Personally, I hope I never again have the need to fly. I enjoy the flight, but there is always an airport on each end of it. Airports, yuck!
When our kids were small, our Class A allowed us to travel, all over the US, Alaska included; there were 7 of us: 2 kids, 2 adults, 2 German Shepherd dogs, and one cat. Traveling any other way was out of the question.
Now, much later in life, in our Class B we continue to travel, and in some cases air travel, rental cars, etc. may be less expensive; however, using air travel one misses all the experiences between points A and points B: meeting new folks, new local restaurants and their menus, local traditions and customs, wildlife and more. I have never tried to prove one method of travel against another. The RV is a choice, whether it makes economic sense or not. (Like other ‘hot’ topics – time shares!)
When we were deciding whether to buy our first RV, one of the things we did was to do our own cost comparison based on realistic scenarios for us. The costs came in pretty close to the same – not surprising, because the various methods are in competition with each other. We chose to RV because of the intangibles, as other comments here have indicated.
My simple life, with my one ton truck and 32 foot 5’er, three month summer vacation cost is about $6,000 actual pocket money. I figure that the 5’er depreciation adds about $2,000 expense a year. So RVing is not so expensive travel to visit friends and family.
A relative stopped by our home once, where they could park their rig and stay a night with us. She commented on how much they “saved” on hotel rooms on their trip. Then, I pointed out the cost of the rig. They use theirs far more than 20 nights and are able to park at their home. They go places where there is no hotel, so it makes their rig more of an asset to them. We own a Class A, and between not having to board dogs and boondocking where we can, it is better for us. I was able to have surgery in Chicago while he stayed in a great RV place open in winter, far enough out of the city to be reasonable. One dog requires chilled meds, so having the fridge is a plus there as well. And, as my sister commented, we sleep in our own bed at night – old people thing!
I agree with you Chuck that traveling by RV is not necessarily less expensive that other vacations but that is not why we own a travel trailer. We mostly use the RV for short trips to state and national parks and in the case of state parks it is not always possible to even find a hotel. They are almost always full during the peak season where we rarely have trouble getting reservations for camping. Our own food, our own bed, not nearly the hassle with the dog and just so much less stress of traveling from place to place on a much easier schedule. But money savings? Not at all.
When I found myself having to travel to Houston (from northern NV) for medical treatment I was SO glad we could haul our TT down. We found a great RV park not far from my treatment center where we could get a monthly rate. We did this on and off for almost five years! One of our stays was a year! I cannot imagine the cost of staying in a hotel (or even an air b&b) for a year, and eating out. Even if we could cook in the rental place, we would still have to rent a car. As everyone else mentions, nothing beats sleeping in your own bed, eating your own prepared food with ingredients YOU’VE picked, and everything else that comes with bringing your house with you.
I totally agree on that last sentence….that’s the KEY for my wife and I.
The words, “RV” and “cheap” only exist in the same sentence when describing today’s quality and resell values but that’s about it.
There is nothing economical about RV’ing. It’s about the freedom to go where you want, when you want and how you want. If you value those three things, the financial cost per day becomes a subjective secondary metric.
If one is gullible and believes “marketing math” in this day and age, they might appreciate an RV over their timeshare and FTX investments.
Over the long haul of years, our average cost per day is around $100. It didn’t matter whether we were camping in a tent, staying at Motel 6, occasionally staying at an expensive hotel, or currently traveling in our Class C motorhome. We love backroads and hate flying. Our RV enables us to be “at home” each night and take our cats with us.
I agree it’s all in how you count. In my case, since I already own an RV, the insurance, interest, depreciation, maintenance, etc. are sunk costs, so when deciding whether to take the RV on a trip, I just figure the relative costs of fuel and campsites versus lodging, meals, and airfare. As a rule of thumb, it works out to 100 miles a day – if the trip will be 500 miles and last 4 days, it’s cheaper to fly or drive the car, if it will last 6 days it’s cheaper to take the motorhome.
