Recently I have received many questions about the high price of fuel and the questions fall into two categories.  1) Will the price of fuel curtail your travels?  2) I am thinking about going fulltime and now I'm changing my mind because of the price of fuel - what should I do?

First, fulltiming and even part-timing is a lifestyle and not a vacation. If you think traveling in a RV is cheaper than living in a house you are wrong, but RVers can dictate how their money is spent and still enjoy the RV lifestyle.

The best way to save money is to travel slowly and stay in an area long enough to see everything before moving down the road. Drive the RV 100 miles and stay a week, then drive 100 miles and stay another week. In the winter stay in one place in the sunny south three months and during the summer pick a place in the north and stay two months.

Doing the above you will be moving the RV seven months a year and averaging 400 miles during those month for a total of 2,800 miles a year. If your RV gets 8 miles per gallon and fuel costs $5.00 a gallon you will need 350 gallons of fuel during the year and spend $1,750 or an average of $146 a month. Surely you can afford $146 a month for fuel for your RV.

You say driving 400 miles a month is crazy because you want to see this beautiful country. Lets look at one trip. You have just spent the winter in Orlando, Florida and you want to spend two months in Michigan in the summer. Leaving Florida you travel 100 miles a week and tour the states of Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan. The trip is 1,227 miles and after your stay in Michigan you decide to spent the winter in Corpus Christi, Texas. So on your trip south you tour Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas. The trip south is 1,567 miles so your RV mileage for the year is 2,794 miles - just under the targeted 2,800 miles per year written above and your RV fuel cost is $146 a month.

The same type of annual trip can be taken from southern California to the Canadian border and back to Arizona or most anywhere in the USA going north and south. Of course you will need fuel for driving to the grocery store and sightseeing, but those trips should not cost too much.

Another advantage of staying a week or months in one place is many campgrounds offer a discount for longer stays. We have stayed in campgrounds that have a daily rate of $30, a weekly rate of $175 and a monthly rate of $400.

There are many other ways to save money as you enjoy your RV lifestyle and I will name just a few. Drive slower to save fuel, use discount campgrounds such as Passport America, eat in more than eating out, when you eat in restaurants get the daily specials which are usually good until 3:00 or 4:00 p.m., use coupons (often found on the internet), do some of your own maintenance and repairs, go sightseeing with another couple so four people can ride in one car, and if you have a craft make gifts instead of buying them.

So don't get too concerned about the price of fuel because there is nothing you or I can do about it. But there are many ways to control the cost of fulltiming or part-timing so get out on the road and enjoy this beautiful country and the RVing lifestyle.