Tips for travelling with trailer through the US.

We tow a 29' travel trailer with a 3/4 ton truck. Went to Reno last year (from BC) and this summer are going farther down to Monterey and over to Vegas. There are many on the forum with waay more experience than us, but some things that come to mind below:

You haven't given details on the truck or trailer. If you have P rated tires on the truck, you want LT tires. You want a good brake controller like a Prodigy P3. Keep the trailer tires at the sidewall max rating (50 for LRC and 65 for LRD) and you want more pressure in the TV tires (we run 75 psi on front and 80 on rear, but everyone is somewhat different). You should have a good WDH with sway control. Add-on friction bars work, but there are better hitches with integral sway control like Equal-i-zer, Blue Ox and Reese dual cam. Make sure the WDH (weight distributing hitch) is properly adjusted so you don't have sway and/or handling problems (extremely important for both a long trip and someone new to towing). There is a great sticky in the towing section on setting up WDHs. I would suggest getting as much practice camping/towing as possible before doing the long trip. Is the trailer new or used? If used, some things may need attention. You will encounter lots of elevation change - make sure brakes on truck and trailer are working properly and serviced as needed and that the truck's cooling system and tranny can handle the added stress and heat. Taking a small 120 volt compressor with you would be a good idea and you should periodically check tire pressure and visually inspect the TT tires for anything unusual like abnormal wear, lumps, etc. (before each leg is best). An infrared gun would also be a good thing to have to periodically check bearing and brake temps.

It's a good idea to plan your route and campgrounds in complete detail before leaving. It's not really that hard to do. You especially should book CGs well in advance. You could just hook up and head off into the unknown but will likely at some point not find a CG and end up in a Walmart lot, rest stop or worse. Hours of travel per day depends a bit on age. I try to limit driving to 3-4 hours a day with only an occasional 7-8 hour drive. If you are not on a tight timeline to get back home, build in some time on each day's trip so you can make unplanned stops for interesting places you come across and for rest stops. If you have time, plan for a 2-3 night layover at some places like say Yellowstone Park for ex. The I-5 corridor is not good for finding CGs and as mentioned. There is a lovely KOA just north of San Fran. that allows for a day drive into town with the truck. (Expect to have trouble finding parking there with a truck though, lol.) If you can make to Vegas, you simply have to do it! It's such a ridiculously crazy place. There are CGs nearby. I know the Thousand Trails there has a shuttle bus to the Casinos as that's the CG we're staying at.

Last year was bad for forest fires and this year is looking like it could be as bad or even worse. Be prepared to have to uif needed . I would buy a membership in RPI, Coast to Coast, Thousand Trails or other one so you can find a new place to stay if needed while en route. Many membership CGs have overflow dry camping spots and won't turn you away. We have Thousand Trails and RPI, but there are no TT CGs in the central portion of the US. I highly recommend getting Verizon 4G mifi or alternate so you can get on the internet no matter where you are and having a laptop with you. This way you can get up to date traffic and road condition reports as well as forest fire reports.

Use the internet to completely plan the trip at home. There are websites that have video of sections of highways as well as descriptions (and also traffic reports). Google works for figuring out drive times of each leg of a drive. A GPS helps but don't expect it to be reliable 100% of the time. Myself, I like good ol' paper maps and I sketch the major freeways and highways to be on plus exits to change onto another section of fwy/hwy. Never take a secondary type road unless you have researched it first. It *might* look okay on a map but can be in rough shape with lots of slow/tight turns. I find GPS is better for when you are in a city or town. I still like to see it on a paper map too before heading off into an unknown city (and take the map with you). Do NOT take the trailer into major cities, esp. San Francisco.

Good Sam roadside assistance is good. We already have coverage from the credit card we have so don't have to pay more for using the TT.

Some places have a lot of exits and interchanges crammed into small geographical areas and you need to be really on top of signage, like around San Francisco and southward. Missing an exit can cost a lot of time, gas and aggravation.

California has agricultural inspection stations at various locations and some fruits, vegetables and firewood are banned. California is max. 55 mph if towing a trailer so factor that in when doing time calcs.

If you haven't traveled far afield yet, sooner or later you will come across low voltage at a CG. Get a voltmeter and check the voltage at a pedestal before plugging in. Normal is 120 volts, and the absolute lowest you should allow is 104 volts (some say 102). A plug-in voltmeter inside in a permanent location is a really good idea to monitor the voltage. Low voltage can damage AC units. An EMS unit like those from Progressive Industries are cheap insurance against the different power problems that can happen (open neutral, open ground, reversed polarity, high/low voltage, surges). If the voltage is too low in a CG, a Hughes autoformer can be used to boost the voltage and keep you running.

You're gonna have a fantastic trip! Don't forget to post a report when you get home. ;)

I haven't seen anyone mention staying at casino parking lots along the way. The vast majority of them welcome RVers and parking is free. Plus there is usually a cheap buffet when you get tired of eating RV cooked food. In CA, there seems to be a casino an hour along the major (and minor) highways. However, RV camping near the major cities (LA (Disneyland, U Studio), SFran and SD) can be difficult to find and expensive when you do find it.

Thanks all.

Truck is a newer F-150 with tow package with some payload to spare after a hooking up a Jayco 26BH. We're light travellers, dragged our boys (8 and 10) around Europe for a month late last year with just backpacks for all of us. The plan is to keep the RV trimmed to the bare essentials but only time will tell.

Awesome tip about the passports. We're experienced international travellers, but that is a very easy item to forget when driving!!

myredracer: Were you able to get the Verizon device before you were in a US?

Wow, exciting trip! We are next door in Alberta, have done quite a bit of travelling in the NW of USA where we always had a good time. Friendly people. Our tent trailer was perfect for the climate. Except when venturing into hot country. At Yellowstone we poured pails of water over each other.

Our visit to Disneyland and Joshua Tree park was by airplane and rental car. Also very nice but I was shocked at the heat in the desert. We could only stand being away from air conditioning for half an hour at a time - in November. The coast was great - we even had the beach near Disneyland pretty well all to ourselves because it was too cold for the locals, just right for us.

Cell phone - call your Canadian provider and ask about a month of roving in the US. Usually very reasonable. Be aware of its data limits and keep an eye on your phone's usage. Or turn off the cellular data and just use wifi when available.

jason26 wrote:

myredracer: Were you able to get the Verizon device before you were in a US?

No, you have to get it in the US somewhere as it doesn't work across the border. We bought the little mobile hotspot device at a Verizon store in a mall in Wa. but they have standalone stores all over the place too. We have their pay-as-you-go plan and buy another refill card when we start to run out. The cards are widely available in stores in the US. This plan is great for RV-ers if you don't need the service in the off-season.

We're pretty close to the border and camp a lot in the US. It is REALLY nice to have internet pretty much anywhere we go. Hasn't been very often so far that we couldn't get a signal. Verizon has the best coverage across the US if you compare theirs to other providers. One thing I would point out is that it's not a good idea to download videos or you'll be buying a refill card fairly soon. Once you are spoiled by the 4G network, you'll find that wifi in a CG is next to useless and you'll never want to use it again.

Oh right, as olygene mentioned, casinos can be a good place for an overnight layover (or a few days) and dining out at their buffets. We're staying at one in Canyonville in Or. this summer and I think another one somewhere along the trip. Stayed at one in Reno last year for 5 nights right next to the casino hotel. Happened to be the same time as the Burning Man thing - lots of strange looking people and RVs...