What Does a Full-Time Travel Budget Look Like?

What Does a Full-Time Travel Budget Look Like? Full-time traveling remains somewhat of a mystery to those who have never done it before. How much stuff should we take? How much should we spend? Where should we go? All of these are relevant and important questions. But how do you know what your budget for the year should look like when you’ve never done it before? Let’s find out!

Questions You Should Ask Before Budgeting
Like I said earlier, there are several questions you must ask yourself prior to full-time traveling that should also be asked before you start budgeting for the year. When it comes to traveling on the road full-time there are some aspects of your life that change entirely, while others stay relatively the same. Here are a few questions you need to ask yourself before sitting down to crunch the numbers.

What will I have to pay for insurance-wise to ensure to my belongings and property are safe for the year?
Where do I want to go this year?
How often will I move around from place to place?
Will I be staying mostly in campgrounds or boondocking?
What kind of gas mileage does my rig get?
What kind of emergency fund do I want to have in case of roadside emergencies?
What is my current monthly/yearly budget for basic items like groceries, bills, etc.?

And these are just the tip of the iceberg. But the above questions will get you moving in the right direction.

Related Read: Budgeting Expenses as a Fulltime RVer

Look at What You Spend Now
Now that you’ve asked yourself these questions, it’s time to organize what you already know into groups so you can better understand how you spend your money right now. This will require some time, so plan to take a few hours over the spread of a week to dig deep into your financial records. Take a look at your current expenses and decide what will grow during your travels, like gasoline spending, and what will decline, like electricity bills.

Once you know what you’re spending on these items currently, you can make estimates based on where you intend to go and what you intend to do in these places. You can even get down to the nitty-gritty and look up admission fees for campgrounds and activities to help you plan ahead.

The most important things to consider will be your mileage, fuel expenses, grocery spending, and campground fees as some fees can be much higher than expected when arriving without a reservation.

Talk to Your Insurance Agent
If you’ve taken your rig out on the road for weekend getaways or an extended vacation, you most likely already have insurance on your RV. But when you choose to RV full-time, your insurance policy may not cover your rig and your belongings for one of many reasons such as: 1) your insurance policy was only meant to cover a vacation home/temporary home, this means you’re only insured for a certain number of days every year and 2) your insurance policy doesn’t cover the full value of your belongings, as you normally don’t have all of your electronic devices and valuable property inside your rig.
You’ll want to check with your insurance agent to see exactly what your policy covers now that you’ve decided to make your RV a full-time living space. If you don’t, in the case of a loss or accident, you may not be able to get the full value of those items or any value for those items back at all. Depending on what your insurance policy covers and does not cover, you may have to spend a little more on insurance to keep all of your property insured.

As long as you come up with a good estimate, based on mileage of your intended trips and previous spending habits, you’ll be able to have a good estimate of how much you’ll spend on the travel aspect of your budget.

Plan for Emergencies
No one likes to think about what will happen in the event of an emergency, but it’s one of the most important aspects of your budget when traveling full-time. Like most vehicles, RVs require maintenance just like your average car, sometimes more often than the average car. Now that you are living and traveling in the same vehicle, it’s important to keep all aspects of your RV maintained to prevent yourself from adding extra expenses like expensive mechanic bills and hotel room charges (for when said emergency puts you out of your RV) to your budget.

One of the best ways to avoid having to deal with your emergencies all on your own is to add an RV roadside assistance plan to your budget. This will have someone come out and save the day for the times when your RV dies on the side of the road or you have a flat tire.

Even with roadside assistance, you’ll still need to set aside some money to ensure that when a part needs replacing you have the money to do so. Most full-time travelers know that not all days on the road go as planned, so it’s important to have a little extra cash when the bad days come.

Related Read: Plan Your Camping Trip on a Budget

Crunch the Numbers & Hit the Road
At the end of the day, no travel budget will be the same between two full-time travelers. You know yourself and your spending better than anyone else. You also know what you want to see and do, which will make the biggest impact on your budget. All it takes is a few hours of your time to make a rough travel plan and estimated budget for your journey.

If you still need extra help and want to know what a simple budget looks like for full-time travelers, you can check out this resource here to see what you can expect from RVing full-time. You’ll find three budgets from a “thrifty budget” to a “money is no object” budget listed. You can also download the spreadsheet for yourself and get organized before hitting the road.