Extended trip planning

For us this problem pre-dates the pandemic. We also used to travel without reservations except for popular destinations like Yosemite, Yellowstone, Zion, etc. No more. Now I have reservations for virtually every night of our upcoming five-week trip to Oregon. The only reservations I didn't do this time was for heading out and back, but since it's across NV and UT, we know of boondocking sites in the middle of nowhere where we can stop (we will travel on weekdays.)

Even for a one-week trip here in CO, I had reservations as soon as they opened up. Now we will do some camping this summer at NFS CG's that don't have reservations, but we will arrive early in the day on a Monday through Wednesday.

As a side note, we now camp a lot of NFS CG's in areas where we used to do a lot of boondocking. But there are so many people boondocking, we're willing to pay for a NFS campsite just to have a little more privacy. Some popular boondocking locations are so crowded they are like parking lots.

I hate the lack of spontaneity, but have learned to adapt. I especially feel sorry for people who work in jobs where they can't request time off very far in advance. Don't know how they fare with the need to reserve so far our.

If we find we want to stay somewhere longer, we just bite the bullet and pay the for non-used reservations....BUT, we also let the place we canceled at know we won't be there so, by chance, others might have the use of that spot. We can afford it. The last trip, we changed reservations three times, mostly at KOA's. They were understanding. It's their business, and they want to keep us as customers forever. Private places may not be so understanding, and I can respect that also.

After 60 years of road trips habits are hard to change. I only make reservations under duress or one day ahead. I prefer the off season for long trips and move when I feel like it.

The idea of a tight schedule and having to be somewhere has no appeal at all. In the West there is always some public land around. It allows great freedom, but people from the East take time to adjust to it.

Recently it seems there are no refunds at a lot of RV parks. That makes them unattractive to me except for filling and emptying tanks, powering up and taking a shower and washing clothes.

wtmtnhiker wrote:
Posted on another forum also want to get thoughts here. I planned a trip out to Yellowstone from New Hampshire and going to take about six weeks to get out and back. I felt that I needed to secure reservations for the entire trip because of the increased popularity of RVing and campgrounds being mostly if not totally filled most nights and especially on weekends in the more popular areas. This is so contrary to the way I used to travel pre pandemic when I wouldn't plan more than a couple of days out. One of the problems with this sort of travel is that if I find an area that I really like and want to spend an extra day or two I can't because of the ripple effects of all the reservations I have going forward. Even worse would be if I had a mechanical issue and got delayed a day or two then every reservation would need to be canceled or rescheduled and I'd probably be out of luck with some of them if not most. Wondering how others have handled this and curious how many of you have run into these sort of issues or have you not changed the way you do things since the pandemic hit? Love to get your thoughts. Thanks for reading.

My post-retirement trip covered 9000+ miles over 4 months in a motor home. Even back in 2011 I felt the need to make sure we had secured reservations along the way. My spouse laughed at me at first but quickly realized why I had taken so long and so much effort to assemble a 5-page spreadsheet with each reservation and all the info I'd need if it was necessary to change or cancel. It was invaluable and truly worth the effort and time involved. It didn't make us feel obligated to meet the schedule; it just gave us needed information and a means to access these reservations if necessary. It also helped with the daily budget knowing what had been paid for and what we needed to ante up when we arrived.

Fortunately it hasn't happened very often, but we have had to make last minute changes due to breakdowns, weather, or health issues on occasion. Sometimes it meant canceling a reservation at whatever cost was involved, while other times it meant just shifting dates. For long trips to destination parks, we usually build in a couple of 2-3 day layovers along the way that can be used if necessary for schedule adjustments. Most private parks have been very accommodating when changes were needed. State and national parks have also worked with us when a delay prevented us from arriving on schedule. Yes, the "old days" when we could flip a coin to decide where to go tomorrow were great, but today is what it is, and we've adapted to it as best we can. We already have our reservations in place through next March. There likely will be some modifications before we get there, but we'll deal with them as needed.