How Do You Plan a Long Trip

[sherman12]

Next Friday, yeah the 13th, my DW and I will be heading out for our longest by miles and days trip. Leaving WNY State for three weeks and 1500 miles each way, heading to South Dakota to travel the Great 8 as South Dakota likes to call it. As we get ready for this adventure, with great ideas provided by the Forum, my DW asked "How Does All of Your Blog Friends (that is her term for the Forum) Plan For Their Trips?" So, here I ask; How do "You" plan for extended time and distance trips?

[Reverse_snowbird]

Number one for us is to make certain we actually take enough prescription medicine for our trip plus a few extra days.
Then we call the credit card companies to let them know our plans so that a freeze isn't put on the cards.

Then we pack an extra dose of patience and laughter.
Anything else we can buy on the road.

[youroo]

Originally Posted by Reverse_snowbird

Number one for us is to make certain we actually take enough prescription medicine for our trip plus a few extra days.
Then we call the credit card companies to let them know our plans so that a freeze isn't put on the cards.

Then we pack an extra dose of patience and laughter.
Anything else we can buy on the road.

Yep,thats us also,Biggest Decision we have to make is "Turn Left or Right" out of our Driveway! Youroo!!

[ependydad]

Hey, I wrote about this exact thing:
Let’s go! Trip planning apps and websites | Learn To RV

[AudiDudi]

We are leaving in a little over a week for a 3 week, 2000 mile trip from Montana down the Oregon Coast and visiting family in WA.

I used the trip planner on the Good Sam website for the first time and I really liked it. Not only does it show Good Sam member parks near your route, it will also show private campgrounds and COE campgrounds. It will also let you know of things to do/see in the area.

I use Google Maps to check out the RV Parks. I also use RVPark Reviews to read reviews. I use gasbuddy to find fuel and I then check out the station on Google Maps to make sure it is an easy In/Out.

[OldCoot]

Make sure we have reservations at the farthest destination, count back the no. of days at 300 miles a day, pack the trailer and leave on the designated date. Also take our meds plus a few days.

[TitanMike]

Originally Posted by Reverse_snowbird

Number one for us is to make certain we actually take enough prescription medicine for our trip plus a few extra days.
Then we call the credit card companies to let them know our plans so that a freeze isn't put on the cards.

I pretty much spent the month of June on the road traveling just under 4,000 miles. Per your "number one", I asked my Doctor for hard copy prescriptions of my medications that I could carry with me rather than just relying on being able to get a refill on the road. The way it's supposed to work is that any pharmacy can call your home pharmacy and "transfer" your prescription so they can provide refills. Problem is how do they do that when your home pharmacy is closed? Also, if you are out of refills then you have to sit and wait for your Dr's office to provide a new prescription and in my case the Dr's office says to allow 48 hours for refills. Add to that weekends and days off. If you hit it just right that could be up to 3-4 days.

I had to refill my Blood Pressure med's and I merely took my hard copy prescription into a small pharmacy in Northern New Mexico. 15 minutes later I walked out with a 30 day refill. Whether or not your Dr will do this will depend a lot on your relationship with your Dr. and whether or not he/she feels you are able to manage certain med's like painkillers without abusing.

As for notifying the Credit Card Companies, easy for me. I use just one. Make sure to include any state you might travel through even though it's not on your original itinerary. I listed all the states on my anticipated route but I also listed those that were along my alternate route. Good thing I did because I had to use "Plan B" to return home due to not just hot weather along my planned route but SCORCHING weather. If you use mobile banking it's easy enough to do from the road. Just do it BEFORE you attempt to use the card or prepare to spend a lot of time on the phone.

[chaps2018]

We plan our trips pretty systematically. This is in part due to:
-We are still working (limited time off)
-We are goal oriented (look forward to our travel day destinations)
-We have specific places we are looking to visit

Our strategy is as follows;
-Use google maps
-----Plot a route to our desired destination stops
-----Identify required overnight stops (to keep under our 500mi/day max, 2 max back to back), add to route
-Use RV Park Reviews - Trusted Reviews of Campgrounds & RV Parks to find/select our parks/campsites
-Book sites
-Max out our freezer with meat/frozen veggies. (other stuff can be purchased along the way). Max out fridge.
-Pack favorite beverages (one night's worth cold at a time, refill fridge each morning)

[jimla]

You won't regret the trip. Been in the hills many times. Don't know how much you looked into where to go in the hills, but if you look, there are attractions before you get to the hills I.E Corn Palace, 1880 town. Wall drug, badlands nat. monument. All along the interstate. There is so much to see in the Black Hills, that you can't see everything in a short time. You can park at a campground and have a short drive to all. We liked to move to different sites. Don't want to be a downer, but make sure your motor home or TT/TV are in good shape. Mechanics in that area love vacationers this time of year. There are long grade pulls. Keep an eye on temp gauge. Our TV is fairly new and saw temp spikes pulling up grades. Told friends the turbo was probably glowing. LOL. Enjoy your trip.

[pppitiful]

We just finished a 5 week, ,4,100 mile (towing miles) trip on 7/3...I used rvparky.com to map out the basic trip...with a good dose of google maps thrown into the mix due to the fact we primarily drive secondary roads and rvparky won't allow for that type of routing.

Allstays and rvparkreviews provided additional campground reviews.

The 14 state trip was completed with a minimum of campground reservations (mostly for the 5 days before the July 4th holiday).

