An RV is a big investment. Even used RVs often cost tens of thousands of dollars. Until five years ago, we never even considered purchasing an RV. Before the purchase of our RV, our vacations consisted of two or three trips a year to visit out-of-state family members, and a yearly beach trip with our family. With these trips, we road tripped an average of 12-hours each way to get to our destinations and traveled about once every three months with our four small children.

In 2015, I really don’t know why, but my husband and I began discussing the option of purchasing an RV. We loved traveling and thought traveling in an RV would definitely be more comfortable than cramming our family of six into our car for long trips. After exploring the options, we decided on a Class A RV, which is basically one of the largest RVs you can buy, to fit our large family. We didn’t have a truck suitable for pulling a travel trailer and didn’t like the idea of having to unhook the trailer at every stop, nor did we think a smaller option (Class B or C) would appropriately fit our family, so after consideration, we found an old, but updated, Class A RV.

Even used RVs can be pricey, but because we bought an 15-year-old RV, we were able to get it at a price that fit our family budget, and after purchasing the RV, our vacation costs were cut by more than half.

Advantages

The biggest areas of savings: food and hotels. The conveniences: not having to pack and repack your things, having room to move, and having things to do.

Food

Because we now typically stay in an RV when we travel, we eat more meals in the RV. We have a stove in the RV, and we always travel with a grill, so we frequently make eggs or other elaborate breakfasts before heading out for the day. Lunch is often sack lunches (sandwiches and chips) while we are out and about. Also, because we love grilled food, we often end the day with grilled steaks or chicken. Yes, we still enjoy going out to eat to enjoy local cuisine while we travel, but traveling in our RV limits the need to go out, because with a trip to the grocery store, we can eat camp food that we enjoy, and save ourselves money in the process.

Hotels

An RV prevents us from having the cost of hotels. We basically have a hotel on wheels. Hotel costs are one of the biggest expenses of travel. With an RV, you still have to pay for a campsite at an RV park, and the better RV parks definitely cost more, but even really nice RV parks are typically a quarter to half the price you would pay at a hotel. This equates to thousands of dollars of savings when we travel, as our summer trips often last three or four weeks.

The Convenience of Not Having to Unpack and Repack your Things

Kids have a lot of stuff, and if your kids are anything like mine, they are not necessarily great about keeping things in their suitcases. When we stay in hotels, items often get lost or forgotten; someone inevitably remembers that they lost their favorite small trinket when we are two hours away from the hotel. As a mother, this has been perhaps the biggest joy of having an RV. I no longer worry that we are forgetting things. Everything we need and want stays in our RV, with the exception of outside toys that the kids may play with. There is very little worry that items will be forgotten, nor is there a need to pack up things each morning to continue traveling toward the final destination.

The Convenience of Having Room to Move

Although we do not typically allow our children to walk around the RV when we travel for safety reasons, there is definitely enough room for everyone in the RV. No longer are we squished into a small car together for hours on end. When we travel, everyone has room to spread out: some will sit at the table, others will sit on the couch, and someone will sit in our swivel chair. With all of these areas, there is space to lay down, to play, and to have breaks from one another. Another huge advantage is that we don’t have to stop every time someone is hungry or needs to use the restroom!

The Convenience of Having Things to Do

An RV is like a small home. In our RV, we keep games, books, magazines, toys, coloring books, art activities, a TV, and outdoor toys for the kids. Essentially, it is like traveling with a house on wheels. The RV also has loads of storage space, so all of these items have their own space. Unlike traveling in a car, you do not have to be extremely selective about what you bring when you travel in an RV. The kids don’t have to choose a few toys and a few books to bring, because there is room in our RV for lots of items. We have an entire two door, four-foot long closet to store items the kids want to bring. These items keep the kids entertained when traveling down the road and while hanging out at our campsite. Yes, we still need to be selective because an RV isn’t as big as our house, but traveling is much more enjoyable because the kids are able to bring and access many more of the things that they love.

