Keeping track of trip itinerary

Google Calendar (for our entire lives) that is synced with the calendar app on our smart phone.

After the trip, I keep a spreadsheet of what campground, what site, notes about the campground, site number + notes about the site, who went with, distance to/from the campground and what it costed us in campground costs.

google calendar (shared with mom) plus blog!

X3 on the Excel Spreadsheet. So easy for me to use and you can add just about anything you can think of including the weather or new friends you met. Also easy to highlight the good points or the bad ones or even color code certain things. It works great for me.

I write things down and also put them in my laptop. But by the time we're ready to leave for our rv trips I've pretty much committed everything to memory. Repetition of the process over the years has helped a lot.

Really, I'm one of those fly by the seat of your pants. I make reservations and then hope when I get there that I've made it for the same day I show up. So far so good although once I showed up a day early it really didn't matter, they had room.
Sometimes I'll just jot it down on the calendar we keep in the rig.

We keep a blog and I have a spreadsheet that I keep track of all the campgrounds we have stayed at with dates,, cost and remarks. I also keep a goggle map of the routes we have driven. Probably a little over kill but I enjoy it.

I use a manilla envelope for it which I write what trip it may be for dates, etc. I print out all of the reservations, local stuff we want to see, any other information I think we may need, etc. I then place it in the envelope in order based on date. We leave the wife gets into it and rearranges it to some order that only she understands and no other human being can follow nor make sense of. Usually I review it at the end of each day so I know where I am going the next day, find I can't understand it, hand it to her and she is now in charge of getting us from place A to place B. Unless I feel like I can take the champ I say something about the mess and then that is when the fight starts. I have to say she is undefeated in her weight class and we have husband and wife for 30 years now.

Another vote for the Excel sheet. Several folks have called me obsessive-compulsive about it. However, it is surprising how often we end up passing by a place we were once before, and I find it handy to have noted where the good campgrounds, easy-access fuel stops, and lousy road surfaces are.

bigblueok wrote:

doxiemom11 wrote:
We are fulltime and we do not make reservations. At first we planned the entire route to our destination and campgrounds we wanted to stay at. We not plan from one stop to the next. We have a general ides of direction and route, but nothing is set in stone. We stop when we feel like it.

Do you just travel from one campground to another until you find a site?

We do the same except if we really need to be at a certain place - like visiting family. If you pull into a campground before 3pm you'll get a site. Our driving days are typically 9-3. We've never had to drive and drive to find a site.

Those that drive long days - well, that's another story.

Way back when we were still working folks, campgrounds really didn't use the reservation system that much and we love public parks. Even though we'd leave on Friday at 5pm - even on 3-day holiday weekends, we still seemed to get a site in the park that we wanted. I really can't recall not getting a site.

Nowdays people seem to want those reservations and make them a year in advance. Many times they won't even use those reservations and the empty space just sits there.

Since we're now retired we have lots of time so on the 3-day holidays and really, any weekend, we find a favorite scenic campground early in the week (no reservations) and typicall away from water activities on those holidays so that it's nice and quiet. We let the campground working warriors have their fun on those weekends and we stay out of it!

bigblueok wrote:
Do you just travel from one campground to another until you find a site?

Campgrounds are rarely full, unless it's a holiday weekend. Usually one stop is good enough.