Strangers, can you help a newcomer?

lots of good info above.
We generally make reservations at destinations, but not enroute.
and we don't camp in parking lots, never on purpose. once or twice when we ran out of choices.

We also (and this is important) try real hard to travel no more than 300 miles per day, and arrive at our destination for the night no later than 3 pm.

Whether to make reservations or not at campgrounds depends a lot on where you are going and when. If it is the summer and you are going to a popular area or attraction you are going to find that campgrounds in and around there will be booked. If it is a weekend, they will especially be booked. Forget holiday weekends - these book at year in advance at many campgrounds. If you are heading for an area that is not so much in demand or will be a distance away from a popular area you can probably get by with just showing up - or starting to make calls when you get near to see who has sites open. But I think even in off areas, if it is a holiday weekend, likely it will be booked. Campgrounds, after the office closes, often post on the office door which sites are open for the night. This does not mean that in a day or two you will be able to remain on that site if it was reserved later in the week.

Like you, we don't want to arrive somewhere and find no place to stop - especially after driving a distance to get there. I like to plan my trips in advance and make reservations for the itinerary that we plan. This means at some campgrounds that you are committing a deposit that will not be refunded or will only partially refunded. There are campgrounds that will let you cancel that day or the day before without penalty - but these are few.

Many will tell you to just go and take your chances. Stop when you get tired and a Walmart or Cracker Barrel parking lot is fine for a night. Maybe some day we will get to that point too, but for now we don't want any surprises.

Path1. Thanks I learned something new from you today, probably along with others. Thanks!

By the way folks.. The TT zone pass, if anyone is interested please PM me for some information I won't post public.

There are many membership camping outfits out there, I belong to two, I have an older Thousand Trails national membership.. and one in Michigan with another park (five parks in MI plus a few sister parks scattered)

These together cost me lessthan 100/month and I get 2 weeks in any of the parks,followed by a week out..Summers that's two weeks in one,two in the other and no weeks OUT. parking 100/month, From where I sit (limited income) very nice.

Winters it's 200/month cause I do NOT winter in MI, no way, and I have to pay for the "Out"park here (12/night).

These are lifetime memberships, In fact I had one other years ago, it ended when the county took the park for non-payment of taxes and they did not obtain another park equivalent to it. They are STILL dunning me for dues, (They in fact owe me money) I may have to take action to stop them.

Some folks by a membership thinking it will be nice, then something happens and they can no longer use it (Something other than the park going out of business that is) and they are stuck with the monthly dues.

Thousand Trails ZONE PASS,is a one year deal, you pay about what I pay for a year's dues. And if you don't want it you simply send them a "Thanks but no Thanks" letter. No lifetime of dues notices.

It is a great "Trial" membership program.

That said, Most of the TT/Encore parks are in serious need of money. Still, the park may need money.. but the staff.. Well I have only nice things to say about the staff at all the TT parks I have ever visited.

Oh, and for you west coasters... Yes, They have a park in Las Vegas, On Bolder, between Bolder Station and Sam's Town... Tight sites, but they will help you back in, Nice staff. And since I did not go there for the park (only the parking) I went there for other attractions (One lovely darling daughter to be specific,,, She moved to Southern GA however so I don't go there now) I can not tell you much about the park other than it's location,and the staffers Idealt with were, as in all the TT parks, nice.

This summer I had a few medical issues, Had to spend not 2 weeks but closer to a month in the same parking spot twice to make all the doctor's appointments.

Thankfully this happed when I was in the TT park cause the acting manager was real nice about it and worked with me and even fed my cats. Had it happened in the other parks things might have been different... Though in fairness to the park this is mostly due to a city ordinance, not the park. (The manager and I chatted about it,,,Since I told him I was aware of the city ord, it was a very friendly chat, he said they would have gotten around it somehow).

We just finished doing basically what you are doing. We also bought the two zone pass from Thousand Trails. Our trip started in June with a 10 day Alaska Inside Passage Cruise. We left the motor hoe in a TT park near Seattle for only $3 a day.
We then spent July August and most of September seeing the Washington, Oregon, and Northern California coasts. Basically we tried to stay in TT parks whenever possible. We would take our full 4 days then move to the next one so we didn't have to leave the system for 2 weeks. Some of the parks were quite remote and it made sight seeing difficult, but we managed and saved literally thousands of dollars. We found an Encore park which wasn't free but was very reduced near San Fransisco and spent two weeks there. Generally we spent one evening looking at the next destinations and making our reservations, sometimes for as long as a month away, but we also changed the dates many times. It is easy to do online with TT. The only real glitch we had was when it was time to visit Yosemite there was first the fire that stopped us and then the government shut down. There are enough TT parks in the two areas that you can base out of them and use your car to visit all the areas you might want to see. Have a great time, slow down and enjoy.

If you're going to "start out in spring", then its gonna be early Oct before you can hit AZ/NM and avoid summer temps.

Ready for that?

Well... Timing is important in life.. I would call the parks you plan on visiting, You can make reservations, up to 3 as I recall, up to 3 months in advance.. The problem with this is that your plans should never be set in concrete, Jello yes, Concrete no. I would reserve for the Independence Day Holiday, and any other major holidays, WELL in advance. but on non-holiday weeks,

Call the park and ask the ranger what the odds are you can make your reservation when you are likle 20 minutes out.

Example.. I called ahead this year to let 'em know I was coming (I have the guard shack phone number) this was Thanksgiving eve... I pulled into a different park 3 miles from Church on Black Friday, and for pure logistics reasons spent 2 nights... Made my reservation on Fri or Sat (forget which) and drove the 20 miles to the park on Sunday.

I made my NEXT reservation here (Starting in 1 week + 1 day) from the guard's shack (Well She did it for me) I head back to the other park tomorrow.

Why change parks on Sunday?

Well, I will hook up the car this evening, do most of my "Take down" today, and Tomorrow morning drive the house, towed and all, to the next campground (The one 3 miles from church) drop the car and go sing in the choir.

If I switched parks any day other than Sunday that would mean 35 more miles on the car So it's 100% combining two trips into one.

We only make reservations for weekends, holidays or popular tourist areas. We arrive Sun-Thurs, early in the day (before 4pm) and hardly ever have a problem getting a sight. We do select 2 options for the area and call ahead the day we plan on arriving. No problems. We use www.mapquest.com for trip routing, www.woodalls.com for finding campgrounds and www.rvparkreviews.com to select the final 2 options. We also use www.googlemaps.com (satellite street view) to look at roads, fuel stops, and parking areas.

We spent nine months over six years visiting 47 states. We never had a reservation more than two hours from check-in time. Most times, we did not decide which way to turn out of our subdivision until we got there. We never had a problem getting into National Parks or other places we wanted to stay. We did a lot of Walmarts and Flying Js when we weren't near destinations.

We did our traveling from late October into late November. Believe it or not, in all of that Winter traveling, we had one night below 30 degrees, one day too rainy to travel much, and a delay of several hours due to wind. We drove through snow in Arizona one afternoon. After visiting the Dakotas, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming and California, we were snowed in for a night in El Paso, Texas, a day's drive from home!

Congrats on the RV!

Matt B

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