Renaissancemen.org

I saw some post on Twitter Sunday that I had a thought about. I think I was had (as it may have been an advertisement) but still – the concept was out there.

• Some dude posting about how he spoiled his family on an expensive vacation ($2000+ a night)
• Me getting shit on because I don’t do expensive vacations

You all see this. You have people in your lives who have done well. They go on vacations. They post these pictures and adventures. Everything is perfect. You are really happy for your friend. But suddenly, that happiness turns to rage as you realize your spouse is also scrolling and sees these pics – and then “hey – why don’t WE do something like this?”

Your happiness for your friend doing well turns to – “Fuck….I now hate this guy”

When you are a grown up, and live responsibly – you realize you have a choice to make. Are you going to have the big house or the vacationing life? Choose one. If you have the big house, it costs you a lot – it’s your castle. It costs a lot to decorate and maintain, and you tend to be a homebody on weekends. This is what you put your money into, and theoretically you are out there every weekend enjoying your home, having barbecues, and inviting people over – getting the pool and hosting a lot. In reality, this may be dealing with weeds and mowing when it’s 100 degrees out and raining every weekend – but you get the point. If you bought a more modest home and realize you love to vacation a lot, that’s where your money is going. Every weekend, it’s another adventure – somewhere! My brother did this for a decade – had a FAT paycheck, a relatively modest townhouse – but every weekend he was jet setting across the world to a new location. OK – not every weekend, but you get the idea. Dude was doing 3-4 cruises a year and probably once a month he was flying somewhere.

Most of us realize when young, we have to pick. Castle or jet?

Or do we?

Recently, I had been looking at campers, but I decided to hold off. My truck can’t haul what I want for any significant distance, so that’s another conversation later. But this post brought up my entire childhood of travel. On a tight budget.

With a recession coming – or already here – travel is one of the first things to get hit. Below, you might find a love for camping and still be able to do wonderful family trips – on a budget.

RV background

Recently, I wrote articles on RV here and here – and decided that for what I wanted, my truck would struggle. It could pull it, but the weight, when full – and size of the camper might have been on the border for a half ton truck to be safe. It probably would be have been fine for a campground 20 mins away, but a 16 hour drive somewhere? Sketchy.

Additionally – we are talking in the years ahead for a patio/deck/roof/pool and that doesn’t make a ton of sense to spend all of that money and not be there – ever – during the summer to justify the cost of the RV. I love the outdoors – and my wife hates it, so I got that headwind too. So part of this post is perhaps a happy medium where I can also potentially buy a tent and camping gear. This can allow me to have the great outdoors and a getaway – and take my kids, but allow the wife to stay home and dip her toes in the pool. And – the camping gear is a fraction of a cost of the RV so I don’t have to do mental gymnastics to make it work with a cost-benefit analysis. This also satisfies the prepper part of me at a fraction of the cost. Meaning – if SHTF I can take my tent, gear, and food with me in the existing pickup I have to then get out of dodge. This means I still am looking at land down the road….

Additionally, if I NEED a Poconos trip – I usually do one a year with my buddies, and have in my back pocket the idea of building one on land down the road with a unique business model that is a timeshare/AirBNB hybrid so investors could use it a few times a year, rent it out when not in use, and grow the property/idea over a decade. Even if you don’t care about this idea, I think the business model is “Timeshare 2.0” and “AirBnB 3.0” where vacationers get to use a property (for cleaning fees only), get dividends for that property, and over time can visit more and more properties.

Until that happens, I await my gold/silver moon and the housing builder market to crumble to help assist in my early retirement and investing empire…..muhhahahahhaha.

The family

It was the 4 of us – my mom, dad, brother, and me. My mom had dropped out of college (later finishing for accounting when I was 9) and was a stay at home mom and then a book keeper making $5 an hour. My dad was a steelworker and was laid off frequently, and the most he ever made was $13,000 in a year. Functionally, we were below the poverty line, but we never had food stamps or anything like that, we just didn’t get new stuff. What we did have was some assistance with the family car from my dad’s parents every so many years. We ate cheap food like pasta, did lots of yard sales to buy cheap stuff, and played outside a LOT. We had no AC in the house, and their mortgage was $300 a month on a $19,000 house (at 20% interest) which was duplex in a small steel town. Things were tight, even with a $300 mortgage. I’m saying this all because I wanted to show how we were on a tight budget – and still could afford a tent and gear.

