Its hard to believe its been a month since our First Month RVing update, and two months since we set out on this trip. Actually, its been over 2 months because this post is a bit overdue! This is what our route looked like this month:
We tried to slow down a bit this month, and even though we are not traveling as great of distances now, we still seem to be on the move A LOT. This is due to a mix of factors, but mostly because the amount of people with RV’s these days is astounding and there just aren’t enough campgrounds to accommodate them all (business idea?). Finding a spot for longer than 4-5 days at a time has proved nearly impossible. At least for now in these summer months and not booking far in advance.
The other reason is because finding good Wifi is still an issue, even with our cell booster, and that work-life balance we were hoping to find RVing is proving more difficult than we anticipated. This is why this website hasn’t been updated much since we left, and why we are two months behind in posting videos on YouTube. The travel updates take the back burner as we are having a hard time just keeping up with our real work.
That being said, I am still keeping up with our expenses and trying to watch them more closely. I was very optimistic that month 2 was going much better on the budget side of things, especially considering we camped for free for 1/2 of the month. I figured I would do another recap of this month’s expenses and what we got up to (and tons of pictures of course).
Henry’s Lake State Park, Yellowstone, & Grant Tetons
We began month two camping at Henry’s Lake State Park in Idaho. The park is actually only 17 miles to West Yellowstone so made a great base for exploring the area. Obviously, we didn’t book ahead for Yellowstone and I was really anxious about taking our chance at a first-come-first-serve site in the park, considering the crowds. I also knew that cell reception would be out of the question.
When I came across Henry’s Lake during my research, I was pretty excited. We had a water-electric site (the full hook-up sites were booked) with the best views of the lake. Even better, our Verizon coverage was excellent. We first booked 5 nights at the park, but ended up extending to 8 nights total. This is the longest we’ve stayed anywhere on this trip so far.
We had a lot of rain while we were here, which really just gave us much needed time to catch up on work. We spent some days in the camper, and other days we headed into West Yellowstone where we found plenty of cozy coffee shops to warm up and peck away at the laptops.
We entered the park on 2 different days when we had some sunshine. Yellowstone was beautiful – there is no denying that. But we both agreed that the crowds, tour buses and traffic jams in the park really took away from the enjoyment. To be honest, we had more fun exploring outside of the park AND saw more wildlife outside the park as well.
We were going to head to Grand Teton National Park with the camper, but because we were enjoying our stay at Henry’s Lake so much, we decided to just make a day trip instead. Grand Tetons were PHENOMENAL. We enjoyed it far more than we did Yellowstone. The landscape is absolutely mesmerizing.
Campground cost: $29/night
Apgar Campground, Glacier National Park
Grant Tetons actually became our favorite National Park, until we visited Glacier National Park that is. This is probably the place we were most excited to visit. Anyone I’ve ever heard talk about Glacier has had nothing but rave reviews. And it did NOT disappoint!
We stayed inside the park at Apgar Campground, which was a first-come-first-serve only campground with no hookups. I was watching the availability online, and it wasn’t filling up until late in the day so I was pretty confident we would get a site. Also, the Going-to-the-Sun Road was opening in its entirety the day after we arrived (June 23, 2018) so we couldn’t have planned it more perfectly. We arrived early in the day and found plenty of campsites to choose from, but it did fill up later that evening.
We stayed a total of 4 nights, and could have definitely stayed longer had we had full hookups and/or cell reception. Glacier was busy – but again – nothing like Yellowstone. Its also nice that you don’t have to worry about the massive tour buses clogging up the road as large vehicles are not permitted. Instead you have these…
Glacier National Park is something you have to see for yourself. It is simply stunning and the amount of wildlife is unreal. We had perfect weather and an incredible time exploring. We still feel like we didn’t make a dent in seeing everything that it has to offer.
Campground cost: $20/night
Jim & Mary’s RV Park, Missoula MT
We aren’t usually a fan of RV parks, but sometimes its our only choice. We had to get the truck to the dealership for an oil change and new fuel filter, so we needed to be near the city. This little RV park was actually really nice and spacious and I can’t say a bad thing about it, except that it was definitely the most we have spent on a night of camping so far! It didn’t help that servicing the truck was over $300, making this a pretty expensive one-night trip to Missoula!
