I feel your PAIN as well, Trish! Likewise, I pull a popup camper with a pick-up truck, too. Was planning a trip this fall but had to put that aside because of this high price gas business.

To answer your question, there are a lot of private campgrounds through-out this state (North Carolina) where you can rent a site on an annual basis. Sometimes these sites can get a little expensive depending on their location. However, kind of down the same lines, there are places where you can store the camper in an area for less money. I'm kind of considering that right now; storing the camper with a guy that has others campers doing the same. He has a storage area behind his house, just off a main highway and not too far from some favorite National Forest campgrounds and fishing spots I like to frequent. Doing this means I don't have to haul the camper back and forth, but rather getting up there and hooking up and hence only traveling with the camper a short distance ... but I have a choice as to where I can go rather than being in one place only; AND the storage is cheaper than renting an annual campground site.

Although my popup is a smaller unit, dry weight of about 1285 #'s and a GVWR of 2100, towing it takes at least 2 mpg off my regular gas mileage. The pick-up is a full sized, regular cab, short box, 4X2, small V-8, and has a low profile fiberglass cargo bed cover. The truck will get an honest 21 mpg at 62 mph, not towing. The more speed the less the miles per gallon. Usually I'll try for 65 and set the cruise control and I'll get around 20 1/2 mpg. So on a 1,000 mile round trip, pulling the little camper will cost me about 9 gallons of gas. Although I could pull this camper with a smaller vehicle/engine, I had orginally wanted to pull it out west and I like the extra power for pulling in places like the Rockies! From experience I've learned it's much better to be a little overpowered than underpowered when towing a trailer! And here's another little tid-bit I've learned: my previous pick-up had the 4.3 V-6 ... great little engine, and I really liked it. BUT, the V-8 does better on gas mileage towing than the V-6 ... better performance under load.

Dale

Trish, the ultimate camping trips I was on, where powered by my bicycle. Yup, me, my gear and my bike.

There are lots of places to camp, where you do not need a car. :)

Check out my website...

Moni

Here is a link that might be useful: camping biking journals

go to the nearest barnes and nobles and purchase a copy of woodalls or a comprable book. The woodalls lists literally thousands of cmp sights from primative to full modern facilities with on site stores

Woodalls is available free on line.