Finding places to stop along the way (during the day)

SoundGuy wrote:


Just playing the devil's advocate here but knowing you wanted to travel so much with this trailer it would to me have made more sense to limit the length of the trailer to something more reasonable, somewhere in the 25' to no more than 30' range. Yeah, I know - 4 kids - but there are still shorter rigs out there that can accommodate what you want to do but aren't anywhere near as long, including rear glide models that tow significantly shorter than campsite length. Our own previous KZ Spree 240BH was a triple bunk trailer, measured 26' 9" coupler to bumper, and from personal experience having camped in many US locations with it I wouldn't have wanted anything longer, in fact preferably closer to 25' overall. Private campgrounds like KOAs are one thing but state and national parks can be another matter, where the more you exceed 25' or so the tougher it will be to get a suitable site, especially in situations where you want your freedom and don't want to reserve ahead of time but instead just show up hoping the campground in question has a site large enough to accommodate your trailer AND tow vehicle. And obviously, the shorter your overall length the easier it would be to find a place to park when you stop along the way. Kinda late now I know ... just sayin'. :W

Believe me, I really wanted something shorter, and I spent a long time trying to make it make sense for us. We not only have 4 kids, but the youngest is 2 and can't share a bed with anyone without waking them up, and the oldest is 14 and already 5'10" and not nearly finished growing yet. And the next two aren't far behind him. We looked a lot at the Rockwood minilite with the quad bunks and the murphy bed, until we tried it out and realized the bunks are almost exactly the same length as my oldest son (if Rockwood had made those bunks 2 inches longer, they might well have sold us on it). And we looked at rear slide models, but we were afraid it would feel too claustrophobic with all of us (not to mention the 3 dogs when we bring them along). My husband's a teacher, so we're hoping to spend up to 8 weeks at a time on the road most summers, and we'd prefer to still like each other by August :). So the longer trailer was definitely a compromise....just a different kind of compromise than stuffing the six of us into something smaller would have been. I guess time will tell whether we made the right compromise for us or not (or 8 years will pass, we'll only have one kid left at home, and we'll have all kinds of choices). But, at any rate, it was not a decision made without lots and lots and lots of weighing of assorted pros and cons.

kokotg wrote:
Thanks, everyone! Sounds like planning ahead is key.

I guess I should say that another concern I have, aside from just breaking up long drives (and we don't plan on terribly long days....we're making tentative plans for a 3 1/2 week trip next summer, and the longest driving day as it stands now is 7 hours, and that's to get home on the last day....but with a 3 year old even 4 or 5 hours can seem like forever :)).....is when there's something we want to stop and see along the way but we can't or don't want to devote an overnight stop to it.

One example (the one that prompted me to start the thread) is a day on next year's itinerary where we're planning to drive from Greensboro, NC to Charlottesville, VA...the total drive is only 180 miles, so maybe a little over 3 hours. But we'd love to stop and see Appomattox Court House on the way (about an hour from Charlottesville). In just a car, it'd be a no brainer; perfect place to stop for a couple of hours, have a picnic, kids could get a Junior Ranger badge, etc. But I'm worried it won't be nearly so reasonable with the trailer....the website says they have bus parking for groups, but I don't know if they like to give out their bus parking to people who just have vehicles the same SIZE as a bus but with just 6 people in them. I know we'll have to adjust how we travel somewhat; I guess I'm just trying to get a feel for how many things like that it's reasonable to still expect to be able to do.

You can park any type of RV at that National Park. They even have a grassy run off area during the summer season:).

When we Van traveled with up to 6 kids (5 of them boys), I would look at the Road Atlas or map or even brochures picked up at the Stateline Welcome Center. That's how we found the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert before hitting the Grand Canyon. The kids all walked off excess energy and excitement from the trip. Now that we RV and it's only the 2 of us, we have different needs.

During this Summer, we took a 5-wk over 6000 mile vacation with 1 GD, I did quite a bit of pre-planning. Most of the places, we had multiple choices of where to stop before the night's campground. Might hit one, but not the other depending on how traffic or the weather may have slowed us down. Each night, we'd assess where we were and see if we wanted to add, subtract or reroute to see something different.

