How do you make long, cross country trips with several stops?

[dm6]

We have been camping for 4 years now with a popup and love it. We try to make 4-5 trips per year, all within state, the farthest about 3 hours away and typically stay 3-7 nights per trip. We have a few campgrounds we like to go to, take note of the best sites, and then reserve them as soon as the booking window opens (usually 6-9 months in advance). It is nice to have a reservation, but also sucks that you have to plan that far in advance. We are thinking of getting a travel trailer in the future and part of the appeal to that is that we could go farther and longer. Do you have really have to plan out a long trip and make reservations along the way, even for one night stops, or are you able to just reserve where you plan to stay longer and are able to find one night stops along the way without reserving them?

[DougW]

In the past we would make reservation in the destination areas that are popular places. That is the only way to be sure you are going to get a site in some areas. We usually make our overnight reservations around mid day for that nights space because at that point we know about where we will be for the night. It usually is not hard to get an overnight site and if all else fails a rest area, Walmart, Cabela’s. Or Cracker Barrel parking lot will suffice for a night.

With the upsurge in people using RV’s in the last couple of years it might be a bit harder to find overnight spots, I don’t know for sure but I think there are not a lot more RV spaces yet there are more RV’s out there

[RV Bicyclist]

DM6: THANK YOU for posting. I will speak for myself.... new to this RV'ing I am very interested in the replies to this question.
DougW: Thanks for reply.

I'm also hoping folks that have experience w/ this and can reply can add anything they know about regionality to the reply. For example, folks that have experience in Southeast vs. Northwest etc. where 1 may be easier/harder for whatever reason than another.

[llr]

Also if your overnight stays are not Friday or Saturday night it is much easier to find a spot

[enjoytheparade]

My RV camping has, so far found me heading out on a wing and a prayer for most trips. In 2019, I joined Harvest Hosts (“HH”) and I’ve found participating sited to be real gems. There are some truly fantastic experiences to be had, and in the midst of pandemic, HH sites offer a way to distance myself from others (I’ve preexistings that put me at great risk.) in addition to mask wearing. Check them out to see how many there are along your planned route.

[dm6]

Good point. I always utilize part of the weekend now when reserving stuff but I suppose if you do more of the driving during the week, that would improve your odds. I forgot about the parking lots too in case that is needed.

As RB Bicyclist mentions, any overall experiences would be helpful. I just want to know how feasible this is, how fun it it, etc. if I am going to put out a bunch of money for a trailer. I don't want to do all that and then have the kids say "why can't we stay in a hotel??" Ha!

[n1acguy]

So far, we have made reservations at our final destination, and just planned stops as we go. We have never had an issue finding a place to overnight, and we only use RV parks. Some times they're just dirt lots with hookups, but that's fine for an overnight.

We try to plan for 5 hrs of driving, and to arrive during daylight hours. That's not because I don't want to drive at night, but I don't want to have to squeeze into a spot at night.
I don't plan overnight stops too much in advance, because I don't want to be married to a schedule.
So far, so good, but we do understand that there might be a time where we have to just find a place to park for a few hours. I haven't had to yet.

[Reverse_snowbird]

Originally Posted by dm6

I just want to know how feasible this is, how fun it it, etc. if I am going to put out a bunch of money for a trailer. I don't want to do all that and then have the kids say "why can't we stay in a hotel??" Ha!

KIDS? That definitely changes the equation if they are old enough to know what a hotel offers.

We have traveled across the county several times for two to three months at a time with a travel trailer. There are only two retired people traveling. Our experience has been mixed. My spouse says that I seem to have an instinct for finding city and county campgrounds that aren't on any map.

However, the stress of that gets old fairly quickly. If you divide up your trip into manageable days where you estimate how far you want to drive, you can make reservations along the way. If there are KOAs along the way, we usually use those because they have easy driving distance between them and they have pull through sites where we didn't have to unhook.

As DougW says, we sometimes made reservations the night before (many offices are open to 8 or 9 during the summer) or early the next morning before we take off.

I predict that the kids are not going to like parking lot camping. It'll do in an emergency, but it isn't fun and finding a place isn't easy.

[Dwilcox]

We live in the Seattle Wa. Area and we have done Yellowstone. Planned 300 to 400 miles a day and made overnight reservations before hand for that trip. We have hauled it down to Disneyland 4 times and we overnight at a casino in Or. the first night free (Well the DW leaves a little cash behind, she did hit enough for breakfast for all of us one year) then we have reservations at a RV park in Lodi CA. the 2nd night. Then on into Anaheim for a few days at the parks. On the way back we will pick to stay a couple of days at the Lodi park or at the park at the casino. They do have a very nice RV resort with a free shuttle to the casino and back that DW will make use of.

[muttinthehut]

Thank you for asking this question! I am new to the RV lifestyle as well and was just about to post the same question. We are fortunate enough to have a really nice state park just minutes away that we used for our first trip. And now we have scheduled some longer trips in the area through the upcoming months, with the furthest being 3 hours away. But longer term we'd like to try some longer trips, especially heading out west. I'm really curious what the experienced folks do for planning and stayovers along the way.

Also, do you normally travel interstate or avoid the highways? Just curious as some of the aggressive driving and speeds on the interstates is ridiculous in the urban areas.

[cpttimerstraint]

We do a 4k mile road trip every year with our daughter since she was 1. We average 300 miles per day with some short days and a few 500 mile hauls.

