It's been a little over 10 months now, which is wild to even say out loud because we're only about two months away from a full year.
When I finally sat down and actually ran the numbers, this is what it looks like.
We're at about $36,000 all-in on the truck and camper side. That's everything. Repairs, breakdowns, mechanical work, tires, all of it.
We started with a $7,000 truck and put about $3,000 into it, so we're roughly $10,000 all-in on the truck. Then we went through two campers.
The first camper, we were roughly $7,000 into it. That one got absolutely demolished in the Badlands, so we had to start over. Bought another very similar camper, ended up a little over $7,000 into that one too by the time everything was said and done.
That $36K number also includes RV parks, random fixes, and all the stuff that comes with actually living in it and keeping it running. That's infrastructure. Not lifestyle.
Then there's everything else.
Groceries, restaurants, clothes, admission fees, parking, random experiences, all the day-to-day "let's go do something" spending. Not fixed bills like phones or anything we'd be paying at home anyway. Just living and experiencing.
That number is about $72,000.
So call it roughly $108,000 over 10 months.
We'll probably land somewhere under $120,000 for the full year.
And that's not us being tight. That's us waking up, seeing what's around, and going to do it.
We eat at good restaurants. We don't do fast food. We go find the best spots in whatever area we're in and experience them. We don't skip things unless they're just stupid for the price.
Like there was a place where you could pet otters for $600 a person. That's $1,200 for the two of us to pet otters. That doesn't make sense.
Outside of stuff like that, we've pretty much done whatever we've wanted.
The original idea was simple.
I thought we were about $16,000 into the truck and camper, so I said let's do 16,000 miles on a $16,000 setup. That became the challenge.
Turns out, we were actually closer to $17,000 before we even left. So we missed that mark from day one.
Now we're sitting here $36,000 deep on the rig side and 15,562 towing miles in.
The total miles are around 27,000, but that includes all the exploratory driving once we get somewhere. The 16,000 goal was always about towing miles.
Didn't hit the original number.
Don't care.
It's been the best year of my life.
And honestly, the way we've done it matters more than the numbers.
This would've probably cost somebody else a bit more. I'm fairly mechanically inclined, and that saved us a good bit. I'm also pretty good at finding bargains. Buying two campers for around $7,000 each and making them work isn't something most people can or want to deal with, but that's where a lot of the savings came from.
But there's something about this setup that makes it better.
The truck's scruffy. The camper's scruffy. And that's the whole point.
We don't worry about it. If something gets dinged, scratched, whatever, it's not a big deal. That freedom changes how you live day to day. We're out on beaches, in weird spots, doing things we probably wouldn't do if we had a late model truck sitting on 26s.
We drive it straight onto the beach and rip donuts because why not. We take it off-road constantly. Four-wheel drive gets used more than most people use their turn signals. It's been high-centered more times than I can count and gone places where I'm genuinely shocked nothing broke. Trails, mud, sand, sketchy forest roads that barely qualify as roads at all.
We put this truck in places I would never put a nice truck. And that's exactly what makes it so much more fun.
With this, we just go.
And that's what made it what it is.
So yeah. About a year on the road. 40 states. Roughly $120K all in by the time it's done.
Not a bad way to spend a year.