7 Expenses that May Surprise You – Budgeting for RV Travel
Camping expenses we underestimated
With all of our fancy tools for creating a budget, we thought we were all set for full-time RV life. It turns out that even though we did a pretty good job of figuring out our budget, we had a few things we didn’t think about or expect to pay as much for. Excel is our favorite tool for keeping track of expenses, but there are many others – some free and some not – see a list of some options at https://newliferv.us/budget/.
Unexpected expenses during our RV travels:
Electricity extra!
Some campgrounds have metered electric and charge you for separately for your usage during your stay. This is typically for stays that are a month or longer. If there’s a monthly discount, prices may still even out. Be sure to read rate information closely before booking! Our maximum electric bill at a campground was $80 for one month. Not too bad, but just make sure you’ve got this expense in your budget just in case!
Hospitality or Lodging Tax
This little surprise tax can add up. We first encountered this in Alabama, and it was a hefty 5%. That’s on top of the state and local taxes, so our final bill included over 12 % tax! You can find tax rates by state at https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/state-lodging-taxes.
Some states don’t have this tax, but you may want to pad your expected campground fees a little to ensure you’re budgeting enough for this.
Tolls
We thought we were ready for this expense but then we traveled to the northeast. Tolls weren’t bad coming north along the coast from Florida, but driving back to Wisconsin from Maine cost us $162 in tolls. One toll in Ohio was $43 ! Next time we’ll set our RV Life Trip Wizard to “avoid tolls”, even if it takes us longer to travel. RV Trip Wizard is an app we’ve used since we started our full-time RV adventure. It’s got great trip planning tools and you can enter your RV information such as height so the mapping software will choose RV safe routes, avoiding low bridges or unpaved roads, etc. I forgot to set this trip to avoid tolls and it cost us ! The current price for the app is $65/year, after the free trial period. Note that it also estimates the trip price based on miles, including gas and campground fees. It’s a great tool that we use frequently. Get RV Trip Wizard here!
Water Filters
You never know what the water quality will be at a campground. We’ve experienced everything from extra salty water to high sulphur content to high iron / orange tinted water. We always use a filter, but in some cases we had to buy filters that worked for a specific situation. For example, for the high iron content water in Cedar Key, Florida, we purchased the FS-TFC filter system from Amazon. This was an extra cost and should be added in to your budget.
Fishing License
Each state requires a different license, so if you plan on fishing in each place you visit then make sure to budget for this! Since we moved pretty often, we have only bought a license in a couple of states. Some state parks will allow fishing without a license within the park when fishing from the shore. Typically you can get a 1-day or 7-day license for between $5 and $25. If you’re staying for a while, an annual non-resident license can run between $50 and just over $100. Get the latest license fees here.https://hookedinfishing.com/fishing-license-cost-by-state/
Laundry
Even though we budgeted for this, it has been a little more expensive than we thought. We’ve seen rates that are fairly low, like $1.50 for a washer and $1.00 for a dryer. We’ve also seen rates of $4.00 for a washer and the same for a dryer. We do approximately 2 loads of wash a week, so that can run us $16 a week for washing and drying. I try to consolidate the clothes into one dryer and air dry some things, but keep in mind that some campgrounds do not allow clotheslines or drying racks.
Healthcare
This subject is a little complicated and very individualized, but to put it simply you may need to supplement your healthcare with a plan that will cover your needs while you’re out of your home state. If you’ve got an HMO or PPO plan, then if you’re out of network you may end up with extra healthcare costs you didn’t expect. I use a fixed benefit plan for times when I’m out of state, and that costs $205 per month. For more detailed information about healthcare while traveling full-time, see our site https://newliferv.us/health-insurance/.
I hope I covered everything and also hope that these things don’t discourage you from trying full-time RV life! If you have other expenses that I haven’t thought of and mentioned here, feel free to share with fellow RVers below.
Thanks for reading!