1. On a spreadsheet, ever the dates you want to be on the road
2. I use a spreadsheet and place all the priority stops as 1 night each
3.. Next place the spots where you need to stop in between got reasonable drive days.
4. Now you can figure out how many nights you have available to stay at each place.

I generally stay at an rv park every 4th night to do laundry & dump/fill tanks.

I use a mixture of freecampsite.net, recreation. Gov and Google maps (searching campground)

On my spreadsheet I add the mileage and time for the day and where we are staying. One time I pulled up to wrong Yellowstone campground and had to double back to the correct one as it was getting dark.

Here is one of my sheets
Attachment 247701

[muttinthehut]

Originally Posted by cpttimerstraint

We do a 4k mile road trip every year with our daughter since she was 1. We average 300 miles per day with some short days and a few 500 mile hauls.....

Really good info and thank you for sharing cpttimerstraint.

[SheriP]

I use RV trip wizard to plan our routes. We like to drive about five hours a day. You can set the miles and it shows all the campgrounds (state, city parks, blm and Coe)

[Alabama Potter]

Originally Posted by dm6

We have been camping for 4 years now with a popup and love it. Do you have really have to plan out a long trip and make reservations along the way, even for one night stops, or are you able to just reserve where you plan to stay longer and are able to find one night stops along the way without reserving them?

We are a different rv’ing couple. We use our microlite as a traveling hotel, going to places we want to visit and sightseeing then sleep and eat at “home”. Therefore we make reservations. We took 7 weeks to get to the GC and back home driving 4-5 hours between spots. I called ahead before we left home and reserved everywhere from Tupelo Mississippi to Williams Arizona, back thru Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and Tennessee. Never felt rushed ‘cause I left plenty of time to sightsee, and visit with friends. Places where we didn’t need to stay more than 1 night I still made reservations reservations. It worked for us.

[medalguy]

We travel cross country often. We just drive wherever we want to go and about 3 pm start looking at the map to see where we want to end that day. We boondock if possible for 3-5 days in a row sometimes ending up at rest areas or parking lots for overnight. We prefer forest parking if possible. Maybe every 5-6 days we use a KOA or similar to do laundry. We will make a reservation only if we are going to a difficult place to boondock such as New Orleans or Miami, or a crowded park like Yellowstone.

[Bourbonfan]

dm6- Why wait to take your trip until you trade your pop-up for a TT. In August-September 2018 we took our pop-up on a 5 week, 8100 mile trip from Ky. to the Washington and Oregon coast. We followed the Lewis and Clark trail. Back then, we had no reservations and had little trouble finding a campground. Likely it's different now. We prefer state park, county and COE campgrounds. The pop-up was great on this trip, and much easier to pull than our current travel trailer. Good luck on your planning, and enjoy your trip. BTW, AAA was very helpful in planning our trip- maps, travel guides, tips, etc.

[BM Welder]

We haven't had a chance to use Harvest Host yet but we do use KOA a lot for overnighting. Get yourself a Trailer Life campground Directory from Good Sam we always carry one with us.

[jwfrede]

Each year I try to make one cross country trip to the western US form central Pa. Shortest trip was 5000mi round trip to Colorado. Longest was about 9000 mi round trip to BC.

For each trip the entire time in the rockies and west was planned out with reservations. Most destinations were in parks that required reservations up to a year in advance, most were made about 6-8 months ahead.

Its already late to make reservations for Yellowstone. Even West Yellowstone may be fully booked this year due to increased traffic from the virus.

Traveling in the fall, Sept/Oct, I made a reservation the day of while traveling. In summertime I make reservations ahead of time for weekends traveling back and forth.

Next summer I am traveling with another camper to Idaho/Wash and we will make reservations for out and back a couple weeks ahead. We already have our reservations for the entire trip west of Nebraska.

First trips west I pounded out 500-600 mi a day and hardly unhitched. Now I go no more than about 400 mi a day(and 400 mi only if its all interstate) and will take 2 nights after 3 straight days of 300 or more miles a day.

Usually try to find a point of interest to visit at that place for the 2 night stay. On early trips I stayed at an occasional rest stop(like those in Ohio) or campground with no electric. No more of that in the summer time; I want A/C so I plan ahead.

[scottrubarb]

I agree with many of the suggestions posted.
We have since Spring 2017 when we purchased our GT 270s Class A done three major long trips from SoCal.

Some additional observations:
* Anticipate some dead zones for cell service may interfere with calling ahead.
* also sometimes phone GPS maps are not available
* I used Satellite view to check gas stations due to my 30' class A and a towed Jeep.
* Plan on your daily distance tolerance. For me, 300 -400 miles daily range.
* try to avoid major metro areas during rush hour, although this year may not be as much as a problem due to Covid (Houston was a mess)
* pre-printing directions to pre-registered campgrounds that may be hard to find,
* consider allowing some float days between reserved locations just in case.

Our major trips were:

Cross country spring 2018 10,000 miles. (Preregistered in San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans, Sarasota, Disney World, DC, Williamsburg, Gettysburg)
The rest of the return including the Northern tier or states were day to day or a few days ahead as we picked destinations

SW Colorado, Utah Spring 2019 Mosely pre-booked.

No Cal and Oregon July-Aug 2020 (Pre-booked most of the trip due to Covid)

Good Luck

Greg Scott
SoCal

[mike.t]

We just plan where we are going, then about a 1/2 to 1 hour and a half before wanting to stop we start looking on the phone for an RV park. Never had to stay in a Walmart or whatnot parking lot. Really not too difficult.
Enjoy your travels.
Mike