| |
Car + Hotel |
Recreational Vehicle |
| Comfort |
Large,
first-class hotel rooms are very comfortable, with
good seating, good beds and spacious bathrooms (if
you spend enough $). You may also occasionally find
yourself listening to your neighbors partying while
you try to sleep. |
Modern
motor homes are surprisingly spacious and comfortable,
the larger ones having as much room as an average
hotel room. Living and sleeping arrangements are
comfortable for up to 5 or 6. You have a full kitchen,
although with less counter space than you're used
to at home, and the bathroom is usually snug but
functional. You will usually have peace and quiet
at night, unless you are camped very close to noisy
neighbors. |
| Cost |
Comfortable
accommodations are available in some pretty remote
places in The West, these days. But comfort comes
at a price. The better hotels near major parks cost
from $90-$250 per night. If you venture into a major
city, say San Francisco, the sky's the limit. |
For
a group of four or more, traveling by RV can cost
considerably less than driving a car and staying
in respectable hotels. The biggest savings result
from avoiding the cost of a second hotel room and
preparing your own simple meals in the RV instead
of eating three meals per day in restaurants. Of
course, you always have the option of letting someone
else do the cooking when there's a decent restaurant
nearby. |
| Flexibility |
During
the summer, hotels must be booked well in advance
of your trip. This locks you into a rigid itinerary,
leaving no room for last-minute course changes due
to weather, unforeseen delays, or an irresistible
temptation to spend just one more day in a newfound
paradise. |
Although
more and more major destinations (Yosemite National
Park comes to mind) also fill up during the summer
high season, availability is more flexible and last-minute
alternatives are almost always available to the
creative camper. |
| Maneuverability |
Easy
to drive. Easy to park. That's that. |
A
motor home is about 8 feet wide and twenty or thirty-something
feet long. Most are built on a heavy-duty van chassis
(think ambulance or delivery van), which has a familiar-feeling
driving position and predictable handling. Finding
a place to pull over for a quick look at an animal
grazing beside the road can be tricky. Fortunately,
many of the places you will visit routinely accommodate
RVs and have separate areas for RV parking. |
| Convenience |
In
hotels you don't have to make your bed or do the
dishes. Someone else does the dirty work, which
may be one of your primary reasons for taking a
vacation. |
On
the other hand, living out of a suitcase gets old
after a few days, as does repeatedly unpacking and
repacking a car. And, since you will depend on often-crowded
restaurants for most of your meals, you will spend
a significant amount of time foraging (and waiting)
for food. While you do have to clean up after yourself
and buy groceries, an RV is the ultimate in traveling
convenience. Lunch takes place wherever you find
a pretty place to pull over: a rest area, a State
Park along your route, or a scenic turnout inside
a National Park. Your clothes are always accessible
in drawers and wardrobe closets. Beverages and snacks
are as close as the refrigerator. An afternoon nap
in air-conditioned comfort is even an option when
you choose not to join your companions for the next
extravehicular foray. |
| Proximity
to Nature |
Hotels
usually isolate you from your surroundings. The
sights and sounds of nature are obscured by parking
lots, other buildings, and traffic noise. |
Camping
gets you much closer to the natural wonders that
you came to experience. While some campgrounds are
little more than parking lots, look for those that
are situated away from traffic in scenic areas with
trees (or rocks, if you are in the desert) and plenty
of open space for an evening stroll. |
| Neighbors
|
The
closest you usually come to getting to know your
fellow guests at a holiday lodge is sitting next
to them in the breakfast room slurping Cheerios.
|
Campgrounds
seem to attract friendly people. You join a small
temporary community every time you pull into a campground.
You (and your children, if you have them) will meet
all sorts of interesting folks from all over the
place with all sorts of stories to tell. |
In
1994, Dan Wulfman and Sheri Ballard decided they'd
had enough of the corporate "big time"
- so they hit the road to explore their countries
together (he's American and she's Canadian). Their
brief sabbatical morphed into a life-altering two-year
journey, taking them from the Artic Circle to Guatemala
and just about everywhere in between. In 1998 they
formed 
