RV Trip Routing

If you rely solely on the Motor Carriers Atlas you won't be seeing the country. Semi trucks don't typically travel on the scenic routes. In 16 years of full-timing and traveling constantly, we've never gotten caught on a road we shouldn't have and we traveled secondary roads 90% of the time. There are many, many roads that the Atlas says semis should not be on. It has nothing to do with low clearances. Sometimes there's a truck route bypassing a smaller town if they don't want semis driving through town. That has nothing to do with RVs.

If you travel west of the Mississippi you'll have no problems. We use a variety of resources - DeLorme mapping program, Garmin GPS and our favorite is the Benchmark series of individual western state road atlases. We also use the 'Mountain Directory' book. We've never used the Motor Carrier atlas. If we really have a question we'll Google that particular road but again, everyone we've planned we were able to go and we love mountain highways.

It is foolish to think that you can abdicate the responsibility of knowing where your rig will fit to a GPS system or even a Map.

The RMN Common Carriers Atlas does indicate all roads that are safe for a 13'6 trailer. And you can use that with confidence. But once off that "grid" you must know the height of your rig and watch the overheads carefully.

No one will accept the excuse after you have stuck your trailer under a low local RR bridge "well my GPS said it was OK".

I would never ever trust a gps system or GS system to warn me of low clearances. The only AUTHORITY on this in the US is the Motor Carriers Atlas and mileage guide.

Having said that the chances of you running into a low clearance west of the Misssissippi is nil. Non existant if you stick to the interstates. They do exist but most have been redone.

In downtown areas of Chicago, Boston, NYC and some other eastern cities low clearance bridges are much more common. But who takes their TT or MH into downtown Chicago or NY?

You can go anywhere a commercial carrier can go with a 13'6 trailer.

But if you want to really know the low clearance areas stick to the Motor Carriers atlas.

For our recent trip to Colorado I used the Good Sam Trip Planner then downloaded it the GPS. I also used the Mountain Directory on my iPad to look for warnings. Being old school in part, under the back seat was a trusty Rand McNally printed atlas. Never got lost and didn't open the atlas.

I probably had the same one you had, I had the Garmin RV 660LMT with I damaged (totally my fault). I replaced it with the Garmin RV 760LMT with Wireless Backup Camera. The new model has added a lot of useful features that the 660 did not have. I suggest that you check out the new model.


I damaged my Garmin RV 660LMT (totally my fault and replaced it with this, It has a lot of improvements over the older model



Product Packaging: Standard Packaging
7" Display - With a big, 7" high-resolution touchscreen Display, RV 760LMT is easy-to-see inside vehicles of every size
Lifetime MAPS - Businesses open and close. New roads are built. Drive knowing your routes reflect the latest map data available from Garmin
Customized RV Routing - Enter your vehicle's height, weight, length and width. RV 760LMT will guide you along the most suitable routes for most major roads and highways, avoiding RV-related restrictions, such as low bridges
Garmin Real Directions - Garmin Real Directions with Garmin Real VoiceTM guide like a friend, using landmarks, buildings and traffic lights, rather than hard-to-read street names
BCTM 20 Wireless Backup Camera - Transmits images Wirelessly, up to 45 feet, to your RV 760LMT Display, so you can easily spot vehicles, and obstacles (Professional installation recommended. Extension cable may be required for vehicles longer than 45 feet)

My concern with the Goodsam site for this was that I mapped the route from Virginia to Maine, and it gave me a route with a lot of "10'8" height maximums on major roadways which I just don't trust. So really I was looking for something to validate that. I got Co-Pilot, it mapped the same route, and came up with none of those restrictions on my specific route.

I use the Trucker's Atlas to double check Good Sam Trip Planner (I don't find dragging and dropping the waypoints to be a big concern) which I can then download to my Rand McNally 7710.

On this Summer's trip from Florida to Nova Scotia and return via Montreal I had only two Trip Planner warnings. A low clearance at Port Jervis, NY, and a propane warning on one of the bridges at Quebec City.

I e-mailed the City Engineer at Port Jervis and they went out and actually measured the clearance (I was OK) and also recommended a two block detour if I didn't want to chance it. I had my answer in 24 hours.

The propane limit was no more than two cylinders; so it didn't apply.

(There would have been another low clearance on US-9W South of Albany, but I knew about that one and told GSTP to avoid the segment.)

CoPilot looks pretty good. my wife generally navigates, and usually she uses google maps, but man, that has taken us through cities instead of around, taken us off the interstate, down frontage roads, onto single lane roads, and about anything else imaginable that you'd rater not be pulling a 42' camper through.

With our new FW clearance is a legitimate issue will be looking more into this app.

jplante4 wrote:
Most of us do not trust a single source of navigational information anyway, so I suggest any GPS or even the CoPilot app on a tablet and a truckers' (paper) road atlas. I also have Next Exit, which is a book of exactly that; what's at the next exit.

The CoPilot app does allow you to enter vehicle type and height.

This is exactly what I use as well. Can't trust any one app or GPS but so far the co-pilot app has been the best I have used and you can drag to modify the route. If you stay on roads that the trucker's atlas says are truck routes (orange) you'll be fine. Next Exit is a handy resource too.

Jim Shoe wrote:
I have the Trucker's Road Atlas and use it to double check trips. If a semi can fit under it, so can I.

The only problem with the atlas is it doesn't include the backroads you might need to get to that new campground.