Cost of "comfortable" dirtbagging?

Dallas !
My bad, I hope you are still going strong and sending climbs!

Nice to see you are trying to share you well won
Knowledge, here.

But I feel it will land like so many seeds on pavement in June !
Good to hear from you though .

Eric Engberg wrote: Actually you have never dirt bagged.

LOL, $25k/yr is dirtbagging? is that with catering?

If you have an RV, you're not dirtbagging; you've taken early retirement.

Buy a cargo van and some plywood. Keep $2k in cash around in case it breaks down. Done.

I agree , driving an rv is not dirtbagging. Bandit camp, eat ramen noodles, its cheap

$60-100 a week in groceries
$440 one way gas bill for a Jeep to get from NJ to California (Stops in Flagstaff and Lower Utah for 2 weeks & sightseeing along the way)
$0-35 Camping a week

that estimated about $500 a month. It didnt include showers (but who takes those!) eating was good and I you can find water (drinking and showering) and firewood for free. Lasted about 3 months and with my Jeep needing a new rims and tire I spent less than $2500 with the drive home and a taste for a red bull.

My girlfriend and I spent a year on the road in our truck camper exploring as many climbing areas as we could out west. We weren't dirtbagging, but we were paying close attention to costs along the way.

As many other have mentioned, it is entirely a function of how you live. Gas and campground fees definitely add up, but you have complete control of both. There are a ton of good crags that still have primitive camping nearby. If you're willing and equipped to exist in that environment, your costs can be a low as you are willing to go in terms of food and other supplies. The longer you stay in one place, the less you spend on gas, too. For a year, my advice would be to pick 10-20 or so such crags and plan an itinerary based on expected weather.

Along those lines, bikes make a huge difference in terms of your options. The options where you can camp for free and walk to a decent crag are pretty limited. They expand dramatically if you have the means to travel 10 miles to/from via bike. Alternatively, you can drive your vehicle but that uses gas, increases wear and tear, and keeps you from getting as comfy as when you can leave your vehicle.

BTW, I recommend against an RV unless you specifically set it up to go off-grid. Most RVs need to plug in (or run a noisy generator, which wont make you any friends) in order to stay in one spot for any length of time. Plus there's the issue of getting the RV to where you want to go. A van or simple truck camper is a far better option for getting way back on a forest road and staying there for some time to really enjoy an area on the cheap.

This will largely depend on what vehicle you drive and how good of gas mileage it gets/ how far you plan to travel. I just got back from an 8 month road trip in a 1994 e150 van. We covered around 12,000 total miles on our trip and it cost around $10,000. Gas was the biggest expense, then food (there were 2 of us though) and then camping. There are a lot of ways to camp for free but if you have to pay every night it adds up quickly.

Two recommendations: 1. Get a national parks pass. It's 80 bucks and will get you into any national park and federal fee area and sometimes you can even get half off camping. 2. Don't forget to keep a buffer for when you go back to home life. It's really difficult to get a new place to rent when you haven't been working/renting for a year.

wfscot wrote:Most RVs need to plug in (or run a noisy generator, which wont make you any friends)