Last year wasn’t our cheapest to date, but it was still a pretty darn good year.
We’re still at $0 for 2016 with a return visit to American Girl Mine Road (where we launched Campendium almost a year ago), but expect this year’s camping costs to skyrocket as we head east.
2015 Cost of Camping:
157 night paid camping
208 nights free camping
365 days this year
Total spent: $3,708.53
Daily average cost: $10.16
2014 Cost of Camping:
175 night paid camping
190 nights free camping
Total spent: $4,281.79
Daily average cost: $11.73
2013 Cost of Camping:
123 nights paid camping
242 nights free camping
Total spent: $3,471.29
Daily average cost: $9.51
2012 Cost of Camping:
340 nights paid camping
25 nights free camping
Total spent: $10,429.04
Daily average cost: $28.57
9 Comments
This is great info! Which eastern states do you intend to hit up? What about Harvest Host where it’s $40+ for the year and then you have access to vineyards, breweries, and farms for boondocking. We’ll be doing a 3 week trip out east to pick up our Canadian trailer come this fall. PS how is Curtis?
Hi Shannon, we’re heading east via Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama to Florida.
HH isn’t really an option for us. We need to stay places for a week rather than a night, and they need to be places that we can list on Campendium. We’re happy to include those types of locations but they can’t be exclusive to HH. 🙂
Curtie is hanging in. He’s got a vet appointment on Saturday. Hopefully all goes well!
I always find your camping costs so interesting. We’ve never gone boondocking but I hope to in the future. Looking forward to “following” along on your venture east. We’re in Virginia and I’m excited to see where you land on this side of the Mississippi!
Thanks Renee! Me too – traveling east takes a lot more planning!
We need to do more free camping. We hardly have done any!
Is this just campsite costs, or does it include food/household items? I’d love to see some information about your food budget (my husband and I are starting the budgeting process for a 1 year + of full time truck camper living and are hungry for any and all information).
Hi Ann, it’s just our campsite costs. Our food budget is probably higher than the average 2 family household. I enjoy cooking elaborate recipes and shopping at whole foods aka whole paycheck. Our grocery costs go down when we’re in locations that only have the basics. You can get an idea of grocery costs by state here: http://cost-of-living.careertrends.com/
What is your annual average for everything? Camping, fuel, food, repairs,etc. We are just starting out, hoping to go full time, nut finding it to be more expensive than we anticipated. Thanks!
Hi Susan,
Thanks for your comment! Our fuel costs are enormous because Brian scouts for Campendium and drives hundreds of miles on his own during the week. Our food costs are probably higher than the average family, because I like to buy organic and use a lot of weird ingredients. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful!