Camping to save money - Page 2

Judy Ann · 04-14-2012, 02:09 PM

Now that I own everything I need the cost savings should start adding up for my trips. When I plan to stay put for 4 or more nights I take my big canvas tent along with reclining chair, linens and air mattress, rug for inside the tent and everything I need for cooking. A quick stop at the farmer's market and I'm on my way to another exciting destination. There are a lot of great state parks with large lots that are almost empty Sunday-Thursday and weekend groups can be an interesting time and short-lived. Walking to the bathhouse and restocking ice daily can be a very small inconvenience when there are outfitters nearby with canoes, mountains to hike and ice cream somewhere on a really hot day. Nothing like a quiet evening by a lake or river after cooking some freshly caught fish. A nip or two of a single malt or an icy beverage might just make it this side of Heaven!

Theosus · 04-16-2012, 06:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoveTheWater

Yes, I imagine it can be cheaper then staying in most hotels. It can be more work but if you are used to doing it and are pretty organized about it you could save a lot of money.

When I was a child in the 70s we went to Disney world. Back there were two choices inside the property. The luxury hotels or the campground. Spending a week in central Florida in June in a Korean-war style green family tent was enough to temper my urge to camp for years. It was just so damn hot the whole time.
We used to do the same thing at Myrtle beach state park a few times a year. Again, summer heat in myrtle beach is nothing to sneeze at. Plus the bugs could almost carry you away.
But times have changed. I stayed in a tent in the Tennessee mountains to save money. I had no ground pad, and a 20 degree army surplus bag. I sweated to death sleeping naked in that damn thing, while my mouth and nose froze, but I had a blast.

Grandpa · 04-16-2012, 12:04 PM

We sometimes blend both camping and hotels when we travel. This isn't so much for a cost savings as being able to take backcountry roads to get to a vacation/business location. We have discovered many "off the grid" beautiful places traveling this way. Many of these we have gone back to just for the camping.

When Grandma and I got married many years ago, we loaded the old pickup and just took off. After a couple of nights in a tent in some remote forest, we would find a motel for showers and a meal we didn't have to cook ourselves.

The last few years it has been just one or the other. Camping trips are for camping and the other trips are for the vacations where someone else does the cooking and the linen laundery.

ChadTower · 04-16-2012, 12:08 PM

The problem is now camping is the trendy thing "to help in this awful economy." State parks in a good spot are full within an hour of the booking window opening. Private campgrounds in good spots have tripled their nightly price. Camping is actually getting more expensive, quickly, for those of us who always preferred camping to the $4500 family vacation.

love2hike · 04-16-2012, 12:41 PM

Fortunately for us, camping rates at the local state parks have stayed fairly stable, even with the price of everything else rising. A "cheap" hotel room around here is at least $50/night, while back country camping spots are still under $20/night. Also, while camping has increased in popularity in recent years, we have enough state parks to keep them all from filling up, so we've never had any problems booking a nice spot.

ChadTower · 04-16-2012, 01:55 PM

Yeah, state parks have not gone up, but the cost of getting sites has. A lot of parks in MA are starting to fill up 6 months in advance within hours of the rolling window opening. I am already getting sick of playing the Ticketmaster game with campsites.

Judy Ann · 04-16-2012, 02:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChadTower

Yeah, state parks have not gone up, but the cost of getting sites has. A lot of parks in MA are starting to fill up 6 months in advance within hours of the rolling window opening. I am already getting sick of playing the Ticketmaster game with campsites.

Hi Chad! I have a list of places within a 4 hour radius of my home just in case I can't get the desired site where I want to camp. SC beach campgrounds booked, ok what about the NC beaches? Best places to canoe with the pup, waterfalls, lakes in the mountains for chilling out on a summer evening, new areas with flowers blooming by month, you get the idea. Thank goodness all that reading and researching is not as much of an obsession as it has been for the last couple of years!

ghostdog · 04-16-2012, 03:41 PM

I simply don't like hotel rooms of any kind. I spent far too much time in them over my mapping career. And I like saving money like everyone else. It has always been hard for me to justify the price of a hotel room just to sleep in. We have developed our means to clean up just fine in the backcountry. For the price of an expensive restaurant meal we can cook up a week's worth of meals in our own little bistro with a view and ambiance that fancy places wish they had.

Away from all cares of the busy city, simple camping is sublime.

**CozInCowtown** · 04-16-2012, 04:57 PM

We camp both in tents and the 5th wheel, kinda depends on alot of factors.
Weather, who and where we are going are the main factors.
We also do road trips where we just grab a hotel/motel enroute to wherever we are heading. Overnighters to Carlsbad Caverns come to mind.
DC

Judy Ann · 04-16-2012, 05:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ghostdog

I simply don't like hotel rooms of any kind. I spent far too much time in them over my mapping career. And I like saving money like everyone else. It has always been hard for me to justify the price of a hotel room just to sleep in. We have developed our means to clean up just fine in the backcountry. For the price of an expensive restaurant meal we can cook up a week's worth of meals in our own little bistro with a view and ambiance that fancy places wish they had.

Away from all cares of the busy city, simple camping is sublime.

X2!!! My tent and linens are cleaner than a cheap motel and taking my dog with me saves me $40 in boarding fees nightly. My 3L platypus bladder does double duty as a shower backpacking and a couple of Arizona Tea gallon containers set out in the sun during the day allows me enough warm water to shower and wash hair if car camping. A quick visit to the Farmer's Market and the butcher shop on the way out of town and I'm golden for 24+ hours until I need more ice.

Two more weeks until the next trip!