About 7 years ago my wife said she wanted to buy a camper trailer. I looked at the cost of the size of trailer she wanted, plus buying a new truck that could tow it, and I came up with an alternative. I said, ‘Here’s the deal: Any time you want to go camping, we can rent a trailer. I won’t bug you about the price, you can get the camper you want, and we can go as many times as you want’. 

As it turns out, we’ve gone once a year, missing a year, and while the cost of a trailer and a campsite runs about the same as an Air BNB, we get the full glamping (upscale camping) experience of owning a trailer, without the cost of buying and caring for one. 

What’s even better is that we’ve rented the same trailer from the same family for 4 trips now, and we know exactly what we are getting. I really enjoy our camper experience, and I am thrilled that I don’t have to drive towing it, find (and pay for) a place to park it, and do all the upkeep required… And although we might go more often if we owned one, I think we’ve saved quite a bit of money with this approach, and it encourages us to see more of the world on our other vacations. On second thought, when I think of the cost of the other vacations, maybe it isn’t as great a cost savings as I thought, but I still like the decision we made.