Meaning – today, even with a family who has a shoestring budget – you can also travel.

The typical trip

Before you get excited that we were going to Hawaii or anything, these were usually state parks within Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania I had once heard translated to “Penn’s woods” named after William Penn – and yeah, we have a ton of woods here. Like, a ton. Our state park system is fantastic, and even within the county I’m in we have a terrific park system.

So let’s talk about French Creek State Park – where I did most of my “vacations”. This was probably 15-20 mins from my house. Yeah. Not far, huh? But my parents were hellbent on getting us on vacations, and I can tell you, it was pretty smart. With being only 20 mins or so from the house, any kind of emergencies you’d have with me and my brother (2 years apart), they could easily just take us home. Bad weather? We go home. Little one throw up? Go home. We’d lose $7.

It used to cost us $7 a night for a site with a tent. Yes, $7. Let’s check now.

You go into these parks at a check in booth, and then drive around these loops until you find your slice of home. They would usually have a cleared area for a tent, a grill of sorts (charcoal), a power source (optional), and lots of woods around you. If I recall, a lot of the entertainment was a battery powered radio/cassette player with music. Camp fires. Card games, board games, ghost stories, etc. The smell of the campfire just permeated my nose thinking about this time in my life.

During the day, perhaps you do things local in the area. Right next to French Creek State Park was Hopewell lake. We had a row boat my dad had bought for $200, and we kept it there – we’d go out on the lake, fish, relax, eat a sandwich, etc. There was a public pool there was well up on the hill – but we rarely went because it was “kind of pricey”. A few times we would swim in the lake off of the boat, but when I once saw a giant turtle in there, that was the end of that. The second to next thing was a water moccasin around my dad’s ankle when launching the boat. There was also “Hopewell Furnace” there which was like a re-enactment of how they made and shaped iron, and there was a wheel there connected to the creek for power. Seeing how they cast metal in sand was cool! My dad and I did a LOT of fishing, so we could just go to the lake, Scott’s run, or Hay Creek/Schuykill River and fish. They also tend to have loops in camp grounds, so it was good for us to bike with our 1980s Huffy with their tank-like weight bikes.

These vacations were 2-4 days in length, and we might have gone 4-6 times a year. As we got a LITTLE older, we started to go further away. Gettysburg, Luray Caverns, Christmas Village, Lake Wallenpaupack (poconos), Lake George, Skyline Drive, Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, Muddy Run in Lancaster, Catskills – even Lake Ontario to then see Canada! These places offered a lot of things to do during the day to take the kids out all day. One of the best days of my life – we had gone down to the Richmond area when I was 7 to visit my dad’s closest best friend as a kid, Dick Ertl. This guy was an amateur rock hound, and I LOVED rocks! Downstairs in his house, his walls were filled with these rocks with descriptions – then drawers FILLED with duplicates/seconds, but the prized samples were on the wall. He made me up a box of his seconds. To this day, I still have all of them as one of my prized possessions. I don’t remember a lot of their names, except Wulfenite sticks out 🙂

We also got to see my mom’s college roommate Nancy out by IUP – Indiana Pennsylvania. We would stay at local campgrounds and then visit with people during the day. In the case of the Ertls – we went to King’s Dominion, a theme park down there.

I just checked for something a few days after July 4th, and a site at French Creek for a tent is available. $22 a night. With inflation, that’s not terrible over 40 years to go from $7 to $22.

We are 2 weeks away, and lots of sites are available. And – it doesn’t matter what day, it seems to be the same price.

One drawback that I hadn’t had to worry about as a child is security. In the 1980s, we never locked our front door at night. Camping has a zipper. What’s to keep anyone from attacking you at night or stealing your stuff when you are out during the day? The night time thing is rather ok because the quiet at the camp ground can be easy to yell for help and everyone hear you. Unless you are stabbed while you sleep, and now I’m getting in my own head. Dammit. I think it is then prudent to come up with makeshift security items – empty cans on a string, etc, to warn you of anyone.

