RV Trip Planning

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Things to Consider: 

When planning an RV trip, we think carefully about the weather conditions of our desired destinations, how busy the tourist season might be, and how much total time we want to spend on the road.  We don't love dry camping so we rarely camp in the winter. And unless we can plug into a 30 AMP pole, we can't run our AC. So we prefer to travel in temperatures between 40-80 degrees Farenheit if possible. We also don't like being in places at the height of tourist season, so traveling in late spring or early fall works well for us. And we have found that for longer trips, being on the road for about 6 weeks (give or take a few days) at a time is what we prefer, although we have traveled for longer times (e.g., our 2024 trip out west), as well as shorter getaways (e.g., our 2023 trip to Virginia). Regardless of the length, we follow the same process for trip planning. 

Pre-Trip Planning: 

We use a combination of apps, books, online resources, and spreadsheets to plan our trips. While we list the planning process in some sort of order here, we often go back and forth among all the steps below: 

1. We start by using either Roaptrippers Trip Planner  or RV Life Trip Wizard.  We have found that paying for the Pro versions of both of these are well worth the cost. Both offer a variety of features, some overlapping and some unique, such as  an RV-friendly GPS programs while driving, campground reviews, reminders of when to stop for gas, highlights along the road, etc. For initial trip planning, we generally start with Roadtrippers, but when on the road and for campground reviews, we rely on RV Life Trip Wizard. So we tend to first plan the trip with Roadtrippers and then duplicate the final version in RV Life Trip Wizard.  The great thing about both programs is that they offer a listed itinerary with driving times between destinations  and a map itinerary to see the trip visually. And while both of these apps are meant to support RV travel, they would definitely be useful for people traveling by car and either tenting or staying in hotels. 

2. Our strategy is to build the the trip by first adding ALL the places we hope to see on the trip. As we move through the process, we remove some of the places based on the three main factors listed above: weather, time, and avoiding high tourist seasons.  We generally only put in the starting date initially to try to figure out how long we will need on the road. 

3. As we start our mappinp and decision-making of what we want to see and where we want to stay, we draw on several sources, including online web searches (e.g., Google), ebooks, apps, and printed books. 

   • Ebooks: For ebooks, we have found the books by Mike and Jen Wendland of RV Lifestyle to be very helpful. The only caveat is that many of the links are no longer valid, so we have to Google some of the places they suggest to get updated information.  

   • Printed books: We use a variety of printed books, including: 

     • Lonely Planet's USA's National Parks (paid link). This is an excellent resource for those looking to visit the National Parks. 

     • Lonely Planet's Zion & Bryce Canyon National Parks (paid link). This book focuses on Zion and Bryce, but also covers some of Canyonlands and Arches. 

     • RV Camping in State Parks (paid link). We use this book a lot because we love staying in State Parks. They are often beautiful, affordable, and quiet places to camp. 

     • Corps of Engineer Camping (paid link): This book is really helpful in finding camping in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers areas in 35 states. 

   • APPs and Websites: In addition to Roadtrippers and RV Trip Wizard, there are so many apps and websites to use in trip planning. Some of uur favorites are: 

     • Harvest Hosts/Boondockers Welcome: This is one of our favorite apps for finding overnight parking spots. To access the thousands of free overnight parking spots, you need to be a paid member and have a fully self-contained RV. We have found the fee well worth the cost. This program provides a safe and fun way to stay over at individual people's homes (Boondockers Welcome) or at commercial establishments (Harvest Hosts).  

     • Recreation.gov: This website helps you make reservations for camping and activities at National Parks . The app is free , but we recommend paying for an American the Beautiful National Parks Pass in advance if you are going to be visiting any of the parks. We have the lifetime senior pass and love using it! 

     • Campendium: A great resource for finding campgrounds, this website and app are connected to Roadtrippers. You can use the app for free but we get this through our paid Roadtrippers subscription.  

     • The Dyrt: Similar to Campendium, The Dyrt is very helpful in finding campgrounds. You can use the app for free or pay for extra features. 

     • RVOvernights: This is a similar program to Harvest Hosts. Being a newer platform, they have fewer options. 

     • Good Sams: Good Sams offers many benefits, including discounted shopping at Camping World and RV Insurance. But for trip planning purposes, they also have a search feature that shows campgrounds where Good Sam members can get a discount to stay. 

     • KOA: We were initially skeptical about staying at KOA campgrounds, but they have proven to be a very reliable place to stay. We have found the yearly membership to be worth the cost, and have enjoyed many relaxing stays at KOA campgrounds, particularly as they usually have nice shower and laundry facilities. 

4. Once we have figured out what stops we want to make and where we want to camp, we consider how much time we want to spend at each stop and start making reservations. For some national and state parks, we put a tickler on our calendar so that we can make reseravations as soon as they are available. 

5. Our last step of pre-trip planning is to create a spreadsheet in Google Docs that includes the dates, destination name, travel distance and time from the previous stop,  where we will be camping and types of hook-ups we reserved, the date we made the reservation, notes, cost of campground, and  how much we have paid and still owe. We also write some of this information into a printed calendar as well as onto our phone's calendar so that we know exactly where we are going while on the road. Having all this information organized and recorded in a variety of places also makes sharing our itinary with family and friends much easier. 

Planning While on the Road: 

While we plan out most of our trip prior to leaving, and we like to have a good idea of where we will be stopping on any given day, we often leave a few nights open so that we can find places along the route. We also tend not to plan out the details of our days until we are nearing our next destination. In other words, the pre-planning process lays out the structure of the trip. But we plan a lot of the trip details while on the road. 

A major strategy we use during our trips is to stop at visitor centers as soon as we arrive in park or town. We have found that park rangers and visitor center staff are great at helping us plan our visit. We also read up online or in books about what we might want to see in any given place. 

While we sometimes purchase event or activity tickets in advance to ensure entry, we have found that if we can wait until we arrive at any given destination rather than making those purchases in advance, is a often a better stratagy. For example, when in Maine, we purchased our tickets to drive up Cadillac Mountain in advance. The result was that we drove to the top of the mountain on a cloudy day and had zero visibility. In contrast, when we traveled to New Hampshire, we waited to purchase tickets to the Cog Railway until we were there and had a sense of the weather. That way, we were able to pick a day with clear skies and were rewarded with great views of the White Mountains. 

In addition to using the books and apps/websites listed above, while on the road we often use the following: 

• NPS App: There are several non-official National Park apps, but we prefer and use the official app from the National Park Service. This app allows us to download entire park information so that when we are off grid, we still have access to important information.  And the app has tons of information about all the national parks.  

• All Trails: This is a great app for finding hiking trails wherever we go. The paid version allows us to download the trails and even an entire area which is critical in areas without cell service. We have found All Trails to be incredibly helpful! 

• IOverlander: For people who enjoy boondocking, IOverlander is a very helpful app to find spots to stay overnight. The app is based on other people's experiences so make sure you do your research before staying somewhere!

We are always pleasantly surprised when our trip goes as planned. But we have hit several bumps in the road during our travels and have had to pivot. All of the tools we use to plan our trips are very useful in helping us adjust our plans on the road. The only other resources we need are a good sense of humor and an appreaciation for unplanned adventures!