As RV travelers we are always looking for that next place to visit. We generally head out for about three months at a time, so planning that kind of a trip can have its challenges. If we are going on a single destination, or maybe a single state trip it is not as complicated, but we don’t usually travel that way. Like many RV travelers we have our map of the United States that we mark as we visit a state, and like most, we would like to visit all 50 states. We do not consider a state visited until we actually spend time on the ground and get to experience the area. Simply driving through a state does not count, (I’m looking at you Idaho). The RV doesn’t need to be involved, for instance, I will never pull my RV to Hawaii, but we have visited a couple of times and spent time enjoying the local culture and scenery. It counts.
We like to plan our trips to cover whole sections of the country. On this year’s summer trip we hope to Travel through the northeast, then over through Michigan to Minnesota where we will find the Mississippi River and follow it down through the heartland, a little Mark Twain/Blues Highway thing. We have been to many of these places for work, but never in our RV, and at our pace.
So how do you plan a trip like that?
The image above is a rough draft of this summer’s trip. So far it has 32 stops and will keep us traveling until mid-September. Since we are currently in Key West, and we will be here until July 1st, this is our starting point. The first few stops are easy because one is for RV maintenance and a couple of others are to visit with family. Once we leave the Carolina shores though, we go into full tourist mode. That’s when it gets challenging. Some long term travelers like to just wing it and make reservations as they go. They feel that it gives them more freedom to change things up. If they decide that they like a place and would like to spend more time in a certain location, or maybe they did not like an area and would like to move on. This type of travel almost requires that your rig is fully self-contained so that you can spend some time boondocking/dry-camping, (no water, sewer, or electric hook-ups). I can see the benefits of this type of travel but we prefer a little more certainty in our plans, and we like the comforts of full hook-ups in an RV park. The downside of our type of travel is the lack of flexibility. Once the reservations are made you are pretty much locked into a schedule and route, so more thought needs to go into the planning.
Tools.
There’s an App for that. Yes, as with just about anything, there are applications that can be used to help you plan your trip. Most travelers these days will simply use Google Maps, but that isn’t the best option for RV travelers because it doesn’t take into consideration the fact that you are probably several times the size of most vehicles and it doesn’t know how to route you around low overpasses, or to avoid very narrow roads. There are apps designed specifically for this kind of travel. Don’t get me wrong, Google Maps is still a very useful tool and I do use it, especially for their satellite view so that I can check out a spot ahead of time to see if our RV will fit or not.
My favorite route planner is one called Trip Wizard. It’s part of the RV Life suite of apps. It is a subscription based app but I think it’s worth it. I put in our RV specifications and it uses them to figure the safest route. Some travelers use trucker apps to plan their routes but I like this one because it is RV centric and has many campsite options to choose from. As you can see in the image below, if I was going through the St. Louis, MO area I have plenty of options to choose from. You can zoom in and click on any of the icons to get more information on the campground. It will give you the scoop on the features, ratings and reviews. Just about anything you would need to make a decision on whether to stay there or not. It’s not just commercial campgrounds either. You can find state and national parks, Army Corps of Engineer parks, and even Walmart or Cracker Barrels for free overnight stops along the way. As a retired military member, I use it to find military campgrounds.
This is my main tool, but not my only tool. As I said earlier, I use Google Maps for satellite views and for routes when I am not towing the trailer. We are also members of Harvest Host which gives us the opportunity to make overnight stays at member wineries, breweries, restaurants, farms, museums, and other types of locations with parking spots. These are usually no-hookup sites, but can be nice places to stop and rest for a night. I also use YouTube to do research on an area that we want to visit, or to get ideas on where to go. A lot of research goes into trip planning and YouTube just works so that we can see what others did, and what they thought of the area.
Why RV travel?
We enjoy traveling, and RV travel is the way that we prefer to visit America. Yes it can be tedious, but, in the long run, it is very rewarding. We, not only, get to see the major sites and cities, but we get to experience small town America along the way. Everyone has their own method of planning their trips. What’s yours?