I currently have a travel trailer (hopefully some day a 5th wheel) and yes, my camper spends more time sitting in my driveway then it does traveling, and yes, with an RV, you have the payments, maintenance, insurance, upkeep, setup/tear down, campgrounds continually raising their fees and the price for diesel keeps going up (like everything else). But compared to the airlines with their fees and they nickel & dime you to death, the TSA, long lines, lost luggage, luggage fees, virtually no direct flights anymore, layovers galore, unruly passengers, rental cars, hotels, etc., …no thank you!! My RV “might” not be the most economical way to travel, but I wouldn’t have it any other way!!
Not even an apples to oranges comparison. Totally different travel experiences that only have going from point A to point B in common.
Depreciation is the biggest cost that most people don’t understand.
We love our RV because it allows us to practically do trips we’d never do otherwise. We don’t try to fool ourselves by rationalizing the costs.
Exactly
Difficult for me to imagine that if you only used your RV 20 days per year, how that could be at all cost effective if you were purchasing a new RV and financing it. I guess they will always be able to crunch data in their favor but those of us who actually own RVs, and traveled enough to know better.
I am a highly experienced graduate mechanical engineer and MBA.
I’ve also owned 3 new RVs since I retired in 2012 and have taken these coast to coast, border to border and stayed in hundreds of RV parks. I studied this travel cost comparison extensively and also created a detailed spreadsheet to compare the RV trip cost to a similar trip by car, staying in mid-range hotels. WITHOUT considering the original outlay for the RV and its storage, insurance, depreciation and maintenance costs, I found this: If your trip is a “rolling” adventure; ie, a new park every couple days, hundreds of miles apart on each leg, then the car / hotel trip becomes comparable in cost…may even be a bit less expensive, all depending on the type of hotel you stay in and where you eat. But- if you take the RV to a destination spot and stay for an extended period (say, a week or two), the RV is probably cheaper. You can bring your pet, too. RVing is always a lot more work as well….but hey!!
Thank you, Chuck! Just the two of us travel. When we get another dog, then he/she also will travel with us. We know that it’s cheaper to travel by car or air, etc., but we enjoy RVing, so we travel that way. I wonder what sort of backlash RVIA may ultimately get from people sucked-in by the “liberties” RVIA took with their cost-comparison study? 😉
Like everyone else here, we travel by RV because we want to. However, I have no illusions on high costs of RVing.
I was in Finance or financially related work for decades at a Fortune 100 international corporation. Lots and lots of business cases and complex financial analysis.
To be very simple, if the RVIA was looking at a “luxury” motorhome class the minimum initial investment new would be $500,000 nowadays. But let’s say a used one for $250,000. You pay cash. Just the lost opportunity to earn a 5% return on that is $12,500. But wait…the RV will depreciate 10 to 15k. So just in lost opportunity to earn and depreciation you are in well over $20k annually with NO other costs!
Chuck is rightly angry because the comparison is a bold faced lie by RVIA, not because he thinks RVing isn’t a good choice for other reasons.
It all depends on the individual situation. We are full-timers. We didn’t have much money in the bank, and we were tired of paying rent. We bought our first RV and the one we have now with cash. We could only afford a small 23ft with no slides, so it was a bit of a sacrifice but worth it. We cut our rent cost by more than half by living in an RV park for 1 yr for $500 a month.
With the money we saved, We bought a used diesel truck with low mileage cash. (Before everything went up in 2019)
We later sold the RV for a little more than we paid for it after the pandemic and bought something much larger for 4K more (35ft 2 slides) used.
Now we travel full-time, and the money we save paying rent or a mortgage, we are ok spending on gas. We like to stay longer in areas where we’re not constantly burning gas.
Our focus is cheap travel and living and we pay between 1k-5k max a year for campgrounds so it’s definitely cheaper for us.
Outcome Based Research:
Choose a desired outcome and direct all of your research in an effort to acheive the desired outcome.
Outcome Based Science:
Choose a desired scientific conclusion and use only the data points that support the scientific conclusion you desired at inception.
Both models are derived from the Outcome Based Education model (OBE) which is real and was first. Education is based on having a desired minimum end point to graduate and that point is reverse engineered into 12 years of school.
Back to the top. Research firms and the scientific community adopted the OBE model to help secure greater Gov’t funding of studies to support political narratives under the guise of scientific research and social research. Pick the result you want and we can do a study that backs up your position.
Great article Chuck. We travel in our Class A for creature comforts like pillows, coffee maker and bare feet indoors. (Can’t do that in a luxury hotel).
