This is my 3rd and final recap of our RV trip! I posted the fun recap- the places we traveled and what we did, complete with pictures, here and here.
This post will be more boring, but I find that people really enjoy reading budget breakdowns and links for where we stayed and tips for how to do an RV trip.
Spending Breakdown
RV Renting (5 days/4 nights) – $1,722.81
RV Winterizing – $75
RV Lodging/Campgrounds- $131.34
Gas- $518.60
Food- $405.08
Parking, Attractions, Souvenirs and Swim Googles – $160.68
Total: $3,013.51
We budgeted about $3000 for the trip, so I’d say we did a pretty good job. If we had just not bought those swim goggles, we would have been under budget haha! In the end, the swim goggles didn’t even work so that was disappointing! We also could have saved a little money on food- we ended up eating out at least once a day, sometimes twice, and I probably could have done a better job of planning ahead for some meals in the RV.
It would be so interesting to compare this trip to a trip where we flew somewhere, got a rental car and stayed in a hotel for 5 days/4 nights.
Links
RV Rental Service- Cruise America RV
The Incline Rail- Incline Railway Chattanooga, TN
Stone Mountain- Stone Mountain near Atlanta, GA
RV Resort- Santa Rosa RV Resort, Santa Rosa, FL
Mammoth Cave National Park- Kentucky
Tips, Tricks and Complaints
The trip would have been so much better with two drivers. I don’t know how I confident I would feel driving the RV anywhere except the highway, but I wish that I had signed the paperwork so that I could take a shift driving, even if it was just on the highway
My biggest piece of advice is to not go on an RV trip if you still have a kid in a carseat. The carseat itself was fine (although we did have to buckle/unbuckle it every single night/morning- which if you’ve ever had to wrestle car seat/seat belt straps in you know that is not exactly a good time) but the child who was strapped into the carseat was not pleased with his lot in life.
Driving in an RV was LOUD. That was one thing I didn’t expect. There was a lot of rattling and very loud “white noise” the whole time. It felt just like being on an airplane! I think this constant noise kind of added to the stress level as it was harder to talk to the kids in the back.
For whatever reason, the RV did not make any of us feel carsick! Two of us really struggle with feeling sick while driving, so this was such a pleasant surprise! We did have dramamine on hand and took it every day, but there was not any carsickness!
We were disappointed that our RV didn’t have speakers in the middle seating area. We were all cued up to listen to an audiobook or even enjoy some music, but you could only hear it up in the driver/passenger seat, or way in the back bedroom. I’m sure that not every RV is like that, but that was a bummer for us and I wish we had brought a speaker or something so that we could all listen to an audiobook.
Boondocking worked really well for us, and I’m glad that we did it! We spend two nights in Walmart parking lots (we made sure to go in and buy something from the store so that they had our business), and one night at a truck stop. The truck stop was calm and quiet, but the Walmart parking lots were kind of noisy and lit up like a Christmas tree!
We called just a day ahead to book a night at the RV resort, and that worked out well for us- but if you want to get a good stop at a desirable resort, I’d recommend booking something in advance. It was so lovely to have access to warm showers, a pool, a laundry room and space for kids to ride their bikes. It really helps relieve the stress to be able to get out of the RV and kind of spread out all the stuff and all the people.
I already mentioned meals, but I probably could have done a much better job planning food in advance. At the same time, it was nice to be able to eat out every night! Although, all I wanted when I got home was to eat some vegetables haha.
The RV rental service offered a kitchen kit and a bedding kit for an additional fee, but we opted to not add those on and just took all our own kitchen and bedding stuff. We had pretty cold temps all through our trip, so we took lots of blankets and pillows.
I think that about covers it- do you have any other questions that I missed? I’m happy to answer if there is anything that I didn’t cover 🙂