RVing in the summer holiday's. HELP?

Wow -- what an awesome trip!!!!! My advice for Oregon is to get reservation at state campgrounds. There are private RV parks, expensive, and not always available either. About January/February, go to the state campground webpages and make the reservations. They fill up fast on the Oregon coast.....:)

Have a great time!!!!

In Indiana, you can only make reservations at the state parks and state recreation areas 6 months out. On holiday, they are booked solid, very difficult to get in if you've not made reservations early.

Reservations are not needed anywhere between November and March, as almost all state parks and recreation areas are available, but no water anywhere and restrooms are closed up. But the rates are dirt cheep, and just drive on in.

G'Day! Weekends and holidays are the only times where campsites are difficult to find, or in very popular areas like Yellowstone. Summer holidays include: Memorial Day (last Monday in May), 4th of July, Labor Day (1st Monday in Sept) you should have reservations. We usually make reservations at a commercial campground (like KOA) for holidays in non popular tourist areas to avoid crowds. Otherwise we travel during the week and arrive early in the day. We use www.woodalls.com to find campgrounds then use www.rvparkreviews.com to check reviews. Also www.recreation.gov lists all the US national parks, forest service and corps of engineers campgrounds. Any places you want to visit in the south I would go the earlier the better. It gets very hot in FL and TX after June. Enjoy your trip!

wow what a trip. I can tell you the southeast gets very hot in the summer. That said we were just at disney in Orlando fl in August. It was crowded and hot but with a little planning and preparation it was completely do-able. As others have said holidays do book well in advance. Summer break from school does make for busier campgrounds so I would at least plan out some reservations in advance especially for more popular campgrounds. If you hit disney in fl, fort wilderness is a great campground but will definitely require reservations well in advance. Some good websites for checking out campgrounds are rvparkreviews.com and campgroundgallery.com. Most states and cities have online visitor websites that are great resources for checking out what each area has to offer and what times of the year offer better experiences. Have a safe and exciting trip!

I mosey around sans reservations, mindful of the summer holidays; Memorial Day/July 4th/Labor Day weekends. I've found U.S. Campgrounds./info to be most helpful in my travels. Not only do I prefer the space and natural ambiance offered at Federal/State/City&County parks, but there are numerous hidden gems known mainly by the locals who apparently have somewhere else to go during the holidays.

I think both ways would offer problems. AND while the others think of reservations, I would really recommend not doing them. Its just to stressful - having to be at point X one Day X and trying to remember where your suppose to be on the next.
Lets say you want to see the Grand Canyon and the RV parks in the area are full, so find a place nearby, park and rent a car and drive in. Cost a bit more in money but
I would start in LA and head east as the summer months can be brutal mid summer, and the bad spring storms will still be east of you.
You didn't say what you were traveling in. Are you renting RVs, bringing them, tenting. (If your tenting, you should have no problems finding spots to camp.)
Lastly once your here, come on this forum and say I'm here in X, what should we check out. You might find that there are tons of local sites that would be awesome to see.
I just finished reading A Sunburned County and would love to circumnavigate your country.
If you hit the Seattle area, let me know and I'll come hug your neck and give you a tour of my neck of the world. Just bring a raincoat.

Roy&Lynne wrote:
I think both ways would offer problems. AND while the others think of reservations, I would really recommend not doing them. Its just to stressful - having to be at point X one Day X and trying to remember where your suppose to be on the next.
Lets say you want to see the Grand Canyon and the RV parks in the area are full, so find a place nearby, park and rent a car and drive in. Cost a bit more in money but
I would start in LA and head east as the summer months can be brutal mid summer, and the bad spring storms will still be east of you.
You didn't say what you were traveling in. Are you renting RVs, bringing them, tenting. (If your tenting, you should have no problems finding spots to camp.)
Lastly once your here, come on this forum and say I'm here in X, what should we check out. You might find that there are tons of local sites that would be awesome to see.
I just finished reading A Sunburned County and would love to circumnavigate your country.
If you hit the Seattle area, let me know and I'll come hug your neck and give you a tour of my neck of the world. Just bring a raincoat.

I hear what you're saying guys about making reservations, especially 6 months, even 1 month in advance. Us Aussies are pretty laid back & just like to go with the flow, especially as we are on holiday, we may want to stop longer somewhere we are really enjoying or kids may get to sick to travel to meet our reserved posy.
We will be travelling in a FW. Is boon docking an option for a night or 2 until we can find a spot?

Boon docking is always an option, I would suggest that you bookmark some sites on your computer so you will have them available.

Ultimate

Mik68 wrote:


I hear what you're saying guys about making reservations, especially 6 months, even 1 month in advance. Us Aussies are pretty laid back & just like to go with the flow, especially as we are on holiday, we may want to stop longer somewhere we are really enjoying or kids may get to sick to travel to meet our reserved posy.
We will be travelling in a FW. Is boon docking an option for a night or 2 until we can find a spot?

We took our kids on a cross-country tour of the U.S. back in 2007. The only reservations we made ahead were at Yellowstone. The rest of the time around 3pm we just looked on the map to determine where we'be in about 2 hours, call them up and make a reservation. Usually we didn't need to give them a credit card and there were a few times when we got there it was a sketchy place, so we just moved on down the road. But you definitely need advance reservations for Memorial Day, July 4th(Independence day), and Labor day weekends.

Definitely keep your plan flexible. Someone sooner or later is gonna need a sick day, or a sick week even. You may find that being on the road daily isn't your cuppa tea. We realized pretty quickly that for every 2 days driving, we needed 2-3 days downtime to relax. Our kids were 12 & 14 at that time and it was very important to have places where they could get out and run around, swim and be safe. We opted not to boondock because I just didn't feel comfortable with them at a rest area, truck stop, or parking lot.

Just remember, there are emergency rooms and Walmarts everywhere. :) We discovered that when we ran out of my son's seizure medicine in San Antonio and when my husband got really, really sick in Las Vegas. And when I got an ear infection and burst an eardrum at Mount St. Helens. And when I scratched a cornea in Seattle. Oy!

Thanks for that Chock full o' nuts, I was hoping that we be the case, everyone has said to book on those holiday weekends you mentioned. We have done an itinerary & realised looking at that, that we need way more down time & less travel time so we are re-evaluating it. Handy hint about Walmart, cheers! We have 3 girls that will be 5, 8 & 10 so won't be taking risks. I have seen that there are other places like some state parks that you can boon dock at. We stayed in one in Washington state or Oregon back in '99 when we were cycle touring. Very excited, cannot wait!