True, none of those models provide conclusions that are peer reviewed. Statistics don’t lie, but liars use statistics.
We live full-time in our 19′ Airstream. It would be cheaper except that Grandma feels a strong need to send said Grandchildren stuff from whatever location we happen to be staying.
We live fulltime in our “luxury” 5ver, so we are on constant vacation with our own bed, closet, bathroom, etc. – all the comforts of home. Statistically, if we wanted to move a sticks & bricks home off it’s foundation and deliver it to every destination we want to visit, it would be far more expensive than RVing. See, I’ve made RVIA’s point! 🙂
We just returned from a 7-day Disney World vacation, and can say that traveling by our Class-A would have been slightly cheaper. Now,…with that said, we stayed on Disney property, ate out for every meal, and used taxis toad from Orlando.
Could we have saved $$ staying a Fort Wilderness (Disney RV parK), instead of Animal Kingdom Jambo house, for sure! But we would still have eaten out at Magic Kingdom, Epcot & the alike. The distance to and back from SFO to Disney would have been over 5,600 miles. Our 30′ RV getting approx. 7 mpg, and we would. have burned around 800 gallons of fuel, costing $2880. This is what we spent air fare!
Travel days by plane was 2, with 5 in the park. By RV we would have spent 14 days driving, and the same 5 in the park.
In conclusion, the RV vacation to Disney would have cost just slightly less than flying United economy plus.
Sometimes it’s less about comparative costs and more about opportunities (both lost & gained) that vary between travel methods. We have 2 fairly large (60-70lbs) dogs. We would be so limited if we stayed in hotel/motels – can’t leave them in the room. We would have to either board them (don’t want to have them caged) or fly them in the luggage area (not gonna happen). We don’t travel a lot, but we do take our dogs with us. We can leave them in the RV (they’re mostly quiet, unless someone gets really close) with heat/AC and we can take them all the places they’re allowed. Yes, it’s getting more expensive, but we chose to have dogs as part of the family and this is what works for us. BTW, the dogs flying isn’t even on the table since I’m done with commercial flying, so no need to even consider that.
Yep
Chuck, liars figure and figures lie!
Or like I always heard it, figures don’t lie but liars can figure!
Any recreational vehicle usually depreciates in value .Maintenance is costly unless you can do a lot of it yourself ,and a lot of it has to be done even when it is not being used .The insurance has to be purchased yearly. The cost that you now have to pay to stay in an rv park is going up yearly . I do not know how most people who are retired can afford it .
Its not that hard… Our biggest expenses are fuel and campgrounds… We spend about 6-7k per year “camping”. About 60% electric & 40% dry camping and rarely do we need or have full hookups. Our average daily cost for a campsite is less than $18 per day and that is over the past 4 years. It was under $15.
We travel 7 months out of the year and spend 5 months in Arizona in the winter. When fuel costs went up in 2021-22 we traveled less miles so our budget stayed about the same. This year we are traveling more miles, but with gas prices down we are still under budget.
Our average monthly cost of fueling the RV & “camping” is about $1100-1200 per month.
Where can you stay at that price ANYWHERE and have a different view of your surroundings anytime you want. We love what we are doing, but it takes organization, patience and flexibility. We are so blessed.
I certainly understand your feelings about the false advertising, and agree completely when you say that it doesn’t cost less to RV.
However, for us we believe it is much more convenient. When we need to use the restroom or want to eat lunch, we can pull off the road and use a bathroom we know is clean, or eat our own food. Most importantly, we can sleep in a comfortable bed (because we have replaced the mattress), that we know doesn’t have bed bugs!
We travel in an eleven year old DRV Select Suites, towed with a 2016 Dodge Ram chassis truck with a farm bed on the back. So, I guess our rig doesn’t classify us as luxury RVers. Our Rig and truck are paid for, but at the rising cost of fuel and campground, I would say that it is still more expensive to RV.
Nita Taylor
20 year RV traveler
Well, it was definitely cheaper for me. I’m from NJ originally and my vacations with 6 daughters and my pet were far less than flying anywhere and doing the “wear your socks on hotel floors” vacays. To compare high end Motorhomes and first class, 5 star hotels with the average vacationer is ridiculous. Try doing an honest evaluation next time.
