stopping for a single night - rest area or rv park?

If you are driving till after dark and leaving early then use a rest stop or walmart...no need to bother other campground guests with a late arrival and early morning departure. I think some posters here just dont feel safe if not in a campground!

We find a rest stop, truck stop, or other free of charge area. It's an adventure to us to be able to do this. We're cautious and alert too, so we pick where stop. We have slides, but we bought our unit because the floor plan allows access to all kitchen appliances, the bed, shower, and toilet, with the slides in for situations such as this.

A little background we will be traveling between Houston and Tampa so Pensacola is about halfway or 7-8 hrs. I think its probably best to look for a nice RV park by the water ( not too far off I-10 ). Enjoy a sunset and dip in a pool.. esp because we will be travelling with a 1 yr old..

We always chose the campground. We receive a safe clean campsite with other RVers around to share conversation. By hooking up to campground power we are comfortable using all the goodies in the RV. Often, if just for one night, I will not bother with the dump. I do hook up to water, as we travel with only about 1/4 tank of water, why carry the extra weight. Basically it is a matter of safe and secure.
JMHO, Happy Trails.

We travel on the road about 5-6 hours a day. It may take us 12 hours to do that, because we try to never be in a hurry, ever! We always plan contingency time, even if we have reserved campsites at our final destination.

We enjoy the actual trip, the drive. We enjoy stopping at, whatever happens to catch our eye when traveling. See an unusual bill-board, we stop and pay a visit. So, when it comes to stopping for the night, we also like the "down time", so always look for campgrounds. Between KOA and Good Sam campgrounds, we've been pretty fortunate to find good, safe, easily accessible, pull through sites, that provide full hook-ups, and an opportunity to get a good night sleep.

Long gone are the days we travel 12 or 16 hours a day, and push to get to the destination. The older you get... the more you slow down and smell the roses along the way. There's so much "out there" between point A and point B, it's a shame so many are in such a hurry and miss it.

We normally do not unhitch for overnights, but sometimes we do. We always like to pull the slides out, so if I cannot level somewhat close hitch, I'll go ahead and unhitch. May not even need to move the truck an inch, just let it sit. But then, we may want to go explore the area we've stopped at too. Who knows, we may NEVER have an opportunity to go back there again. Make very moment count! Enjoy the present, tomorrow may never come! If you're constantly planning "ahead", you will miss what's right in front of you right now!

So we park in campgrounds that are easy-in and easy-out. We have on occasion, decided to stay an extra day too. Rare that we do this, but it has happened. This is part of the "contingency time". I suppose once you've reached a certain age, and accomplished pretty much all your goals in life, it's just FINE to spend time together with your spouse. As long as we're together, we don't care where we are. The "journey" is MORE important than the "destination" for us.

Yes, my wife and I still have full time jobs, still face the daily rat race, and still fight corporate America at the office. I think that's why we RV. It's an excuse to SLOWWWWW down!

When I "vacation," I like to relax. If I am in THAT much of a hurry to get somewhere, I would rather just fly and stay in hotels. When I travel with my RV, I just include in the plans that I am only going to spend so much time on the road each day and get setup in a campground or RV park well before dinner so I have an evening in front of me.

But, to each their own!

Rest area.

OP: It appears you're from Texas and especially in Texas there are wonderful wide spots to pull off if you're driving secondary roads in Texas. We've used them often with our 40' motorhome. If you're driving in the western states you'll find the same along many secondary roads. We prefer them to rest areas or fuel stations. Truckers can't go to RV parks and they need that space at rest areas and fuel stations that's why we prefer just finding a pull-off. WalMarts will work, too but they can be noisier. Whatever, it's not necessary to use a RV park.

However, generally we tend to not drive long days. If we're off the road by 3pm we'll get a cheap campground so we can relax more easily.

Txsurfer wrote:
good info so far.

I don't know if it's really pertinent information as much as it is what preferences other travelers have.

My personal preference is overnights at campgrounds. Like others who do the same, we don't set up to camp, just level and plug in the electric, if available. We don't unhook other than to take some weight off the truck with the tongue jack.

I'm a light sleeper, and sleep SOOO much better in an RV park. We've tried Flying J's, and invariably have the guy next to us who idles his diesel all night to stay warm, plus trucks coming and going all night... Walmarts are better/quieter, assuming the weather is nice enough to not need heat or cooling; but sometimes they attract folks who aren't the "RVing Crowd". And I like to support RV parks - quite often you can get a lower rate for electric-only sites.