Advanced trip planning? Yes or no?

[deprived]

We hit the road full-time last July with almost nothing of a plan. It worked because we stayed away from tourist spots. Also late summer/fall is sort the end of the high season for most campgrounds. We moved about once a week and we rarely, if ever, had trouble getting a space.

Winter will be spent in Austin, Texas while we wait out the cold and make a few bucks before hitting the road again in early April. I imagine every RV in America will be heading out at the same time, which might make non-advanced reservations a little more difficult.

How much advance reservations to most of you do? As RVing becomes more popular, are parks becoming more difficult to get in to? Do you plan every move ahead of time?

Or do you prefer to wing it and press your luck?

It's a tough balance between spontaneity and spending the night in the parking lot of a Flying J.


Thanks and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

[petendoll]

I never have problems finding sites during the week most anywhere we go. Stop early and most places have spots. I have done the reservation thing before and I have lost hundreds of dollars because we couldn't make it for one reason or other. We do reserve one day in advance if we can in some locations but for dates out several months, it hasn't worked out very well for us. Something always seems to come up to interfere. We don't mind campsites without utilities so that opens up a whole bunch of spots for you if you don't mind that.

[deprived]

djgarcia wrote:

Can some one help me understand how making reservations in any way alters or restricts anyone from being a free spirit

I'm pretty sure no one said that.

[dahkota]

If I know there is a place I want to stay and I know sites are hard to get, I will reserve in advance. For example, we made reservations at Death Valley three months ago for February because we wanted an electric hook up - just in case it was hot - we have a dog. We got the last site available.

If I know there is a place I want to stay with a particular view or a particular site configuration, I reserve when the site becomes available. I have a site in July with a beautiful view over Flathead Lake. The campground is now full for the week we chose.

If it is Memorial Day, Fourth of July, or Labor Day and we plan to be in a tourist area or we know we will be in a campground, we reserve in advance. Last year we didn't and ended up at an awful park in CT for Memorial Day trying to dodge millions of caterpillars. Yuck.

We stay mostly in state and federal parks and only reserve private parks in advance for special events.

[Flapper]

As others have noted, it depends on the season and location.

On our 3 wk trip to Acadia (Maine) from Minn., we could have gotten a spot anywhere we went, in May...until the Memorial Day weekend hit on the return leg, and had to have 3 nights reserved, even though we only needed a one night spot. Absolutely no alternative in the area we were in.

For our June/July trip from San Francisco to Portland, reservations were a must, except for the one night stops from Minn. to the coast, and back. But everywhere up the coast - gotta have them, and well ahead, unless you like burning hours each day calling ahead trying to find a spot, any spot.

For the early May trip to Gulf Shores AL and Louisiana, again had to have reservations months ahead for the destination. On the road, none really needed.

For Sept-Oct Colorado/Utah - needed reservations virtually every night, made months ahead. Saw many, many turned away at Buena Vista, Durango, Monument Valley, Zion, Bryce, Moab.

[MarkTwain]

Making advance RV reservations--
Can some one help me understand how making reservations in any way alters or restricts anyone from being a free spirit, wandering any where they want, when ever they want??? I think that I am missing or not fully understanding the reservation issue.
Thats what the "cancellation button" was made for, just check the cancellation policy when you make the reservations. Just wondering:):):)

[Captain_Happy]

In all the years I've been RVing, I think I've made 2 reservations. The first place way a dump, and second was an RV park in Hurricane, Utah (Nice one)which has one good park period. And the only reason I stayed there was because I was visiting friends I made over the summer. Other then that, I just wing it.

[wanderingbob]

No plans is how we plans , that way there are no disappointments ! You will not miss something that you never had ! All plans fall by the wayside at the first red light !
In mid-January we hope to head west on highway 84 , where to ? Maybe Natchez then south into Cajun country . No real plans , we will just see what pops up . Keeping the south safe from all those infiltrating Yankees , thousands of em !

[2gypsies1]

You stated you began in July and had no problems finding sites because you stayed away from tourist spots.

So.... you're leaving in April and are concerned? What will you be doing differently? Will you now hit the tourist spots? If you do what you did in July you'll have no issues.

We didn't make reservations for our 16 years of full-timing unless we definitely had to be somewhere at a specific time such as visiting family. Honestly, we never had a problem and we even went to many national parks and up to Alaska.

If you're flexible as to where you stay and if you don't need to be where the tourist go then you'll do just fine without reservations.

Plan to travel Sunday through Wednesday and have your weekend spot on Thursday. Never try to move on a Friday or weekend.

For the major 3-day holidays, pick places with absolutely no water such as rivers, lakes, pools. That's where the vacationers will be. Find a nice quiet off the main roads RV park or a public campground. If you're in the western states there is plenty of public lands to boondock - national forest and BLM lands.

Try it. You'll be surprised.

[tonyandkaren]

TexasShadow wrote:
we limit our reservations to places that are heavily visited...like yellowstone, custer state park, yosemite, grand canyon, etc.
if you don't need full hookups, there are LOTS of campgrounds to choose from.
if you stop a bit early...like 3 or 4 p.m., you will find better sites to choose from.
if you are not absolutely against overnight stops at rest areas, walmarts or flying j truck stops, etc. then you're free of the worry of not finding an acutal campground for the one night stay.

This is about the extent of our planning too.
We also do a lot of dispersed camping on public land.

[arhayes]

We never pull into a campground without a reservation BUT the reservation may have been made that morning from the road!! We don't plan too far in advance as we often find neat things to do in an area and stay longer.

As far as advance reservations go, we Always make them for high traffic venues and around holidays (Memorial, 4th of July etc). You'll also want to take into consideration Spring Break in the area you will be in as that often makes nice RV resorts less available so you'd want to plan ahead. We've been on the road for 2 1/2 yrs now full-time and this has worked for us.

[BarbaraOK]

Reservations for Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, way ahead of schedule because people go out on those weekends in the PNW. For a lot of the rest of the summer, we do membership parks, so we just pick weeks, match with which park we want, and get out site online. When traveling through an area, we only do 200-250 miles a day and try to stop by 2:00 pm. Usually call about noon or 1:00 pm to see if they have room, almost always not a problem because we are ahead of everyone else stopping for the night. Stopping early also means we are all set up and get to watch everyone else try to jockey to get in - we can watch rather than be part of the afternoon entertainment. :W

[Dutch_12078]

For our winter state park stays in Florida, we start making our reservations 11 months ahead of time the moment the reservation windows open. The private park we stay at the longest in FL, we'll make next years reservation when checking in this year to insure getting a site we prefer. For other parts of the country at other times of the year, we only make reservations at popular destinations and/or for holidays. Everything else is pretty much call as we go, or at most a day ahead of time.

[happynow]

It depends a good bit on what area you are traveling to.
We visited National Parks and popular attraction area's last year.
We would not be inclined to head to popular areas without reservations.
We are in our 2nd year of full time rv travel, moving often to see this amazing country we live in.
For us, planning and research campgrounds and rv resorts in advance has worked very well. We generally make reservations for travels from April until October, leaving gaps in areas we want
some flexibility.
Id suggest reservations during that timeframe in any popular area's.

[Aridon]

Let me ask you something, you might be able to wing it going to a popular area at a popular time but you certainly won't save any money and you very well might not find a spot where you want to be. So how important is it to you to be where you want to be and how happy will you be if you have to pay double to go somewhere else or sleep in a truck stop because places are full?

Maybe it will work out, maybe it won't but I wouldn't take a chance.