RVers Speak Out: Did California Travel Break Us?

We're about to reveal the real cost of RVing in California while including one of the most expensive cities in the world. Over the past 45 days, we traveled our way from the top of Cali all the way to the bottom and tracked every RV expense. Last week, we explored some off-grid options with our new generator while also putting our backing up skills to the test. I just don't want you to get close to this car here. 776 miles later, we made it to San Diego at one of the nicest resorts we've ever st

ayed at and oh yeah it came with the hefty price. But how do these prices compare to RVing outside of the Golden State. No worries because we have all that data as well. Not going to lie we did make some bold assumptions before the trip started but after looking at all the numbers we were very surprised to see the side by side comparison. So why San Diego? I mean it is considered one of the most expensive cities in the entire world. Now really all comes down to what do you want out of this trip?

Well I want to hone it down more so to those who are snowbirding down into the southern states staying warm and avoiding those cold temperatures. With Florida and Arizona being the hot spots for snowbirding I'm going to say that San Diego's overlooked by so many people who own RVs and travel south for the winter. That's true and out of this 45 -day trip. Yeah. RVing from the top to the bottom most of our time was in this very expensive city. Not only that but we decided to stay at one of the mo

st expensive RV resorts in San Diego and in this video, we're going to tell you if that was a mistake or not. Not my idea. All her. A lot of the times when we do these expense breakdowns, you guys will say, well, I want to know what this looks like compared to another time frame or other states and we did exactly that for this video. We got the data for you. After we left you at last week's of boondocking in the middle of the desert we finally made it to San Diego and we were pleasantly surprise

d at what we found. You know how I mentioned previously Arizona and Florida are some of the most busy places for snowbirds to take their RVs and live at for the winter months. Well we found it's not like that at all in San Diego. Why? It doesn't make sense, it's such a gorgeous place to be. Is it the cost? Hm we'll see. Is it the weather because we were surprised at the different types of weather we are exposed to once again. It's been a weird year. Let's just say that. Absolutely massive flood

ing in San Diego. This is exactly the reason why we didn't go with the original plan of RVing down route 1. Just to get from Redding to the coast we woulda had to go over some pretty wicked mountains and not to mention with all the rain there's been mudslides, there's been flooding. It was just very unpredictable. I feel like we went into San Diego prepared for this you know snow snowbird like wintering that you were saying yeah and nothing, it was like the traffic wasn't as bad as we thought it

was going to be. The RV park wasn't as filled and then we talked to some of the locals to find out that summer is their peak season there. And I think a really cool part for anyone looking to go to San Diego in the winter time is since it's slow you'll actually find a lot of parking available. We had no problems finding parking with our truck, the lifted truck, and I would go out on a limb and say that anyone driving a dually, you'll probably be in for some good luck as well of finding places t

o park your truck. Their public transportation that we took from the resort we were staying at, that was really nice because we just walked like a quarter mile to the train station. Two dollar as a person and it was able to take us one way downtown. So now knowing that wintering in San Diego is actually one of the slowest times for the area. Does that mean there's nothing to do there? Honestly we were completely surprised at how much there really was to do in San Diego. There's some great things

to do like visiting the USS Midway. Oh that was great. So cool. What a old relic there to visit. Learn some good history. We also had to visit the legendary San Diego Zoo. We're not really people that visit zoos but come on, you gotta visit one of the coolest zoos in the country. We love to eat and we love trying all the food that people like to recommend to us. So many of you reached out an Email and said, you gotta do this, this, this, and this. We ended up trying one really cool spot which w

as called HoDads. Yes. The burger joint that was right next to the beach. You picked up your burgers, freshly cooked, walked them over to the pier, and just sat there on the edge of the ocean and just enjoyed a nice meal together. Lots of great food like you, if going to go winter in San Diego just be ready to feed your belly because that's what you do in winter you... Gotta hibernate. Pretty much. We did a single overnight stay in Sacramento and it cost us with our Escapees discount around $72.

I mean it was a nice place but you're thinking about I have to get from point A to point B because we're exploring California where can I overnight? This is tricky in California and it's the reason we want to touch on this. So city ordinances are pretty strict within the state California. It it just depends on what city or location you're in. There's a lot of cities throughout California and sometimes they're just not the most safe places to stay. So, we allotted ourselves some extra money in t

he budget to find those RV parks in those places to get us off grid a little bit more so that we're a little more safe during our travels. Well, we've talked to a lot of people who full-time RV and their number one concern with overnighting is security and safety. It's our number one concern too. Yeah. Just for clarification sake. We'll touch on truck stops and rest areas. They seem to always be filled and packed when you're driving through California and for that reason, we just do not stay at

them overnight. We like to leave those spots for the truckers because they have a hard enough time finding em anyway. Look into a program called Harvest Host. They also are affiliated with Boondockers Welcome. Because California has so many cool vineyards. There are actually a lot of locations where you can overnight at these wineries or breweries or museums. So, if that's something interest you, we do have a discount code in the description below. Use it at your will but you don't need it to tr

avel through California. Now, a little bit of a background on where we actually stayed. We stayed in the area just south of San Diego called Chula Vista. There's a nice area and they have a resort down there owned by Sun Outdoors and it's a well-kept resort and we paid a premium to stay there. This is a perfect time to start talking about all of our totals and the amount of we spent traveling through California. I want to touch on the first one being propane because it's winter time. We did have

to run our heater in the mornings a little bit, our propane furnace. So, I believe we filled up once when we were in Bakersfield and that was about $30 to fill a 30 pound tank. Yeah. We're normally used to it being like anywhere from 20 to $25. So, we did pay a little extra to fill those propane tanks. Now, fuel, we use diesel to fill our truck and from leaving Redding, California and doing all the little travel we did and then landing in San Diego, we drove about 776 miles. After driving 776 m

