Good Sam Trip Planner question

Depending on where you are, and what you drive, it can matter a great deal what you use for routing software. Near big cities and along the east coast you can get into a lot of trouble if you don't account for a rig's height, width, weight, propane, and type. From Richmond VA to Portland Maine. For example, one of the most beautiful roads in NY, the Taconic State Parkway. It was built to allow easy travel to and between some of NY's most beautiful parks and campgrounds. DO NOT use it with anything other than a small van size or truck camper. You'll be lucky if a sheriff or state trooper pull you over before you crash into, or have to try to turn around before, one of its beautiful stone archway bridges. Trailers are also not allowed. Not even small cargo trailers. And the fine is substantial. But guess what road most GPS's will select for "avoid tolls" when headed to or from the Adirondacks and NYC. Yeah, the Taconic.

Bottom line: a good GPS, designed for RVs will add to your peace of mind. But even if you do have one, they are not fool proof. You still have to be alert. It seems as if every year, some idiot slams into the only low bridge on the Onondaga Lake Parkway, outside Syracuse, on a road that is less than 5 miles long, with plenty of alternative routes as well as warning signs, lights that blink if you are over height, and even chains that hit the top of your vehicle half a mile before the bridge.

"Be Careful Out There"

oklatraveler wrote:

DougA wrote:

oklatraveler wrote:
Updated question: We'll be going from Branson, MO to Robbers Cave State Park in Wilburton, OK. I'm not interested in points of interest type things, just how the roads are. So if using the Good Sam trip planner is it going to give me the best roads to use for a RV/trailer?

Hi, I use the Good Sam's planner all the time. I especially like that I can download the planned trip into my Garmin GPS. One important hint: if you want to use a certain road, like if you wanted to follow Old RT 66 across the country, you have to enter more waypoints directly on the route number you want to take. Otherwise the routing software which usually looks for the shortest or fastest time will take you off the route. Google will not allow enough waypoints on one trip to do this, especially if you are planning a multiple day trip with lots of waypoints.

Bottomline, if you use Good Sam and indicate you are driving an RV and input its height, it will try to route you on a "safe" route. There are a few faults though. The data is not rapidly updated for road closures and traffic. This is why I like to download the Good Sam planned route into my Garmin, which is updated with immediate as you go road closures and traffic information. The Garmin can reroute us around these things if necessary.

Ok thank you for that info. Unfortunately we don't have the Garmin..we use Waze on my phone.

oklatraveler wrote:
Updated question: We'll be going from Branson, MO to Robbers Cave State Park in Wilburton, OK. I'm not interested in points of interest type things, just how the roads are. So if using the Good Sam trip planner is it going to give me the best roads to use for a RV/trailer?

While I do understand your concern about the roads is real to you, it isn't as bad as you are making it.

First and foremost, relax.

Second, I would highly recommend getting yourself some paper maps and DIY the travel plans yourself first. These can be individual State maps or an Atlas which contains maps of all States

Paper maps have road type legends which helps you determine the size and type of road. IF a road you come a across while driving that is not on the map, it IS too small and should be avoided. GPS units often will see those too small roads and attempt to map you on them as short cuts.

GPS is nice to have, but is is just another "tool" to use and is not 100% reliable in all cases so don't take the GPS as gospel but us it as a extra means of assisting with the driving process.

You can also use Mapquest or GoogleMaps to assist in getting a general route but to use that while traveling will require a Internet connection all the time.. Both can give you blow by blow directions that can be printed to hard copy before leaving.. But still, myself, my Atlas is my go to tool I use.

Knowledge is power and blindly following a GPS without some Knowledge can result in less than fun trip if you get routed on a too small of a road that deadends 10 miles in or you find a too low of a bridge only 100 yrs from the end of that road.. Road size is important and GPS units are not designed to show you the size of road by default.

Knowing a route upfront can save you a lot of grief, aggravation and high blood pressure..

A nice "primer" on reading maps can be found HERE

A standard of US maps symbols can be found HERE

DougA wrote:

oklatraveler wrote:
Updated question: We'll be going from Branson, MO to Robbers Cave State Park in Wilburton, OK. I'm not interested in points of interest type things, just how the roads are. So if using the Good Sam trip planner is it going to give me the best roads to use for a RV/trailer?

Hi, I use the Good Sam's planner all the time. I especially like that I can download the planned trip into my Garmin GPS. One important hint: if you want to use a certain road, like if you wanted to follow Old RT 66 across the country, you have to enter more waypoints directly on the route number you want to take. Otherwise the routing software which usually looks for the shortest or fastest time will take you off the route. Google will not allow enough waypoints on one trip to do this, especially if you are planning a multiple day trip with lots of waypoints.

Bottomline, if you use Good Sam and indicate you are driving an RV and input its height, it will try to route you on a "safe" route. There are a few faults though. The data is not rapidly updated for road closures and traffic. This is why I like to download the Good Sam planned route into my Garmin, which is updated with immediate as you go road closures and traffic information. The Garmin can reroute us around these things if necessary.

Ok thank you for that info. Unfortunately we don't have the Garmin..we use Waze on my phone.

oklatraveler wrote:
Updated question: We'll be going from Branson, MO to Robbers Cave State Park in Wilburton, OK. I'm not interested in points of interest type things, just how the roads are. So if using the Good Sam trip planner is it going to give me the best roads to use for a RV/trailer?

Hi, I use the Good Sam's planner all the time. I especially like that I can download the planned trip into my Garmin GPS. One important hint: if you want to use a certain road, like if you wanted to follow Old RT 66 across the country, you have to enter more waypoints directly on the route number you want to take. Otherwise the routing software which usually looks for the shortest or fastest time will take you off the route. Google will not allow enough waypoints on one trip to do this, especially if you are planning a multiple day trip with lots of waypoints.

Bottomline, if you use Good Sam and indicate you are driving an RV and input its height, it will try to route you on a "safe" route. There are a few faults though. The data is not rapidly updated for road closures and traffic. This is why I like to download the Good Sam planned route into my Garmin, which is updated with immediate as you go road closures and traffic information. The Garmin can reroute us around these things if necessary.

Updated question: We'll be going from Branson, MO to Robbers Cave State Park in Wilburton, OK. I'm not interested in points of interest type things, just how the roads are. So if using the Good Sam trip planner is it going to give me the best roads to use for a RV/trailer?

I use the MapQuest travel planner along with AllStays for campgrounds. I can find just about anywhere I want to go with a good paper map though.

Thanks everyone.I know when we made our reservation for an RV park in Branson,MO they said don't follow your GPS. They gave us the route which was helpful.

We only travel on back roads, no interstates, and go a max of 300 miles/day. We don’t boondock.
I use Apple Maps, paper maps and the Internet to plan trips. I also make reservations for all our stays. For one nighters, usually use KOA.
I tried the Good Sam planner a few years ago and found it easier to do it my way.

There are two settings on Good Sam planner. One for RV which you can't deviate and one for cars. We use the one for cars and make our own route

You’ll miss a whole bunch of America’s most beautiful areas if you only travel “good” roads. A better plan IMO is if a state doesn’t say “no” to trailers, I take the road. Scenic is my top priority. Ninety-five percent of the Alabama Hills roads are dirt. All dispersed camping is dirt. The road into Big Basin Redwood SP was as narrow and twisty as a paved two lane can get, and (pre-fire) worth every mile. US101 from Northern California to upper Washington has many interesting sections...and unbelievable beauty. You choose!