[JohnD10]

I just returned home a week ago today from a seven week, six state trip (that included five nights in Rapid City, South Dakota)...roughly 3500 miles!

Half of the trip was work (sorta)...the other half play!

I went to South Dakota to register my truck and 5'ver there as it is much cheaper than my Colorado plates would have been, or even here in my new home state of Arizona.

Places that I had to be I made reservations...the rest of the trip I planned as I went!

I have two Rand McNally RV GPS devices and pretty much use them exclusively to find my RV parks and to plot my routes.

I'd call ahead the day before or the morning I was leaving to check site availability and book then.

Now, this is the most important...

Make the drive part of your trip...

The whole idea behind RV'ing is seeing the country while you go...not blasting through it at 90 MPH and being completely beat up and the family P'eed off at you once you reach your final destination!

I like to drive 300-350 miles per day tops, but will go as far as 500 if I have too...that's about as far as my four Mainecoone cats can go before they have to pee).

Pulling an RV more than 350 miles per day is a tough job, even for Chuck Norris!

Unless I'm in a big hurry I try to stay at least two nights at each location, and if I do need to go the next morning I'll try to find a site where I can stay hitched up (not the easiest thing to do out here in the wild wild west).

Oh...one more thing (for now)...

ALWAYS ARRIVE AT YOUR RV PARK BEFORE DARK!

I won't spend a lot of time on that, but once you show up after dark for the first time you'll never want to do that again!

More later!

A couple shots from Rapid City, SD a couple of weeks ago:

[Carpercb]

Get behind steering wheel, start engine, leave. I left Minnesota four years ago. I have never made reservations anywhere. I just wing it. I don't pay for camping. I use national forest land or BLM land And I rely on freecampsites.net

[jtesta1]

I have a wall map and throw a dart to see my next destination. Breakdown hookup and go. There's always something interesting on the way.

[JohnD10]

Originally Posted by Carpercb

Get behind steering wheel, start engine, leave. I left Minnesota four years ago. I have never made reservations anywhere. I just wing it. I don't pay for camping. I use national forest land or BLM land And I rely on freecampsites.net

Originally Posted by jtesta1

I have a wall map and throw a dart to see my next destination. Breakdown hookup and go. There's always something interesting on the way.

Out here in the western US of A, that is basically impossible this time of year.

This year more than ever because of the drought (sp?) and all of the wildfires!

I needed to be in Denver for several days last week on my way back from my trip to South Dakota, but I had to float around for five days waiting for a site to open up in Denver!

Basically added an extra week to the trip!

Now, if you want to come down here to southern Arizona, where it hit 128 degrees on my front porch yesterday, the RV section here in my home park is completely empty right now and has been since I got home last Saturday!

[Ronjon50]

What is a COE campground? I’ve seen this mentioned before, but never asked

[Carpercb]

I am currently camped in the National forest outside Flagstaff Arizona. Yes some small portions of the forest are closed because of fire Danger but the majority of it is open. Temperatures peak out in the low nineties during the day And drop to the high sixties at night. No air conditioning required.

[Grapehound]

One thing we have learned in planning our trip is not to drive numerous days in a row. We like to drive a day or two and camp for two or three days, just so it does not seem like you're always driving. We drove four days straight to Colorado from PA along the southern route last year, stopping in VA, TN, AR and OK each night and it was not much fun. Stay a couple days, drive a day and enjoy yourself on the trip, not just at the destination.

Not only credit card companies but gas card companies (Exxon, BP, Shell, Sunoco) need to be notified. We tried to buy gas at an Exxon in Wyoming and they held us up for 20 min. talking to their main office and making sure we had not stolen our credit card. Next time we'll notify them. Only seems an issue across the Mississippi for us.

We also freeze up a couple meals to use if we want to pull in for a quick stop and not unhitch or go to the store. We freeze spaghetti sauce and garlic bread and have an instant meal waiting for us upon arrival.

Oh, and like John D10 says, plan to arrive at your destination before dark. We like to start driving early and quit early-ish (by 4-5PM.) Like John said, setting up in the dark can be a real pain.

That area of western South Dakota is beautiful and there's quite a bit to see. We stayed a week or so out there last year and left plenty behind we could not get to.

[KRedburn]

I use RV trip wizard at home. It takes into consideration your rv height, miles per gallon, and how long you want to drive.
It is subscription based.
It can download into our Rand McNally nav system
I only preplan major stop points with Reservations at nearby campground/park. Other than that I use Good Sams directory to call forward when "in between" planned stops. Walmart stops are also and option. the trip wizard will also indicate these.

Disadvantage to do on road checking with the trip wizard you need a good internet connection.

[Grapehound]

Originally Posted by JohnD10

Out here in the western US of A, that is basically impossible this time of year.

This year more than ever because of the drought (sp?) and all of the wildfires!

I needed to be in Denver for several days last week on my way back from my trip to South Dakota, but I had to float around for five days waiting for a site to open up in Denver!

Basically added an extra week to the trip!

Now, if you want to come down here to southern Arizona, where it hit 128 degrees on my front porch yesterday, the RV section here in my home park is completely empty right now and has been since I got home last Saturday!

We saw a ton of Louisiana campers in the Colorado Rockies last year and we asked them why they all came to the mountains. They said, "Have you ever been in Louisiana this time of year?" They made their point about the heat and humidity of Louisiana.

[JohnD10]

Originally Posted by Ronjon50

What is a COE campground? I’ve seen this mentioned before, but never asked

Corp Of Engineers...ie.- government land!