iles, we spent a total of $658 and 84 cents. Now, remember, you're getting all these totals but we are going to show you a comparison of like California expenses for 45 days versus other states. I think though we do need to discuss what we have been spending at RV parks. We have a lot of variety because there was a time when we overnighted for just one night at a RV park in Sacramento and it was about $72 and then we did a week stay in Bakersfield at a KOA and that cost us around $440. Boondocki

ng, zero dollars. So what did we spend at Sun Outdoors staying there for I think it was like 35 days. $2,960, To stay an entire month in San Diego, would we do it again? Honestly, I don't know. It was nice having the peace of mind knowing that we were kind of the only ones down in the area staying there while everyone else was in Arizona and Florida. Now, having said some of these prices, how does staying 45 days in California compared to other states within that same time frame of 45 days. Well

, before we go into that, we want to give you some tips on your travels through California, some hard lessons that we learned, we want to share with you and set you guys up for success. Don't bite off more than you can chew. California is a huge state and there's so much to see. I think when people plan an RV trip, they try to just see as much as they can in one trip and then, not only you're going to stress yourself out but it's going to be so much on your wallet. So, go by the rule of thumb. J

ust don't bite off more than you can chew and don't expect that you're going to see it all in one trip. Something I personally can't emphasize enough is you need to figure out how to save money when it comes to fuel and the fuel cost going throughout the nation and one of the biggest ones that we always frequently try to give you guys is open roads program because it's absolutely free and you save a bunch of money by paying bulk discounts on the diesel fuel prices. Unfortunately, this isn't avai

lable for anyone that has a gas truck. It's only applicable to diesel but if you're out on the road and you're towing with the diesel, you are missing out on some incredible savings. So, if you're interested in that, we'll leave a link in the description below for that open roads program. Know, before going and clicking on that, they are going to ask for your Social Security number. We always get Emails like. Yeah. Hanks, this program is asking for my Social Security number. The reason that they

do this is because they do not run a credit check on you. So, they need to have this information in order to file a claim in case you were unable to make those payments. We felt comfortable with doing it. It has worked out great for us so we want to put it out there for you guys. Other programs you could be using on the road, Good Sam cards, Flying Js, and Pilots, right? Yeah and I think TechnoRV has come out with the fuel card. I don't know too much at it but you can always visit their website

and look at it and I do believe Escapees has some kind of fuel cart as well. Just do some research on the back end and make sure you're able to save some money while traveling because fuel prices, man, they get pricey. And it's the biggest thing on the road that you don't have control over. You can do as much boondocking as you want to save money. But you have to get from point A to point B and fuel prices sometimes will not budge. What we end up paying in fuel prices here, you should compare t

hat to last year which we'll talk in just a second. The difference is crazy. Speaking of boondocking, that is a fantastic way to save on some of those RV park fees. California has so much boondocking especially if you're in the Southeast area. Kinda close to Joshua Tree National Park. Yeah. We recently boondocked at Sawtooth Canyon Campground and I wish we could have stayed there longer. It was really nice. The only issue that we notice is if you have a big rig, getting access to some of the pla

ces can be really difficult. Get yourself a national park pass. California is loaded with national parks. So you want to make sure that you have a park pass to save yourself some money so you're not having to pay those fees every single time you visit a different one. Consider staying somewhere for a month. Hang out there and then don't be afraid to drive two or three hours to do day trips around you because that is completely normal. In the monthly stay, you're going to save so much money rathe

r than paying the nightly stay or the weekly stay out on the road. Now, we're going to refer to our notes here because we actually broke down our expenses from California compared to Idaho and you guys are going to be pretty surprised at the difference in pricing. So, I went back and I tried to find a certain travel period that was similar 44 to 45 days and when we were in Idaho and Oregon at the end of twenty twenty-three, we drove about eight hundred and forty-six miles in forty-four days comp

ared to driving seven hundred and seventy-six miles in 44 days recently in California. It's pretty comparable. Our time spent here in California, we spent around $3400, almost thirty-5 hundred in RV parks within the state of California. Now, comparing that to Idaho, we spent almost $2, 000 in Idaho. So, that's almost a savings of like 1,500 bucks. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks to that resort in San Diego, that was the big killer there. That was a big killer. Now, how about the fuel? Well, it looks li

ke we around $660 in fuel within the state of Cali but when it came to Idaho we spent seven hundred and eighty-nine dollars. In October of 2023 when we did this calculation the US average was 450 something and California's average was six dollars. So luckily we weren't RVing in October. Thank you. In California. But then you go to February when we did this most recent calculation. The US average was around 410 and California's average was about five twenty-five. So, it went down. Food overall, i

f you combine groceries and restaurants was very similar. I think it's just because we have similar eating habits all the time. Yeah, but going back into the total, it looks like that we spent a total of $7 thousand 5 and fifty-six dollars within California in that forty-five-day time period. Compared to Idaho, we spent $4, 650. Ooh. Once again, RV Park and this is a great way to look and know that like it's not so much the fuel. It's like how your habits are when it comes to overnight stays. Li

ke do you want to go to the fanciest resorts? Are you okay with like boondocking most nights? Cuz that's what killed us. Did you think that was a lot of money what we just said? Well unfortunately that's just a taste of what we have already previously discussed on this video right here. We broke down our entire year of traveling full time in an RV and you're going to be surprised at how much we really spent in that year's time. Go check it out and we'll see you guys next week. Love you all. Bye

guys.