Campground cost: $49/night
Little Diamond Thousand Trails, Spokane & Couer d’Alene
We decided to make use of our Thousand Trails camping pass, get in some free camping and buckle down and work. We found this park right over the border into Washington, about an hour from Coeur d’Alene, ID and 40 minutes from Spokane, WA. We figured this would be a good base to chill out over the 4th of July and not have much of a plan. Unfortunately, we weren’t impressed with the campground and the cell reception, again, was terrible. We spent our time driving into each of the two cities to hang out at coffee shops, but ultimately, we decided to move on after 3 nights.
Campground cost: Free (with TT camping pass)
Leavenworth RV Campground (Thousand Trails)
There was another Thousand Trails campground near Leavenworth that could accommodate us for 4 nights so we decided to head there. We fell in love with this area! Leavenworth is an adorable, Bavarian-themed village nestled in the mountains of Washington. They had plenty of festivities going on for the 4th of July, which was a nice surprise.
But the gorgeous mountains and rivers in the area are what won us over. The campground was definitely one of the nicer Thousand Trails we stayed at. We scored a pretty good site and it actually felt like camping, unlike many of their “campgrounds”. The cell reception there was practically nonexistent, but the cozy lodge had excellent Wifi so we hung out there quite a bit.
Campground cost: Free (with TT camping pass)
Boondocking in Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest
Since it was the weekend and finding a campground seemed impossible, we decided to spend a couple nights boondocking in the National Forest near Leavenworth. We managed to find a nice spot right near the river and had it all to ourselves. Unfortunately, I had to wake Charlie up on the first night after it sounded like something was trying to break into the RV. Turns out it was an animal of some sort, though we never could really confirm what kind. Guess that will forever remain a mystery…
Campground cost: FREE
Mount Vernon, WA – San Juan Islands – North Cascades
There are 12 Thousand Trails campgrounds in Washington so we tried to take advantage of the free camping as much as possible. We headed to Mt Vernon for 5 nights, having no idea what we would do there. This ended up being an awesome location to see a lot of Washington sites. We made a day trip to the North Cascades National Park, which is not only gorgeous, but one of the least visited National Parks. The highlight was definitely these insanely gorgeous turquoise waters of Diablo Lake.
We also took the truck on the ferry over to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. It wasn’t cheap for $80 roundtrip but it was one of the best days on our trips solely for one reason: ORCAS! We went over there with the hopes of whale-watching but not really wanting to do a tour.
We drove to Lime Kiln Point State Park where we sat up on the rocks by ourselves, and after an hour of no activity, the Orcas showed up. For nearly two hours we sat there watching the Orcas pass, putting on a show for us. It was a huge bucket list item for me, and felt so surreal watching them completely in the wild.
Campground cost: Free (with TT camping pass)
Month two was absolutely incredible. The landscapes and wildlife we saw and the experiences we had were out of this world. We are grateful to be able to do what we do. That being said, let’s get back to the expenses. I included the expenses from our first month so you could see the comparison.
RVing Expenses: Month 2
|
Month 1 |
Month 2 |
| Fuel |
1095.79 |
815.73 |
| Groceries |
1023.99 |
814.82 |
| Dining Out |
495.11 |
470.24 |
| Campgrounds |
749.57 |
523.70 |
| Coffee/Beer Runs |
93.57 |
192.88 |
| Insurance (Auto, Health) |
714.8 |
714.80 |
| Cell/Internet |
225 |
225 |
| Tolls |
80.02 |
0 |
| Entrance/Parking Fees |
115.25 |
79.10 |
| Misc |
129.86 |
199.49 |
| Truck/Trailer Service |
0 |
435.69 |
| Total |
4722.96 |
4471.45 |
As you can see, month 2 doesn’t look too far off from the first month. We camped for free half of the month, we did better on groceries and gas, and slightly better on dining out. However, we spent nearly $450 changing the oil and fuel filter in the truck, purchasing a new battery for the trailer and patching a tire on the truck. These are expenses that we didn’t really plan on, but they had to be done and we knew stuff like this would come up eventually. I really hoped that this month would be better (as in under $4,000!) so was quite disappointed to see these numbers. But I want to keep it real, as I really think it helps others that are considering doing the same see these numbers.
That being said, I also want to stress how these numbers can change drastically depending on each person’s lifestyle and priorities. Some people prefer to find free camping every night. Others aren’t trying to work on the road so internet may not be a priority. Obviously food costs can vary greatly from one family to the next. I try to give you the big picture of our lifestyle, how we RV and how much we spend so you can make your own comparisons and conclusions.
