The Trip To Alaska–Some Data So Far

We left North Ranch, our Arizona Winter hang-out, on April 26. Now, 40 days later, we are in Fairbanks, Alaska. This includes two weeks in Moab, UT.

GAS PRICES and CAMPING FEES

Everyone is interested in the cost of fuel. We have a number of friends who are limiting their travels due to the high fuel prices. Some cancelled trips to Alaska this year. That is fully understandable. We felt that you never know what the future holds and we wanted to make the trip now, while we were able. As you will see below, we do save on camping fees. In the 40 days we have been out, we paid to camp only 11nights. We like to find places to boondock/dry camp. And we stay at Walmarts when we are passing through a town. We have only been plugged in to electric for 4 nights. That is the wonderful thing about the solar system we have installed on the motor home. The same panels have been on each of the three rigs we have used. Tom is will aware of that. Our average camping cost per night is $5.49 so far. The cost to camp in a commercial campground with full hook ups in Alaska seems to be in the $30 to $40 per night range.

I have always kept a spreadsheet which includes every campsite we have stayed at for the almost ten years we have been full-timing. It is very useful in helping us remember we were when and where we stayed. The statistics for each year are interesting, to us. The spreadsheet includes:

• Date
• Days We Stayed at That Campground
• How Far We Drove
• Nearest Town
• Name of the Campground
• Type of CG
• Nightly Camping Fees
• Brief Comments About the Campground
• Availability of Cell and Internet Service
• Summary for the Year

The Summary for this trip, so far looks like this:

Alaska Trip Summary As Of 6/4 from North Ranch
Miles for Year	3,856
Travel Day Average Miles	168
Total Day Average Miles	94
Camping $ YTD	$225
Camping $ Per Day	$5.49

If you have any interest in getting a copy of the entire spreadsheet just let us know and we will email it to you. It will probably put you to sleep but if you are planning a trip, it may be helpful. Frankly it is not hard to update. I will post the results again as we finish this trip.

Oh yes, this post was also about fuel prices. We use mid-grade gas and found the following prices:

Utah up through Montana – $3.70 to $3.90 per gallon

Canada – Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon – $4.69 to $6.21 (only once!)

Alaska – $4.12 to $4.29

The Canadian prices are after converting liters to gallons and using the current exchange rate. We liked it a lot better when the Canadian exchange gave us $1.40 per US dollar instead of $.95! By the way, the Trek gets about 8 miles per gallon so you can figure it out, my heart will not allow me to do the calculations.

Well that’s enough data for now. I will save some for later.