So let’s dig into gear.

Gear

We had I believe a 1977 blue Volare station Wagon. That was the SUV of the 1970s and 1980s, and needed to travel anywhere with kids. The alternative was a lot of pickups had the cap on the back then.

The above isn’t what we had, but pretty close. Meaning, you do not need some $70,000 SUV to do this. See the roof rack? That is where my dad tied a goddamn row boat to. We had the tent in the back, row boat on the top.

Now – with ANYTHING I mention here, you can really, really go for high end tech with any of it. What my idea here is to do to is to outline the BARE MINIMUM needed. Your budget/tastes may vary.

Tent – I’d say the below is the closest analog to what we had. Est $150. Today if doing this, I’d probably go higher tech and bigger, but not necessary.

Each of the 4 of us had a cheapy air mattress we’d blow up. It was two rooms, and the front room kept a lot of our stuff and the back room is where the 4 of us slept. I don’t need to get picture for all of this, but you can get an idea of what to look up for yourself. Today, you have a lot of high quality air mattresses, but we had cheapy ones. We had a fan in there hung up and blowing air, so I guess we had some electric on site. We didn’t need this in the spring or fall evenings, but when it got really hot on our July trips, yeah – you needed a fan. In fact, I’d probably skip the July/August tent trips in Pennsylvania completely.

With the air mattresses, you can also buy sleeping bags, but you can just bring a blanket or the like. I remembered when it was hot, a sleeping bag was murderous. A sheet would have been fine.

For cooking, I remember we had a Coleman propane stove which is where I remember the smell of bacon and eggs in the morning. I think my parents also made coffee with it, but I was too young to remember. Remember – we were also 20 mins from home, so they would pack a lot of food in the cooler for us. A dozen eggs, pack of bacon, bread, butter, etc. Lunches might have just been bologna and cheese sandwiches. The dinners were one of three or four things – hot dogs, hamburgers, spaghetti, or steak. I didn’t eat steak then – I just remember one time some terrible weather crept up on us suddenly and steaks went flying everywhere! But also my mom could have made spaghetti in advance, and it was heated up on a pot over the Coleman stove. Aluminum foil was used a lot to cook on the grills they provide. It’s been awhile, but I still remember seeing those things and wondering how people eat off of that.

Often when we would go to these places, they would sell firewood. I do remember my dad with a hatchet breaking down some stuff on our site, but it probably was for kindling. Many of the state parks don’t allow you to bring wood in, as the wood you bring in could introduce pests locally.

These Coleman stoves aren’t overly expensive. Likewise, we most certainly could not afford the $300 Yeti-like coolers. But for a few days, we’d have ice in there – and these places would have general stores where you could buy more ice, wood, etc. So you can obviously go nuts with camping gear here but you also only need the bare minimum.

I’d say a good flashlight is needed – as these campgrounds tend to have you walk 50-100 yards to use the bathroom.

For cooking hot dogs and marshmallows – you just found a stick, used your dad’s pocket knife, and stuck the dogs over the fire. Today you have fancy things for that if you want to buy it, but I’d say a good lock blade sharp pocket knife is essential – as I recall rope being used to secure a lot of stuff in the events of high winds. You can obviously go nuts with knives/multi tools here.

We’d get up at like 6am, head to bed at like 9pm as it got dark. As I got older, I remember reading books with a flash light in the tent. Both of my parents were avid readers, so that’s how we all fell asleep at night. My dad would always have an Old Milwaukee pounder with him, so I’m sure that helped the sleep a bit. Today in the PA state parks it seems they do not permit alcohol. Most beers I got him from the time I was a kid he always gave me the first sip. I’m sure that helped me sleep as well! Today, that’s….sort of frowned upon.

We had used this gear my entire childhood, and I recall the first time we stayed in a motel. It was the Sea Shell Motel in Chincoteague, VA. You know, the place with the wild horses on Assateague Island? We had gone there a lot then between the ages of perhaps 10-16 for me. The last time we were there was the last family trip we were on, as I remember driving a bit on the way back. But I believe what happened was that our family income increased a little with my mom graduating college when I was 9. Instead of paying $7 per night for a tent site, I believe a stay at a place like this may have been about $35-40 a night. When I was 14 we had the first stay ever at a hotel, when I played in the World Open of Chess at the Adam’s Mark Hotel in Philly.

