First Long Trip -- What are the "must dos" and "must haves"?

- I put an extra diesel fuel tank in the bed of my truck so I never have to fuel-up with my TH attached.
- plan your route and watch for low bridges. If you're on the interstate or a US route you got no worries. I use a Motor Carrier (truckers) Atlas
- call ahead for reservations. I never pull into a park without one. Sometimes the parks could be booked-up especially later in the day.
- Don't fill your water tank. No need to carry the extra weight.
- get rid of the Made In China tires if you have them, put on LT truck tires. I've been coast-to-coast lots of times with no tire issues.

Basically, I don't do anything different for a 2,000 mile trip than I do for a 200 mile trip.

One other thing, RVing should always be an adventure we look forward to. A cross-country trip should never be against one's better judgement.

I did use iExit this winter specifically for distance to the next rest stop and found a few issues with it.

1. It only works on interstates.
2. It doesn't know about some interstates.
3. The database is old and is missing some rest stops.

Allstays has the same info for all roads and is more up to date.

2 cell phone sites that we have used a lot: GasBuddy and iExit-both are excellent to find gas/diesel, restaurants, next exit coming up and what it has available to the traveler. We use diesel fuel and have found most pumps are easily accessible. Usually, before we leave the campground I will have filled the truck up locally than go back and hook-up the 5'vr. Also, you can map out your trip with Good Sam and their routing will show everything you would need. Have pulled our 5'vr to northern B.C. and to Florida from So. Ca. with no problems. Lars

I use Gas Buddy to find nearby stations, but back it up with Google Earth to make sure I can get in and out. Track stops such as Pilot, TA Flying J and Loves are all easy to get in and out of, but the truck lanes are pretty disgusting. If you're using gasoline, you can avoid this issue. Most of the Pilot stations have a big lane for trailers.

AllStays app for your phone will find almost anything RV related, but I found it difficult to follow the directions given by this app. MyPilot finds Pilot and Flying Js and Truck Smart locates TA centers.

Co-Pilot GPS app for RVs lists truck stops in the points of interest menu. Supposedly, this app will also keep you off roads with low clearances, although I haven't tested this feature yet.

TIP: You should put a description of your rig in your signature so we'll be able to answer better.