Editorial

Saving money, or saving gas. Whatever you decide, do the math!

Not long ago, we made a trip from Torrey Utah to Cortez, Colorado, near Mesa Verde National Park. With the fuel prices what they are, it should please everyone to know that we are doing our part to save money and travel as efficiently as we can. In our case, we have two modes of travel:

The first is that we can hitch up our 5th wheel trailer and clunk along at about 11 miles per gallon with our Dodge Diesel. Our other method of travel is to jump on the Harley and get about 47 miles per gallon. The bike would get a bit better mileage, but with two people and baggage for two nights, it carries a pretty good load.

On this particular trip, we took the Harley, saving all kinds of gas, right? Well, it did use less fuel, but let's do the math for the overall trip.

The trip is about 260 miles from Torrey to Cortez. At 47 Miles per gallon, the round trip used about 11 gallons of fuel. At a cost of about $4.40 per gallon, we spent about $49.00 for the round trip, not counting the running around while we were there.

If we would have taken the 5th wheel and truck, the 260 mile one way trip (520 miles round trip) would have used 47 gallons at 11 miles per gallon, for a cost of about $232.00, considering that the cost of diesel is about $4.90 per gallon. So far, the Harley's looking pretty good, right? Keep reading.

When we stay with our trailer, we usually plug in at an RV park with power, water, and other hook-ups. We carry our own satellite TV and Satellite internet, so we're used to the amenities of home. A park with all the good stuff usually costs about $30.00 per night, so we can add another $60.00 to our fuel costs, bringing our expense so far to $292.00.

What about food? Well, for the two of us, we probably spend about $21.00 per day for food. We know we could do better, but that's what we spend. So, for three days, we'll add $63.00 for food. Our trip to Cortez would have then cost us $355.00, including food, fuel, and a decent place to stay.

So, what did we really spend riding the Harley instead of taking the trailer? We've already mentioned that it cost us only $49.00 for fuel, but we needed a room once we arrived. The cost of a room in Cortez Colorado this time of year that's similar to the accomodations we expect when traveling with our trailer cost us $150.00 per night! That includes a good room, TV, and high speed internet, plus the amenities like a pool and so on. So, with the cost of the room plus fuel for the bike, we're up to $349.00!

But wait, we still have to eat. The hotel serves a “breakfast”, and we usually eat there since it's similar to the “feast” we would have in the trailer. After all, Cheerios are Cheerios. So that leaves us with two more meals for each day. An average lunch at Subway will run us about $10.00 for two, but other “sit down” lunches can run close to $30.00 including tips. An average dinner will run about $30.00, including tip. So, on the first day of the trip, we had lunch and dinner. The second day, it was lunch and dinner, and on the third day, it was lunch only. On this trip we were back in Torrey and our  5th wheel by dinner time.

So, for the sake of our little experiment, let's say we ate two lunches at Subway while traveling and one sit down lunch while there, and two dinners; the first and second nights. That comes to $110.00 for food, bringing the total for the trip on the Harley to $459.00!

A trip that would have cost us $349.00 with our fuel guzzling Diesel and 5th wheel trailer actually cost us $459.00 with our economical motorcycle. By saving fuel, we spent an additional $110.00 for food and lodging!

How would your trips pencil out? Before you get all worked up over the cost of moving your rig around, take a minute and do what we did. Do the math!

Don Fink
Editor