There are some basic bits of information you need to know about setting up for cheap camping at a festival, fair or flea market. First, most flea markets are two days only, normally Saturday and Sunday. Fairs are almost always at least a week, while festivals can be anywhere from three to ten days. We prefer the festivals.

This past August we hit four events in a row. We stayed a week at each, and in two out of four cases we only paid for the vendor spots, even though we were at each location longer than the four days of the event.

For example, we arrived at one festival on Monday, paid our $40 for the Thursday – Sunday festival, and had 20 AMP electric and city water hookups. We had six nights of camping for $40. On the subject of utilities, most places will have electric only. And, this is usually a 20 AMP

A good festival set up with electric and water

service. Some may have water, you will probably never find sewer hookups.

You won’t be at a fancy campground with a pool or miniature golf, but you will have fun talking with your customers and fellow vendors. You can trade your wares for food from the concession folks, and maybe find some other items to get to sell at a later show. Do some research online for festivals in your travel range. Let me know if I can answer questions you may have.

Sher broached the subject of paying for camping and gas with our 3F fund in this post. Allow me to expand a bit on that topic.

Starcraft behind two 10′ vendor spaces

A typical vendor space at a flea market, festival or fair is rented in 10′ increments. (Our canopies/tents are 10 x 10) With our old Starcraft trailer we could get by with a 20′ space. We would park the trailer in the back of the space, and then have room to set up our canopies in front of the trailer.

The Hideout behind a 30′ space with two canopies and 10′ open selling area.

With the Hideout we now usually have to get a 30′ spot with the same layout. Sometimes when the spots are deep, we can still rent 20′ with the trailer taking one 10′ and the canopies taking the other 10′.

20′ space w/Hideout: We could have set up two canopies if we wanted to.

I’ll post another article about how to use a flea market or festival as a way to camp for cheap, have some fun, and maybe even make a a buck or two!

We are currently in our first real extended stay at an RV park. We are in Everett, Washington near our daughter and son-in-laws home. The RV park is called Lakeside RV Park.

Our home base for a few months.

We are getting used to the differences between an extended stay and traveling across country. One difference is how we set up the Hideout. No longer do things need to be stowed for travel. We can have the salt and pepper shakers out on the table all the time! The stove top can become a place to leave the cracker box when I am not cooking.

I can leave the knife set out!

So far Sher and I are comfortable with this park. The people here are very friendly and helpful in sharing information about the area grocery stores,drug stores and the like.

Ok, it isn’t really a game. Trying to find the cheapest gas as you are traveling can really be a challenge and an important part of your travel budget control. Starting the day on a gas price information site like GasBuddy is a great way to start. Assuming you have a reasonable idea of your day’s route, you can get a head start on the prices you might expect.

Is it good practice to pull off for cheaper gas if you don’t need to fill up? Yes, it is. While we were going across country I would often pull over for gas when the truck only needed a half a tank. The average 20 cent a gallon lower price added up as we traveled.

Until this gas we had seen $3.75 as the highest on this trip.

And then of course there was the time when I blew it. Needed gas, did not know the area, and (gulp) paid what you see. Needless to say I kicked myself when I saw 25 cent cheaper fuel about 35 miles down the road.

The reason we first went to a flea market was to have something to do.  Very simple.  We were looking for things to do and me, being an almost extreme couponer had an over abundance of health and beauty supplies.

So we head to a Wednesday morning flea market called White’s in Brookville, Indiana.  What we found was that we could come over on Tuesday and set up our things to sell.  Hey!  Did we just get a free night of camping?  Now this was 2 years before we went full time in Roadtirement so we didn’t quite grasp the impact of what we had found.  We only had to pay for our flea market space and $5 for the use of electricity.

Excitedly we made back the money for our expenses plus paid for our gas coming and going and we had a ball meeting and talking with people.

It was a tough time selling our home. Yes, I said our home, not house. This four bedroom ranch had seen the raising of five kids with all those good and challenging times. Sometimes we got really sad remembering all those years. We did, however, soon come to realize that we were selling a house that we no longer needed to enable us to go full time on the road. Our doubts slipped away.

We had nearly twenty years of accumulated “stuff” in the house. Some of the things fell into the “why do we still have this” category. Other things (like family history records and photos) fell into the “what are we going to do with this” category. The impact of listing the house was felt quickly: we had an accepted offer to purchase four days after the house was listed!

Selling “stuff”

Yard sales, Craigslist and giving things to our kids all helped in the getting rid of stuff.  We had to decide what to take with us on the road. We had to store some things. But when it was all said and done the house was sold and we bought our new Keystone Hideout travel trailer.

Gas and campgrounds can be expensive.  That is our biggest expense on this Roadtirement adventure.  There isn’t much we can do about gas prices, we have to have gas and we have to pay for it.

Maj and I have found solutions for both.  We have a 3F fund, which is the flea markets, festivals and fairs that we use to pay for our gas.  More coming about that.

Camping we use a variety of methods including our 3F and Passport America membership.  We have to be creative with where we park our trailer.  We will share them as we find them and as other Roadtirees  share with us.

One thing we have discovered about Roadtirement is that timing is sometimes everything. We hit perfect timing when we visited Mt. Rushmore. We were there on a Sunday in late August a week before Labor Day. The traffic was minimal, and the vehicle pull off on Route 244 where you can see George Washington’s face in profile was nearly void of cars.

All to ourselves!

Sure there were some vehicles that pulled in to the turn off, but very few stayed for any length of time. It seemed like we had that beautiful slice of Mt. Rushmore all to ourselves.