First trip coming up next month (Rental TT)
Well, wife and I have been talking about buying a travel trailer for a while now. We were planning a road trip back east to visit some family next month, then realized this would be a great time to r...
Forum Discussion
Your first few days are much, much too ambitious in my opinion. Those are two 750+ mile days in a row; that's maybe around 15 hours of driving each day, plus time to setup, tear down, eat, etc. Add at least another day in there. Maybe once you have a feel for what it's like to travel with an RV you will decide that such long days of travel are OK for you, but I would not plan on it for the very first leg.
With a propane generator, you will be buying propane quite frequently if you run the generator much. It probably would go through two 20lb cylinders in one or two nights. It would be quieter and I think easier and less hassle to use campsites with electric (at least) hookups available. Given your long travel days (even with an additional day or two), I would suggest making reservations even if only the day before or the same day so that you know you have a place to arrive to...and what place it is.
If at all possible, I recommend setting up camp before dark, especially the first few times. Backing into a camp site when it's dark without being too obnoxious to other campers is none too easy, and seeing to get things level and situated is also much nicer when it's sunlight rather than a flashlight.
Sleeping for the night in a rest area or whatever is not necessarily poor etiquette, but it's not always very restful nor always easy to do. I would say it's poor etiquette indeed to take a truck parking space (which you'll need) if there's much chance that they would otherwise be filled with truckers who need their mandatory rest periods. If there's sufficient available that they oughtn't be filled, I have no compunctions about using one; after all, rest areas are there for rest. Many states do have time limits that are less than a full night.
There are some private businesses that often welcome overnight sleeping in RVs; the most notable are Wal-mart, Cracker Barrel, and some outdoor stores like Bass Pro Shops. In any case it's good form to ask the management first as sometimes local laws or problems will mean that overnighting is prohibited.
The television may well not support tethering to a phone. Receiving over the air broadcasts with the antenna is not too hard or too much work; you crank up the antenna (assuming it's a crank up one), make sure the little switch for it is turned on, and tell the TV to scan for channels, and then sit back and watch whatever is worth watching--if anything. Often I find that's a big "if". There's nothing wrong with not using the television.
With a propane generator, you will be buying propane quite frequently if you run the generator much. It probably would go through two 20lb cylinders in one or two nights. It would be quieter and I think easier and less hassle to use campsites with electric (at least) hookups available. Given your long travel days (even with an additional day or two), I would suggest making reservations even if only the day before or the same day so that you know you have a place to arrive to...and what place it is.
If at all possible, I recommend setting up camp before dark, especially the first few times. Backing into a camp site when it's dark without being too obnoxious to other campers is none too easy, and seeing to get things level and situated is also much nicer when it's sunlight rather than a flashlight.
Sleeping for the night in a rest area or whatever is not necessarily poor etiquette, but it's not always very restful nor always easy to do. I would say it's poor etiquette indeed to take a truck parking space (which you'll need) if there's much chance that they would otherwise be filled with truckers who need their mandatory rest periods. If there's sufficient available that they oughtn't be filled, I have no compunctions about using one; after all, rest areas are there for rest. Many states do have time limits that are less than a full night.
There are some private businesses that often welcome overnight sleeping in RVs; the most notable are Wal-mart, Cracker Barrel, and some outdoor stores like Bass Pro Shops. In any case it's good form to ask the management first as sometimes local laws or problems will mean that overnighting is prohibited.
The television may well not support tethering to a phone. Receiving over the air broadcasts with the antenna is not too hard or too much work; you crank up the antenna (assuming it's a crank up one), make sure the little switch for it is turned on, and tell the TV to scan for channels, and then sit back and watch whatever is worth watching--if anything. Often I find that's a big "if". There's nothing wrong with not using the television.
