We traveled to Alaska through Canada from Sumas Washington crossing April 29th and crossing back into the lower 48 Augusts 19th, 2018. We quickly learned that a summer in Alaska can be quite spendy. In this post, I am going to cover the top 3 Costs of RVing to Alaska. During our 112 day journey to the last frontier. Just to put it all into context, we made the trip in our “Summer House”, a 1989 Winnebago Warrior 27’ Class C motorhome with our family of 7. That’s mom, dad, teen daughter and 4 boys under 12. All of these expenses were tracked between the dates and do not include any pre or post-trip expenses.
Camping $679.75
This can be as expensive, or as cheap as you make it on this trip. If you are planning the trip to Alaska, you have heard how RV friendly many of the road side pull offs are, and although that is 100% true we did NOT use many of them. We used a couple different apps and found many free spots for many of our nights spent north of the border.
For me to look at this number, it is very misleading. We spent almost the entire trip off the grid (101 days out of 112!). We were in a campground or RV park with hookups for a total of 11 nights (5 of which were spent at a Thousand Trails in southern BC that didn’t cost us anything above our yearly dues, and it was right as we crossed into BC) from start to finish. Almost half of our camping expenses were spent on one 4 night stay in Fairbanks for the Summer Solstice Festival (where we wanted to have hook ups and a set spot near our friends for the weekend) and our 12 nights at Riley Creek Campground in Denali National Park almost immediately after Fairbanks. The other half of that budget was spent on provincial parks, primitive campgrounds and an occasional RV park with hookups for laundry. There are many dry campgrounds that have great views and locations, but do cost a few bucks, even without any hookups! Look for Recreation sites and provincial parks throughout the Yukon and BC, as they are usually very budget friendly ($12 Canadian or less), and normally offer firewood for use with payment. A couple of our favorites were Liard Hot Springs in Northern BC, and Yukon River Campground outside of Dawson City! In Alaska we found great camping (without hookups) in Seward and Homer that did cost $10-$20 per night to stay right on the ocean!
Groceries $3824.91
I know to some, this may look like a normal number for a family of 7, but our normal budget for groceries over the same period of time in the lower 48 would have been roughly $3000. About 30% difference! That’s a huge difference. One mistake we made was to wait until we crossed into Canada to hit a Costco and fill our fridge. You hear so many rumors about border agents taking or tossing food, and there is no clear policy on it anywhere, so we chose to cross empty, and fill up at the Costco across the border. Groceries in Canada & Alaska are considerably higher, and don’t count on finding a large variety of fresh vegetables and meats at reasonable rates up there. I would count on adding that 30% to your grocery budget. Oh, and if you like a cocktail or an ice cold beer, expect to pay MUCH more, there is a huge tax on beer, wine and liquor.
Fuel $4544.54
What can I say about this, other than it’s an expense you have to deal with on a trip like this! We opted to take a Class C rather than our truck, trailer and minivan mainly to save money on fuel. The summer house got an average of 6.7 MPG across 8600 miles for unleaded gasoline. It has a 65 gallon tank with an additional 10 gallons strapped on the rear for an emergency. Fuel prices in Canada are kind of misleading as it’s sold by the liter. Let’s do some math:
The lower prices we saw for gas in Canada was $1.35 Canadian per liter. There are 3.785 liters in a gallon that equals $5.10 Canadian or $4.08 a gallon US (depending on the exchange rate). That is about $.60 cents a gallon higher than we were spending in Washington just before crossing.
The highest price we saw for gas in Canada was $1.97 for a liter, which equals $7.46 a gallon Canadian, which roughly converts to $5.96 US per gallon. That hurt!
In Alaska gas was about $3.50 a gallon, still considerably higher than we’ve seen since being back in the lower 48.
So there you have the big 3 expense for RVing to Alaska. Do NOT let this deter you from making this trip, it was absolutely awesome, and we plan to make the trip again in 2020!
Something interesting, in Canada diesel was more expensive than gasoline, and in Alaska it was the other way around, or sometimes the same. There are rumors that fuel is hard to find, or there are long stretches without fuel stations. We only felt like we NEEDED fuel one time, and that’s the time I spent $1.97 a liter. In retrospect, I could have made it to the next town that had it for $1.50 a liter. These routes are heavily document, and you can definitely plan your trip around the larger towns, where fuel isn’t as expensive.
