The Prices!

I had my wife read your quote. She thinks otherwise. But she was born in England and I think some of the Victorian virtues must have trickled down the genetic line.

I would love to share a good whiskey with you but unless we can both meet up with NEOkieCamper in a couple or three years, it won't happen. I loved your neck of the woods but the bucket list must be emptied.

Darrell

 

Steering this back to the topic of price, there was a review today for Headwaters RV Park and Cabins at Flagg Ranch that said "for the price of 4 sites, we could stay in a nice hotel in Jackson". They said they were traveling with relatives and since they needed 4 sites, I assume they all couldn't actually cram themselves into a single hotel room. But even if they could, their math is off. They say they paid $75 a night for each of their sites, meaning they believer they could get a hotel room in Jackson, Wyoming for goodness knows how many people for a total of $300.00, which is an exaggeration, since this weekend the Hampton Inn is $374.00 a night. People seem to have lost touch with how much hotel rooms cost and how many people you can stuff into a single room, especially in destination locations.

 

We had not been able to travel since 2014 until this past summer when we went to Florida, and I have to admit that we were absolutely amazed at how much prices had gone up.

 

Salt Springs Campground in Florida's Ocala National Forest is $34 per night for full hookups and free WiFi. Or just $22.25 with a Senior Access Pass. Unlike most NFS campgrounds, Salt Springs allows stays up to 90 days. There are other state and national parks in Florida with similar pricing, although most restrict stays to 10-14 days. The point though, is that Florida does not have to be expensive for RV'ers...

 

Having just come back from a 6,000 mile trip, I'd like to push back a little on your comment. Prices at destination parks are definitely up but I don't think overnight park prices are all that much higher than they have been. We had quite a few nights at ~$35 (including tax) which is the price we've always paid for full-hookup, pull-through 50A sites.

As for destination parks, I think one also has to differentiate between "resort" parks in places such as southern FL and "high-end, but not resort" parks in most other places. As a specific example, we stayed at Yellowstone Grizzly, the nicest and most expensive park in West Yellowstone. It was an exceptionally attractive and well-run park but the ~$70/night we paid was nowhere near the prices quoted by people for some of the "resort" parks they have stayed at.

The good news for us is that we have absolutely no interest in staying at resort parks. We go places to tour and visit things in an area. We usually don't spend much time at our site other than to eat dinner and sleep!

 

If you want good value, there are plenty of provincial and national parks in Canada that cost between $20 and $30 USD a night. I just got back from a 10,000 mile trip and my average cost for both government and private parks was around $30 USD. Of course, you will have to wait until next year now as the snow flies across the "great white north".

 

And the snow is flying early in Alberta's Bow Valley. We might just have to head south to the warm early this year.

 

I guess we picked the right destinations this summer. We were on the road from the beginning of July until after Labor Day and had to use neat almost every night in Crater Lake and Yellowstone. One morning it was 26 degrees when we awoke!

 

Just move some of that heat west please. We are hoping for some good weather in Eastern Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico lasting to at least mid December

 

I wouldn't mind some of that heat as well. It has been colder than normal in western Canada since the last part of August. I'm not ready for winter yet.

 

Your wife is smart. Not to be too morbid, but my brother-in-law DIED of a great white shark attack off Monterey, California in the early 1980s. It is believed that the great white thought he was a seal as it was a week before Christmas and he was surfing in a wet suit.

I never got to meet him (I'm the wife number deux), but he is a bit of a legend in the surf community and last time I looked, there were some articles about him and how he died. (Lewis Boren if you want to google him.) I think it was one of very few deaths by a Great White. My father-in-law kept his surfboard (with the bite marks) for a long time until he had it donated to a museum, although we're not sure exactly sure where.

So yeah, protecting species has a number of "unintended" consequences. (quotes because sometimes I think the powers that be actually may intend some of those consequences. But I'm a bit jaded about the intelligence of those powers that be.)

 

Yeah, and that is a good point.

Last November we flew to Philadelphia and New York for a publishing conference and vacation. We stayed where the conference was held in Philly, then found a decently priced hotel near Central Park. Once over the sticker shock which is always present when dealing with NYC prices, we still paid MORE for those nine days than we did on our recent 6-week trip in our RV (and we bought tires on this trip!)

P.S. - we were able to write off a bunch of the Philly/NYC trip, but then . . . any location we're in will end up in one of Bob's books, so we try and write off every trip.

 

You sure can! We love to share and tell tall tales with other RVers.

You don't have to behave tooooo much, either. Just remember we're packing (well, one rifle anyway.)

 

You sure can! We love to share and tell tall tales with other RVers.

You don't have to behave tooooo much, either. Just remember we're packing (well, one rifle anyway.)

 

I don't think it's going to be that bad, unless you're talking at very popular tourist destinations (of which there are a number, I know . . .)

The bottom line is that hotel and motel rooms also continue to go higher, too, so it may moot out the higher prices for RV Parks.

 

P.S. - we also keep good Bombay Gin on hand as Bob makes a mean martini (with three olives). The Rye is great for the Old Fashioneds, though.