Getting ready to Hit the Road----finally retired

The internet can help
https://www.campgroundreviews.com/
www.rvparky.com
and some others will give some reviews for different parks, but these reviews can also be like the reviews for anything from movies to restaurants, namely angry or disappointed folks are more often motivated to leave a review than satisfied people, and some reviews are possibly from the owners. You can also use Google earth to look at a sat view of a park and get an idea of how stacked on each other some parks are.
Also a lot of material is now on you tube. Find a park in a given location and check, someone may have done a video on it, and the same can be said for destinations, if you want to visit a recreational area, there are likely a dozen or more rv'ers who have been there and done videos which include where they camped and other information on parks in the area.
Happy huntin

If you are eligible for for a America The Beautiful Senior pass, one of the great places to stay is Corp Of Engineer parks, BLM sites. Many have full hook ups and great scenery.
UScampgrounds.info is a good source for locations.

Welcome to the forum and congratulations on retirement.

There are so many options when traveling. State Parks, National Parks, Army Corp of Engineering campsites, private campgrounds, RV Resorts, and special club member only resorts, etc. They all have benefits and limitations and costs as you can imagine.

I would start before your trip with mapping out your route and then looking at sites like Allstays.com for RV sites along your route. They also include descriptions and reviews which also helps identify what to expect. I also have used google maps to look at aerial views and street views of campgrounds, access routes and roads.

I like the Allstays app on my iPad. This gives me maps and helps make the search easier. Other apps and services are useful too. RvParky, RVParking.com and others.

Let us know what you are towing and where you are headed and someone on here will have an opinion (guaranteed). ....and will gladly share it. Take only the good and ignore the rest.

Again, welcome!

You’ll double your camping options if you can dry camp/boondock for at least a few days. You’ll triple them if your TV, TT and you can handle some easy dirt roads.

enblethen wrote:
If you are eligible for for a America The Beautiful Senior pass, one of the great places to stay is Corp Of Engineer parks, BLM sites. Many have full hook ups and great scenery.
UScampgrounds.info is a good source for locations.

I totally agree.
There are also campgrounds owned by utilities, like PG&E that are VERY nice, well kept gems.

Yes, there is other government campgrounds. TVA has campgrounds at many of their dams.

It really is dependant on you and your needs, wants, expectations, and where you want to travel too. Over the years we have mixed it up from staying at Corps of Engineer Parks with water & electric hooks ups on beautiful lakes, to National/State Parks with same or zero hook ups, to odd higher class resorts closer or in bigger cities where there were target things we wanted to see/do.

Typically we decide which route we are taking, google what there is to do in each area along the way and make our decisions from there. Primarily now we prefer to boondock/disperse camp by choice and really don't enjoy private organized CGs. City Parks we frequent occasionally if available also.

Our go to apps after setting out our route are typically www.ioverlander.com, www.freecampsites.net primarily and if near NFS the MUVM maps or BLM/Trust Lands. When out in the bush we do tend to utilize satellite views to check road access and google for reviews. Then sometimes we will utilize www.campendium.com and www.allstays.com.

We all travel so differently and have different needs. We've done mostly it all and for the most part enjoyed it all, but now find we are drawn more to being rurally near water/mountains liking to fish/kayak and the solitude.

Everyone eventually finds their handful of main go to's for apps to source things that helps them. If you check out a few of the suggested links in these posts, you'll find some more useful for you than others.

Happy & Safe Travels, part of the fun is in the planning.

I use the trip planner at this site often:

https://freecampsites.net/

Congratulations.
I’ll second the COE campgrounds. We also look at state, county and city owned campgrounds that are near where we want to go.
We stay at KOAs for one nighters.
Most resorts are glorified parking lots. Not for us, but lots of folks like them.
If there is only a private place available, I research it as much as possible to avoid the ones that might have a sketchy population.
Enjoy!

Thank you all so much for your advice!!