I’m on my third Airstream. The first I sold for what I paid for it after 4 years. The second I sold for a profit of $5K. The third I still have and average 100 days a year on the road. When we travel we visit multiple locations. Wanna hop on 5 or 6 flights, 10-20 hotels, car rentals and meals for that period of time? The costs would limit anyone to a single trip per year. We’re heading out cross country on our 127th trip in July, There is no way to generalize the costs with so many factors and scenarios when traveling. But for me, this is the most affordable and convenient way to travel.
PART 1: Took 6 day car trip in 2019-food=$475, hotels=$483, fuel at the time was $115.
Took 6 day RV trip-Groceries and restaurants=$400, RV parks=$115, adjusted for inflation fuel=$172 (64% of car trip). Not including restaurants and RV parks, 36% of car trip.
Of course, RVs have steep expenses, but if you are going to add RV expenses, you must add car expenses too. To ignore this is would be skewed.
If we travelled only four months out of the year, it would take us under 19 years to pay off the RV. Of course, the whole point is to travel a lot after retirement, so if we travel six months out of the year, reduce that time to under 13 years, and it would be less than 6 and a half years if we traveled full time. Cut all that in half if you don’t eat out or stay in RV parks. If average motorhome ownership is 15 years, you could save money in the long run.
PART 2: For us… it’s worth it. But again, that is our experience. I can’t speak for others.
Did the RVIA lie? No. They did not. They just didn’t publish their criteria for their study. In their view, a Class A motorhome is luxury, so comparing that to high priced hotels and airlines makes sense. It may not make sense to you, but that doesn’t make it a lie.
If that RVIA advertisement makes you actually take time to research RV travel… GREAT! It did exactly what it set out to do… create interest. Now it is up to the customer to figure out if the hype is really worth it.
I just have to laugh when I hear RVing in a class A is saving money over other means of travel & hotels. You do it because you enjoy the experience and are willing to pay the cost of admission. That’s what I tell anyone who asks
Chuck I can’t agree with you more. Our first camping trip with our used travel trailer cost us a fortune. We had the vehicle to tow the camper so we didn’t include it’s cost (or insurance for that matter) in our cost. Night one cost us $9500 (cost of trailer and outfitting it) and we halved the nightly cost every time we used it. Had it down to double digits when we had to repair the roof (did this ourselves) so we added in the cost of a drive from Traverse City to Coldwater Michigan to get roofing material and the cost of the material (should have added in the time but didn’t). And it continues to go up and down as things break/wear out or we decide to change things.
Where it is not less expensive than a lot of vacations, it is always more enjoyable and you can’t put a price tag on having fun!
Chuck,
Thank You for having the integrity to speak the truth, and the guts to call out those who don’t. I’ve been telling people for years that R/Ving is a lifestyle choice, not a cheap way to travel. We do it because we like travelling this way, but we’re fooling ourselves if we try to pretend that it’s cheaper. And I never stayed in a hotel that required me to hook up my own toilet.
But Chuck — When we bought our Coach House RV 10 years ago, my wife spent some time calculating the costs of RV, insurance, and gas, preparing many of our own meals, caring for the dog with us, compared to traveling auto or air to hotels each winter. Since 2010 we have spent 3 months each winter going south for a “second summer”. It was plain in her calculations that after 10 years we will have spent far less in the RV than in auto or air travel with hotel costs each of those nights. Especially still valid now with hotel rates having increased during and since the pandemic.
Steve Willey, in some cases travel with an RV is the most affordable way to travel. But the RVIA just says, point blank, that IT IS the most affordable way, implying that goes for everybody which is flat-out not true.
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” ~~variously attributed to Mark Twain, Benjamin Disraeli, and others.
You can tell if an RV salesman is lying by observing whether he/she is speaking or not.
The map displayed shows a route from Portland, OR to Yellowstone N.P. rather than the Seattle, WA mentioned! Given that error, how accurate is the rest of the article?
😂👍 Good catch, Bob! You’re the first one to mention that little glitch. Have a great day! 😀 –Diane at RVtravel.com
RVIA again with lies. Can we just get rid of this joke organization. Great article Bob. Call this industry out for what it is.