Strict schedule or flexible travel out west

As many of you know, I am a reservation guy. I like to know that I will have the site I want at a place I want and not have to worry about it. Sometimes plans change but rarely have for us in 17 years part time (3-4 months a year) of this wonderful RV life. I don't want to spend my time looking for sites when I could be hiking or photo shooting or whatever. And I don't want to be next to the dump station. And I believe in what someone once said - the trip comes in three parts; the planning, the doing and the remembering.

We did that trip about 5 years ago. Only reservations were for places we planned to staying at for a while - like Yellowstone & Mount Rushmore area. I planned the hours I wanted to drive each day and looked to see if there were campgrounds just off the freeway. Never made reservations for those and always got a spot. We did it in just over 2 weeks.

Absolutely the best trip we ever took and plan to do this again when longer time away is available. If you get closer to the end of Sept or October it could be pretty cold and snow.

After years of RVing, including 3 trips to the west coast from Vermont, we have rarely reserved sites in advanced. The exceptions are holiday weekends and campgrounds where we wanted to stay for a specific event. Even then, a few days ahead of time works well. We have only had to go to a second choice campground a couple of times.

We usually start looking for a CG about 3:00PM and stop before 4:00PM. There is usually plenty of space.

We did a combination of the 2 options on our two trips out west. We made some reservations on weekends, holidays or in popular areas and otherwise just arrived Sun-Thurs and early in the afternoon. We would decide where we would stop the next day the night before, and on the way there we would call to make sure they have available sites. Worked out well.

I want to thank all of you for the quick and experienced replies. We will probably wait until we get started on the trip and make some reservation calls as we get closer to the nightly destinations. Like you've said, you never know how much you'll feel like staying in one spot, or how many miles you'll drive on a particular day.

Living in Michigan, as I was growing up, I always thought that if you were south of Tenn., the winters would be mild and somewhat warm. Boy, was I wrong on that. We've spent the last two winters ( Jan-Feb ) in the Ft. Myers area and it even had cool weather at times. Nights going into the 30's 40's. Doesn't look like you can even rely on Texas for guaranteed warm weather. Now it doesn't seem like such a stretch for Jamaica to have a Bobsled team. Probably see an Aruba ice hockey team in the near future.

A man can be right or he can be happy. IMHO if your DW wants reservations better make reservations.

Yup, a happy wife makes a happy life. (Been married 52 years - in our house the dog gets 3 votes, the wife gets 2 and I get 1)....and I just smile and nod.

A strict schedule is going to drive you nuts, turn something that should be enjoyable into a high-stress job. But it sounds like not having a schedule is going to be a problem for your wife, at first.

My wife was the same way about this, so for her needs I planned our long trips hour by hour, travel time, and times and locations for eating, camping, gas station and rest stops and for sightseeing. It would not take long, often the first day, when something came up as a tourist stop that would break the schedule. Within three days, we could be four days off, and it was all stuff she wanted to do "we have to see this on this trip, we won't be coming this way again."

Humor her to start with, I think you'll find the real experience self correcting.

Once you get a few years of travel under your belt, you'll learn that all travel has to be flexible. Even on escorted travel, the most prized ability in a tour manager, program director, cruise director (whatever they call the guy) is the ability to be flexible, adjust the schedule to deal with the problems that arise, roll with the punches. Travel halted by erupting volcano. Destination closed by bad weather. Highway closed by civil disturbance. They are shooting a movie at one of the places you were supposed to visit. As the flexible part of your travel team, you will be the one to handle these.

I really think it will be self correcting too.Wife likes the reservation making.Me not so much.Several times we had to for go seeing something along the way because of her reservations.We don't make them now unless it's for a long stay close to where we are site seeing.now we are both happy campers.I drive and she points.

For some national park sites reservations are good idea. Even in fall I needed them in Zion Watchman campground. Mid winter not so much at Zion. I'd recommend them for popular campgrounds in Yosemite, Grand Teton, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon during busier times. There may be other campgrounds in these parks available.

I did the Oregon Coast last summer without reservations. It worked because I stopped early in the afternoon, and that I have a small class C which fit into leftover spots. Umpqua Lighthouse an example (last site available just fit my 24'). Other times I stayed at well located but not first tier RV parks. Oceanside RV park Gold Beach OR. comes to mind-and had plenty of spots on summer afternoon-and a fine stay.

Enroute through the big country, I usually don't have reservations and have not needed them. I usually plan my stop around lunchtime and try to stop in mid afternoon.