Thread: Gas Prices and Travel

We don't travel that much, but we've made the extra effort to pack our smaller, more fuel efficient vehicle (Ford Escape Hybrid) to the gills for trips instead of using the gas-guzzling, polluting Ford F-150 Supercrew 4x4 Justin drives. It means we have to take extra care when packing, but it lets us use significantly less gas during our travels.

If I could handle driving a vehicle as large as an F-150, I would probably be driving that and let Justin drive our hybrid for his workday commute--being stuck in stop and go traffic is perfect for the hybrid, since its gasoline engine turns off automatically when the vehicle is stopped, idling or traveling at speeds under 30mph (depending on road grade). At some point, we'd like to sell the F-150 and get a Prius, letting Justin adopt my Escape Hybrid. We're nowhere near ready to want to pick up another car payment, however, especially not with everything breaking in our house lately (water softener blew up and flooded the garage; A/C died and had to be replaced, compressor & all.)

I fuel up about once a month and drive 4 or 5 days out of the week, in town. I group my trips together, such as donation and recycling drop-offs, checking our P.O. box, visiting family, doctor's appointments, etc.

We are still taking our 2 road trips. I already calculated an estimated gas price of $3.50 per gallon. 1300 miles, 15 MPGx3.50=303$. (15mpg is based on a fully packed Xterra)

We are park hopping but staying put more than usual.

Trip 1 is (from San Antonio)
Abilene
Caprock Canyon 3 days
Palo Duro Canyon 5 days
Lake Colorado City
San Angelo (travel stop)
South Llano 2 days
$555 (Gas, fees using the coupons, Texas, trail ride, bat tour,Native dance show, museums, Lake Meredith) plus the cost of food/ice. 13 day trip


Trip 2 is
South Llano
Davis 4 days
South Llano 3 days

Sure there will be some side trips, but that's included in the budget.

I have my mighty 50cc scooters for short run to stores,$5.00 dollars to fill up,even went to last Doctors appointment on one.Not the fastest mode of tranportation, but pretty fun.When we cut out trips to west coast we will be spending about $200.00 more on gas than last year.Glad we have pup also HB1 it saves us a bunch,Dw prefers TT until we have to fill her truck up.

srds :cool:
Have Fun

Originally Posted by Troop198

Just remember compared to other countries and other things you use daily, gas is not that expensive. If only the news told the truth (all of it) some local examples
Just need your calculator to convert the small sizes to gallons.

Gallon Milk $3.50
Gallon Pepsi $ 5.30
Gallon of Lighter fluid $11.86
Gallon Starbucks Frapuccino $ 20.48 (and there are lines for this stuff)
Gallon Elmers glue $20.54
Gallon of Ragu Pizza Sauce $30.17
Gallon Evian water $ $21.19 ($1.49 bottle)
Vicks Nyquil 6 oz for $8.35 = $178.13 per gallon

I know we use gas daily just take it in context.

VISIT a state park and enjoy the outdoors :cool:

Now if only we could make gasoline like we make all of the things you listed above. Oops, there are no more dinosaurs!

There's a reason vehicles in the U.K. and elsewhere, except for luxury sports cars, are highly fuel efficient.

Yeah, I was being a little facetious on the dinosaurs comment.

Fuel prices affect the price of all the other items mentioned in this thread, because they increase the cost of transporting raw materials or harvesting farm goods (grains, veggies, etc.) and transporting finished goods/products to market. They affect the price of doing business for many companies in other ways, such as increasing the cost of aviation fuel for corporate jets and flight schools and helicopter tours and so forth. Unlike the other things discussed in this thread, there's a huge ripple affect related to the cost of refined gasoline and diesel fuel (diesel runs most commercial production lines and farm processing plants).

I'm not saying the point about gasoline and diesel being comparatively CHEAP here in the USA compared to elsewhere is any less valid, it's something the average American (or at least the average American media person) seems oblivious to. However, gasoline/diesel just doesn't compare to bottled water or Nyquil or whatnot....until we can pour those into our tanks and drive to work, school, medical care and the market, anyway.

As for recycling, we do our best (Justin & I) but we aren't off the grid and 0% or even only 50% waste in our household. No one is doing EVERYTHING they could do. If that were so, we'd all be taking public transit or cycling when we don't have to haul a lot, we'd all recycle and only buy products that were recyclable and used a minimum of packaging (itself recyclable), etc. etc. etc. I don't know why people get stuck on the notion that to help the environment it's an all or nothing proposition. I drive a hybrid. I recycle items to charity or eBay or to alternative uses in the home, but I don't have recycling service curbside and don't load my hybrid with used water bottles, cans, etc. to haul them to a recycling plant. There's a lot more I could do, just as there's a lot every single person could do.

It's SO much more than just the price of gas, and as long as we as a nation can't see that, we'll be creating more problems than we're solving, IMHO.