It was a lot of work, initially (2 yrs of planning and changing). But since we had MS Streets & Trips to help plan the whole 5+ weeks, it went fairly smooth. We took the Lance, so since we were smaller and only needed 30amps, we only made 2 reservations the whole trip. The rest were a call about 1-2 hrs ahead of arrival.

Next time, I think we'll plan a little less and when we tire, look for an upcoming campground and pull in.

kokotg wrote:
So my question is....how much are we going to need to adjust our travel style to accommodate this big old trailer we're pulling now? Trailer is almost 33 feet and we're towing with a full size van, so total length is....a lot.

Just playing the devil's advocate here but knowing you wanted to travel so much with this trailer it would to me have made more sense to limit the length of the trailer to something more reasonable, somewhere in the 25' to no more than 30' range. Yeah, I know - 4 kids - but there are still shorter rigs out there that can accommodate what you want to do but aren't anywhere near as long, including rear glide models that tow significantly shorter than campsite length. Our own previous KZ Spree 240BH was a triple bunk trailer, measured 26' 9" coupler to bumper, and from personal experience having camped in many US locations with it I wouldn't have wanted anything longer, in fact preferably closer to 25' overall. Private campgrounds like KOAs are one thing but state and national parks can be another matter, where the more you exceed 25' or so the tougher it will be to get a suitable site, especially in situations where you want your freedom and don't want to reserve ahead of time but instead just show up hoping the campground in question has a site large enough to accommodate your trailer AND tow vehicle. And obviously, the shorter your overall length the easier it would be to find a place to park when you stop along the way. Kinda late now I know ... just sayin'. :W

Thanks, everyone! Sounds like planning ahead is key.

I guess I should say that another concern I have, aside from just breaking up long drives (and we don't plan on terribly long days....we're making tentative plans for a 3 1/2 week trip next summer, and the longest driving day as it stands now is 7 hours, and that's to get home on the last day....but with a 3 year old even 4 or 5 hours can seem like forever :)).....is when there's something we want to stop and see along the way but we can't or don't want to devote an overnight stop to it.

One example (the one that prompted me to start the thread) is a day on next year's itinerary where we're planning to drive from Greensboro, NC to Charlottesville, VA...the total drive is only 180 miles, so maybe a little over 3 hours. But we'd love to stop and see Appomattox Court House on the way (about an hour from Charlottesville). In just a car, it'd be a no brainer; perfect place to stop for a couple of hours, have a picnic, kids could get a Junior Ranger badge, etc. But I'm worried it won't be nearly so reasonable with the trailer....the website says they have bus parking for groups, but I don't know if they like to give out their bus parking to people who just have vehicles the same SIZE as a bus but with just 6 people in them. I know we'll have to adjust how we travel somewhat; I guess I'm just trying to get a feel for how many things like that it's reasonable to still expect to be able to do.

In this part of the Country, there is no need to plan a long day of traveling with campgrounds everywhere. We can travel for up to 5 hours and stay in a campground for a couple of days, and continue doing that for a month.

What's wrong with rest areas on the interstates? Some of the better roads have rest areas about every 50 miles. If we are on a minor road where there are no rest areas sometimes we find an abandoned company parking lot to pull into or just alongside the road in a little town. The lots are not grass but better than nothing. Then, of course, there are always Walmart or Home Depot etc. parking lots.

I like to use Roadside America while traveling.
Maybe if the kids help navigate and find interesting stops, it will take some of the boredom out of the ride?

When we get to an attraction that we really want to see that doesn't have adequate parking or the roads are too tight for the whole rig, we just drop the trailer in some large parking lot and go. It's the beauty of of a towed home. Only takes a few minutes and you're loose. It it's questionable, as far as will I get towed, we just leave a note on the door, or let someone know, explaining what we're doing with an estimated return time. Been doing it for years. So far so good.

We found that everyone, including kids, usually just wanted to get the traveling over with and get to the campground. I pretty much always want to take a break every 1 1/2 hours, usually just at a rest stop. Stopping much longer than 15 minutes would just seem to make the trip drag.

When we did stop for an extended period (overnight at a campground on the way to Disney World), the kids actually just wanted to eat, go to sleep, and get up early to get an early start and get there.

You might find that "planning" long stops can just extend travel time longer than you end up wanting.