RVs & WalMart
2004-07-19 19:25:55.543831+00 by
Dan Lyke
3 comments
We've been camping a bit recently, and have been amazed (flabbergasted even!) at the price of camp sites. It's worse if you have an RV, the whole notion of retire and tool around the country while paying upwards of $900/month in campsite fees seems... well... for the most part it'd be easier just to rent an apartment each place you wanted to live. But apparently, Wal*Mart has an unwritten policy of letting RVs park overnight in their lots for free, thereby engendering lots of goodwill among the vacationing and retired with other unused space.
Of course out here in the bizarre real-estate market of the Bay Area, people have been using RVs and Wal*Mart lots as alternatives to three hour commutes, and The Chronicle reports that various cities in the area aren't comfortable with this.
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comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: made: 2004-07-19 20:25:32.759635+00 by:
dexev
[meta] I accidentally clicked "Dan Lyke" instead of "comments(0)" and got sent
to http://www.flutterby.com/archives/users.cgi?id=1 and got a 404 [/meta]
But you're not comparing against the cost of renting an apartment. Most RV'ers only stay in one place for a few days or a week at a time. The competition for RV spots isn't houses or apartments, but hotel rooms, which would easily cost twice that of RV spots. After you amortize the purchase price of the RV and the higher operating expense compared to a car, though, I'll bet the costs are comparable to staying in a hotel.
#Comment Re: made: 2004-07-19 21:05:47.19418+00 by:
Dan Lyke
Whoops. Fixed.
On the apartment versus hotel rooms issue, my recent experience outside the Bay Area is that if you want to stay anywhere longer than a week, people are plenty willing to rent apartments month-to-month with no lease. Often super cheap. Budget Suites in Vegas would give you a(n almost brand new) studio for a month for $199, many other rural areas have similarly depressed economies.
#Comment Re: made: 2004-07-20 05:06:50.117067+00 by:
crasch
I'm working on a wikibook on vandwelling. If you're in a
van or similar vehicle, the best places to park are near large apartment complexes, hospitals, or any
place that has a large, mostly anonymous, transient population. As long as you're discreet, you
generally won't be bothered, as everyone will assume you live there, and/or are visiting someone else.
Check out the Vandwellers mailing list archives for extensive discussions of good places to park on the
road:
http://wikibooks.org/wiki/Online_Resources