How do you folks plan travel for long distances?

We took a long trip last fall (just under 11,000 miles) and only had four firm dates:

* Shakespear Festival in Cedar City, Utah in August.
* Meet our kids at a camp in NM for Labor Day.
* Get to Cedar Point in Sandusky, OH the following weekend because they're only open weekends after Labor Day.
* Paso Robles, CA in October for Peter Frampton's farewell tour.

The rest of the trip, we barely had any idea where we were going. We never back-tracked, so the day before a travel day I would ask my wife which of the other three compass points she wanted to head in. I would spend that evening on RVTripWizard.com quietly looking at options. I would pick out 2-4 acceptable options based on distance and POIs (unless we already knew of a specific target) and then quietly bide my time. The next morning we'd get on the road and then sometime around one or two I'd ask my wife if she had any thoughts about a destination. If she said yes, then I'd tell her to book it. If not, I'd throw out a couple of destination names and tell her to check them out and then call and book whichever one she fancied.

That was the extent of our planning: UT, NM, OH, and CA. The rest was just wherever we felt like going.

Oh yeah, on the Friday we arrived in Sandusky, I called to Elkhart, IN to book a service appointment for us for the following Monday morning to replace the fender that blew off in the high wind in southern Utah. It was sooooo much cheaper to have it fixed there near the factory than to have the parts shipped back home. Plus we didn't have to look at the ugly missing siding anymore.

We got ugly again in Wyoming when high winds blew out bedroom window out. Although I was able to call my new pal at the factory in Elkhart to have a new window shipped home, we still had to make do with a garbage bag and duct tape for the rest of the trip. It got chilly in Nevada when it snowed.

Enjoy your trip. I hope you get to go at a time of year when the world isn't all booked up already.

I am a planner but not a reserver. Reservations are for high demand destinations, events & maybe weekends. The route, sort of, is planned. Approximate areas of overnights are looked at for possible CGs, don't reserve. There is plan A, plan B then Walmart if only in transit.

We try to roll in by mid afternoon so chances of getting an unreserved site are pretty good. A call when a half hour out or so does the trick for stopping or carrying on.

I start early use trip planner and all stays and book way in advance never had a issue would never do a wal mart

I prefer Passport America with 1/2 price campgrounds all over the country. They have a simple trip planner on their website.

I have no good answer, but at 40$us/year RVtripwizard did not work for us. That was decided after paying for three years and only getting to use it for two and then it was still a failure. First off it is a webapp. Even though we do carry wire, we are out of good coverage (even with a 3ERP repeater) that it has zero value underway. This means that the day's route has to be loaded to the navigating GPS before departure, and if you deviate from that route, you better have a good way to deal with it. When any of our GPS would revise a route to meet the current situation, it has universally been a disaster. That has been true of Garmin, Rand Macnally and Magelan. Our newest as last Street Atlas is now 6 years out of date and wasn't very good then.

I am waiting for either completely universal cell/web coverage, or a standalone planner/navigator to give us some good direction.

As you can see I have disappointed by Garmin. They bought Delorme and then dropped that line. They still make a good GPS, but don't even try to read the device instructions or use it for more than an "This is where we are now" application.

Well, I'll step off this milk crate and go about the day and continue planning at home only and on paper charts/maps.

Matt

Weekdays usually aren't a problem finding a site. Weekends will be tougher. Start mapping your route then look at all campgrounds along the way where you plan to stop for the night.Look at everything: state,federal,private,county,city. Also some free campgrounds too. They probably won't have hookups but for one night you'll be ok.

There are really two (or more) types of RVers. The vacation group, who we belonged to for years, who has a limited time for their trip. They need to push hard to maximize their time in their intended vacation area. Driving from PA to FL for example to vacation in FL. They drive 500 miles or so for the first few days to get to FL so they can do what they planned to do there.

They fit in with stopping at Walmarts and other free overnight stops because they pull in late.

The second group is the Fulltimer and Almost Fulltimer group. They want to take their time and drive no more than 200 or 250 miles a day. The want to get to their stopping spot early and relax.

And for them I cannot see pulling into Walmart at 3 O'clock in the afternoon and relaxing in the parking lot. So for that group these free overnight spots don't work well. I'm just appreciating this difference now we are moving into the fulltime group.

However as I noted above there are a number of other possibilities for cheap or no cost stopping places.

We are "walmarters". Last 2 long trips were PA to FL and PA to TN and we used Walmart both times. Of course I am fine driving until midnight or longer, and at that point the kids are already asleep in the truck, so we are really just looking for a place to sleep. Find where the other RV's are, setup the generators, and hit the sack! My concern with making reservations along the way is I could see us getting to that spot and thinking "why did we stop, I could have made it 3 more hours". That said, if you have plenty of time and can take your time, totally different story. We have limited time off so we just want to get there.

All great suggestions! Keep them coming! I love some of these ideas!

Learn to be flexible. You can't plan it all ahead of time. Call the day before to make a res. Find a place you like, stay for several days. Feel like a museum, change your plans. Loosen up and enjoy yourself. That's it right there.