Vacationing by Motor-Home!

I recently spent 10 days in a motor-home vacationing in Croatia and I'm here to tell you that a person can learn a whole lot about themselves when they travel by motor-home -- especially when the motor-home or RV is full of other people and those other people don't comprise your immediate family. But assuming everyone present is on reasonably good terms with one another and you're prepared to do some a little bit of give and take, then there's no reason not to enjoy yourself!

Our friends convinced us that when traveling by motor-home you reap the benefits of flexible traveling and substantial savings. So sit back while I try and map out the good, the bad and the ugly of vacationing via motor-home.

The Good:

From a strictly economic viewpoint, camp-grounds usually cost less-than-half of what a hotel room costs and generally the more people you have the more money you save. With 6 people we easily cut our expenses in half which gave me more money to devote to frivolous shopping (t-shirt anyone?). The most popular campsite on the outskirts of Dubrovnik was the Solitudo Campground which charged about 30 euro ($45.00) a night including utilities and was situated within walking distance of the beach.

Eating: In 10 days we ate out maybe 4-5 times. The rest of the time we prepared our meals in the camper. Again -- significant savings here. There was a market in most every town we stopped at and we ate well and cheap. Come to think of it - we ate well and cheap no matter where we ate. I think we ate best and cheapest in the old pirate town of Omis.

Traveling made easy: Without the RV we would have had to rent a car and the cost of a rental far outweighed the cost of filling up the gas tank. And come to think of it, with 6 people and luggage we wouldn't have rented a car, we'd have rented a small bus so we might has well have been in a motor-home anyway! We also wouldn't have seen even half the locations we did see. If we arrived somewhere that didn't live up to our expectations we were outta there. No such luck if you're on foot or stuck in a hotel.

Here are a few comparisons for our 10 day trip (not including the ferryboat fees):

Hotel Rooms: $75.00-100.00 per night ($750.00 per week)
Motor-Home: $30-45.00 a night (+/-$300.00)

Gas:
Hotel: 0
Motor-home Fill up: $100.00

Meals:
Hotel: Depends. But hotel food is expensive.
Motor-Home: +/- $350.00 for the whole trip, and that included eating out several times in places a little more upscale than McDonalds.

Travel:
Rent-a-car/bus: at least 450.00 a week not counting insurance. Or another alternative is taking daily excursions which run about $80.00 or more per person.
Motor-home: Go where and when we please.

All told for a family of 3 the cost was about $1250.00 including tickets and cabins on the ferry boat. Not bad, especially if you take into account how expensive the euro is making things in Europe.

The Bad:

When you travel with another family you have to share. If I'm on my own and there's something I want to do, I do it. Hard enough doing that with the family, you sure can't do that with a group. It's easy to say early on "Everyone does as they please." But often it's easier said than done. Let me see, what else: You will not find a mint under your pillow when sleeping in a camper. And don't forget, campers get hot. Although with air conditioning they are less hot.

Most cities - and I think this goes for just about anywhere and not just Croatia -- do not have inner city parking that accommodates campers. So more often than not we had to park on the outskirts of town and then head into town via bus, or settle down in a campground first, and then catch the nearest bus into town. Either way, big vehicles and crowded cities don't mix.

The Down-right Ugly:

If you fart, I will hear you. If you snore I will hear you. If you don't wash regularly I will smell you. And forget about intimacy. It's a camper for Pete's sake. When you're in a camper you get what you pay for. In other words - you're as comfortable as the camper you're in.

In closing:

In the overall scheme of things there's probably more to be gained by traveling by camper than not. Of course I'm speaking as a guest and not as an owner. If you add in the $20,000 or whatever it costs to purchase a camper than my whole theory on savings goes right out the window. Camper rentals are not cheap - in this neck of the woods they average about $100.00 dollars a day - which further scuttles my whole theory on savings. To counter that, our proposed trip to Turkey (cancelled for safety reasons) would have run about $1000.00 a head just for airfare. So in that sense I DID save money!