For about $450, or the cost of ONE night in a hotel in south Jersey on the beach, you could essentially have the equipment needed to camp for the next 10-20 years. Now – as you grow into camping, you can upgrade everything. With the prepper part of me, I’m also interested in perhaps getting this stuff and sticking it in the basement in a corner to never use, unless needed in a pinch. This might be my low-cost alternative to owning a camper and parking it somewhere. And – perhaps I can take my sons camping and leave the wife at home. No storage/maintenance costs of an RV is a nice upside.

The good news is once you have your gear started – the list of consumables you use each time is rather low for your variable costs.

But if you stay on the campground and don’t go out much – maybe you invest in some other activity equipment? For example – we went to Gettysburg for like 4 days. What I remember of that was living at the camp ground, going to see the battle fields, going to a wax museum with Marilyn Monroe in the window, and doing “Hands Across America” in Chambersburg. But when we weren’t out, we were sitting on the picnic tables, playing cards and board games with the family friends. I used to play obscene amounts of chess on the picnic table with my dad while pink Floyd was playing and substantial amounts of Old Mud pounders were consumed. Us kids also had pocket knives and would carve wood a lot. I know, you can’t give your kids knives today because they will immediately stab themselves in the eyes.

I keep telling people. The 80s by me was a far different country than most of you grew up in.

I also had about 5 years in scouts, so I can sort of handle myself outdoors. Never made Boy Scouts or Eagle Scout as I was having issues being required to get a religion badge in Webelos. Doesn’t mean I didn’t love the scouts. It meant meeting with a pastor about God had nothing to do with me tying knots or identifying edible plants. I digress.

But camping sites might also have access to hiking traIls or bike trails. Maybe a pool or you can swim in the lake?

One thing above I needed to tell you about. My “richer” relatives had these metal poles with cages at the end of them. They would put in an English muffin, put some pizza sauce on it, and then some mozzarella cheese. They’d cook it over the fire and the cheese would melt and bubble and the muffin would toast and get crispy. Oh dear God. Memories of that! Meaning, you can also have a LOT of fun with the kids cooking over the fire. I could not find an exact picture of what I’m talking about – but this is the principle of it.

Convenience and cost

You could clearly see the progression. Tents. Motels. Hotels. Even a little later on, my mom’s best friend rented a house in the Outer Banks – and that’s where I saw the OJ chase right after I graduated high school. The rented house was far superior to the hotel for me, as you could have a lot of people in the house. For me, today, I like the rented house the best – and like to go with other couples with these.

But the progression is a matter of means and convenience. You pay more up the scale, but you also get more – to an extent.

Tent –> Motel –> Hotel –> Rented House

What isn’t in this model is the camper/RV. The camper/RV solves a LOT of problems – and creates others. I’ll go into some of these below.

You can also make a different progression for those that love the outdoors?

Tent –> Yurt –> Pop up –> Travel Trailer/RV

Tents/campers – the cost is the best bang for the buck, by a mile. But with this, you get problems with complete loss of modern conveniences. The biggest thing is the shared bathrooms and having to walk to get there. Also, heat can be oppressive in the summer here – with us having high humidity. Fans are needed, but they often don’t help. I grew up without AC, so until I lived in a house with central AC, I didn’t know what I was missing. That’s – a tough nugget to go back to. But this is a very mobile way of living, and everyone should at least know HOW to camp, especially if shit hits the fan at some point. As an adult, I never camped. And – not sure I would today. I don’t travel a ton, but also want the convenience of my own bathroom and AC, and a camper with hookup can provide that. The cooking was pretty crude, but again – something I think most people should know how to do. I think this option is GREAT for a young couple that is outdoorsy – and even with kids, you can do this relatively close to home on the cheap. I’d say your investment of $500-$1000 can get you the gear needed to perhaps camp with it for 300 nights without this stuff breaking down. That’s roughly an equipment cost of $1.50-$3 a day, plus the camp site cost of $22 gives you a “room” cost of about $25 a night anywhere in your region of the country. You can further save by packing sandwiches in a cooler, pasta, burgers/dogs, eggs, and bacon. We also had cereal as kids, so a box of cereal and milk did it for the kids. For entertainment – there’s a lot of good options close by any camp ground on the cheap, and many of them have hiking/biking trails, lakes for fishing/boating, and swimming pools. My dad would even have us go out at night when it rained with a flashlight to hunt for night crawlers so we had bait for fishing we didn’t have to pay for.

