Campsite Cost Comparison Calculator

This calculator projects a full camping season's cost under three lodging styles -- full-hookup RV parks, state or national park campgrounds, and free or low-cost BLM/dispersed camping -- by multiplying each option's nightly rate by the total nights you camp (Nights Per Trip times Trips Per Year), then adds any annual membership fee to the RV park total. RV Park Annual Cost responds equally to Nights Per Trip, Trips Per Year, and RV Park Nightly Rate, since all three are pure multiplicative factors of the same three-term product -- no one of them outweighs the others. State Park Nightly Rate has no effect on RV Park Annual Cost at all, and RV Park Nightly Rate has no effect on State Park Annual Cost, since the two lodging types are priced entirely independently in this model.

At the default nightly rates, BLM/Free Camping is $0 per night, so Boondocking Annual Cost stays at $0 regardless of how many nights you camp -- that only changes once you enter a nonzero rate, such as for a paid National Forest site. Best Value Option and Potential Annual Savings are driven by whichever of the three totals is actually cheapest and most expensive, which can shift as the inputs change -- at the default inputs, boondocking's $0 rate makes it the free winner, and RV Park Nightly Rate alone determines how much Potential Annual Savings grows, since the RV park stays the priciest option across realistic rate changes while State Park Nightly Rate affects only the middle-ranked option. This model doesn't account for site availability, reservation competition, or the extra driving/fuel cost of reaching remote boondocking sites.