Disadvantages

However, it is also important to know drawbacks associated with traveling in an RV. As with anything, there are also some disadvantages that should be noted. The drawbacks: gas costs, vehicle size, slower travel, and fighting the wind.

Gas Costs

I need to begin by saying that we have a gas RV, rather than a diesel. When we travel, it is typical for us to get 8 miles a gallon (and sometimes less), especially when driving in mountainous areas. This does become an additional expense on trips because it is about a third of the gas mileage than what we get with our family car.

Vehicle Size

Our RV is 33-feet long. There are certain stops that we skip along the way because we simply cannot fit. As we travel, we have to be careful that we find gas stations that we can easily get in and out of. There are some restaurants that have no parking for RVs, and there are some excursions that we would like to do that simply don’t have RV parking. We could stop and park for the evening at an RV park and spend a day at the excursion. However, because we typically want to get to our final destination, losing a day is not ideal. With a car, it is easy to pull into a place for an hour or two, to explore, and then be on your way. If a destination has RV parking, you can do this on an RV trip as well. However, it is often hard to tell if a place will have room to park an RV, as many places do not advertise it. We have also gotten into situations where we have turned down dead-end streets without realizing it, entered towns there the streets and mountain roads that were not conducive to RVs, and struggled to find a place to get gas or eat because they did not have space for an RV. These situations can be nerve-racking and down-right scary. As you get more experienced, you learn how to avoid these situations, but it is something you need to be intentional about when travel planning with an RV.

Slower Travel

Driving 75 miles an hour, as you would in a car, is typically not possible in an RV. With most RVs, about 60-65 miles an hour is a comfortable highway speed. This equates to less ground covered each hour. Also, with essentially driving a house on wheels, it is more taxing than driving a car. Because of this, we often only drive 6-8 hours a day when traveling in our RV, where we will typically drive 12-14 hours in a car. It seems that without having to stop for meals or the restroom, that you would be able to get places faster. However, this is not usually the case. Trying to keep a 33-foot RV on the road is mentally taxing, plus you still have to stop for the driver to be able to use the restroom and often eat meals (because it is much more difficult to eat while driving in an RV than a car).

Fighting the Wind

An RV is essentially a wall driving down the road. RVs are not wind resistant. Especially when traveling out west where there are few trees to create wind resistance, you feel every wind gust that blows. They hit the side of your RV with a vengeance and make it feel like you are struggling to keep the vehicle on the road; this adds to the already taxing nature of driving a 33-foot vehicle down the road. We have had some scary moments where it literally felt like the wind was going to pick our RV off the ground or blow us off a cliff. Because of this, wise planning is important. We pay attention to wind speeds and try to travel when wind speeds are lowest for the day. This sometimes means that we travel early in the morning, stop somewhere for an outing in the afternoon, and then travel again in the evening.

These drawbacks are not shared as a way of scaring you, but instead, to help you consider both the benefits and the drawbacks of traveling in an RV. For us, having the ability to just hop in and drive, has allowed us to travel and explore places we never would have been able to afford. We never could have paid to travel to Yellowstone, the Badlands, and Mt. Rushmore for three weeks, with the cost of flights for six, hotel costs, and meals out. We also never could have afforded to traveled to Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, and Bryce Canyon for a month. With our RV, when traveling to less populated areas, such as the western United States, we often are able to travel for between $100-$150 a day for our family of six, including food, gas, campsites, and excursions. Traveling to highly populated areas often cost us around $200 a day because campsite prices are higher, we often have to pay for public transportation, and tourist activities/excursions often cost more as well. However, just renting a hotel room for a night costs about what we spend for our entire day’s expenses when traveling in our RV.

For us, purchasing an RV allowed us to plan longer vacations and provided us a way to travel comfortably and affordably to areas we never would have considered visiting with our large family. The hassle of packing and repacking at hotels along the way, as well as the costs of traveling with four children, were a huge deterrent, but once we purchased an RV, loading up and planning month long vacations became a fun summer activity. Forty states and thousands of amazing photos later, we do not regret our decision and have memories to last a lifetime!