Today, I could not pay my wife to do this with me. We have means, and while my time doing this was nostalgic, I think those with more means may do this, but with a camper. I think a good 4-5 year old used camper can probably be $12,000-$15,000. I’m sure there’s maintenance costs for this, but I think you can get perhaps 10 years out of one of these. At 10 years, you are looking at $1200 to $1500 for a year, or $100-$125 per month in cost. Assuming you use this 4 weeks a year and perhaps 4 long weekends a year, that’s about 40 uses – or $30 a night cost. Many of these sites charge about $75 for a camper, so you are looking at $100 a night costs out of pocket as opposed to the $25 with a tent. This is superior to a $200 hotel room, but you get the idea. With a travel trailer you also take your primary vehicle with you, so you avoid airfare and rental car costs. So if you are a decent traveler, a travel trailer seems far more economic than hotel rooms – and tents seems to be extremely more economic than a travel trailer.

Motels – These are kinda like stripped down hotel rooms that open up to a parking lot rather than an internal hallway in a hotel. These are cheaper than hotels but the clientele and security at these may be lacking. Around me, you may hear of these places being used by drug addicts and prostitutes. While I’m not judging – this just probably isn’t a family friendly place to go today.

Hotels – This was my choice for a lot of years. Feels a LOT more upscale than motels. But the main issue you run into today with this is cost. Where the “upscale” Adams Mark Hotel in Philly was $110 per night in 1989, today it’s easy to see a bare minimum stay at a generic place run $150-$200 by the time all of the surcharges hit you. That is, even if they want you there. During my wedding in 2013 – the hotels in Suffolk County out by Riverside were charging $320 a night with a bare minimum of 2 night stay – many were requiring 3 night stay. This was….expensive for my family. My father-in-law knew some people and this got knocked down to $233 a night for 2 nights, but it still priced them out. If you had tried to go to the South Jersey shore or a Delaware beach hotel in the last decade, you are seeing $300-$450 a night for hotel rooms. This priced me out a LONG time ago. I didn’t see the value in spending that night for a room to just sleep in.

House rentals – to me, this WAS the way to go, but the AirBnB thing took over and now a lot of people are being priced out to this type of thing. Here’s the setup. 5-10 BR in a giant house. Have 5-8 couples, or a few families share the costs for a week long stay somewhere. This is where you are, as opposed to being out and about all day to site see. For example, the houses in Duck, NC are the best. You wake up, go out on the deck and have your coffee overlooking the ocean.

Many here have some flavor of this look. The bigger/newer the more price, but you get the idea. Beach week here may cost a couple $1000 a week, as opposed to $2000 for a Jersey shore hotel room. You also have tons of amenities with these like pools, full kitchens, pool tables, and 30 feet walk to the beach. For the price, this is what I think is the best travel value you out there. This cost then comes to about $200 per night for a couple/family – and this can be 7 days in a year, and doesn’t need 30-40 days usage in a year to justify the purchase.

This price can be even lower if you are doing a place like in the Poconos – and these houses might be $2500-$3000 for a week for a 5BR place, which might be $100 a night for a couple.

Conclusion

So for about $25 a night before food, you can take a family of 4+ camping on a budget pretty much anywhere in the country – or as far as you are willing to drive. The cost benefit from this is astounding, as it could pay for itself via hotels after just 2-3 nights – giving you gear for decades to come. Additionally, you have mobile housing if SHTF at a superior price point.

Using state parks and doing activities like fishing, hiking, boating, swimming, disc golf, etc can be extremely budget friendly. You can keep it budget friendly even more by campfire cooking, pre-cooking pasta-type meals, and packing sandwiches. For a one-time gear cost, you can use this for many years to come. You have to find what’s right for you with the conveniences you need and weight that against costs.