Drive time/mileage

I'm trying to figure out where to make campground reservations for our 5 week trip. Since we find we need to stop every 2 hours for a break, we figured we could manage 6 - 7 hours of drive time each day plus breaks for a max of 10 hours on the road - or 400 miles which ever comes first. but now I've had two people tell me to plan on only 4 - 5 hours or 250 miles. What have others found to be realistic? We are pulling a 28' TT and are traveling all the way across the US and back with multiple day stops at several intervals.

I find 400 miles makes for a long tiring day.  Can it be done?  Sure, but it depends on whether thats 400 miles of freeway or 400 miles of mountains.  400 miles when your 40 is far different than 400 miles when your 70.
In my younger days I drove LA to Portland in one day.  Not sure I would want to try it now.

    Whether it is 250 or 500 miles is more dependent on traffic, road design and weather conditions.  However, either will mean that 5 weeks will not allow you to comfortably cross the US and enjoy the trip.  You will merely be waiving at almost all the beautiful sights along the way.  We've done it twice and took 3 months each trip.  And while we were in a MH pulling a toad, as opposed to your TT, some days we traveled over 600 miles, others we traveled less than 100.  We rarely reserved but pulled into campgrounds usually between 3 to 5 PM, and never had a problem finding space, and usually in PA parks.

Ed

I used to do longer but my absolute max now is 8 hours including stops, and there has to be a reason to go that long (nothing I want to see along the way, limited on days, whatever). I never do two of those days in a row. My "normal" max is 6 hours including stops, and I allow a one hour lunch break in there. That allows us to start breaking camp about 8, rolling at 9, pull in to the next overnight at 3, completely settled in a chair with a cool drink by 4, something on the barbie by 5. You can put some miles in, but it doesn't feel like a military mission that way.

On the road by 9 off by 4. 300 miles is a good goal. You can adjust it based on where you are staying the next night. My shortest was 72 miles and longest 450. Average around 300.
Bill

Play around with Google Maps and try setting up a few routes. You can adjust them as you wish, longer or shorter days, more or less miles while bearing in mind the good advise given by others above. 10 hours is way over my limits even in my younger days.

I'm the kind of person who likes the certainty of having reservations.  I quickly gave it up when RVing.  For me, a large part of the point is to enjoy the trip and skip the stress.  Having to make it somewhere because I have a reservation didn't work for that.

We probably average 300 miles a day in good conditions.  When it's getting later in the afternoon, DW pulls out her phone, finds an RV campground not too far ahead, calls them up and makes a reservation then.  If it's not spring break, we've never had a problem with this approach.  It gets us off the road in time to check in, set up, and enjoy a nice happy hour before starting dinner.

We like reservations. To us it is more stressful worrying about where are going to stay each night. Plus during Spring Break and all Summer it is a little harder to get reservations. Not impossible, just harder. Anyways we are currently on an 8 to 9 month trip from Florida to Alaska and back. We are in the 3rd month now. We made reservtions all the way to Seattle going across the Southern states and up through CA, OR and WA. Stops were based on about 3 to 5 hours of driving when using Google Maps. Keep in mind that Google assumes you will be in a car and doing the posted speed limit. However we travel at a much slower speed, even on interstates. We usually go about 62 no matter what is posted. So like in TX where you can do 80 we still went 62. But weather, construction and traffic can make that take longer too. If it was too far to a destination, then we would make a reservtion or a night or 2. Mostly 2 because we really don't care to set up and tear down for only a night. Most destinations we would then stay at for 4 to 7 days. For instance 2 of our destinations were New Orleans (4 nights) and San Antonio (7 nights). Per Google, these 2 cities are about 8 hours apart by car. So we stopped in Beaumont, TX for a night. We also like to leave a big city after rush hour and be off the road by 3 to 4pm. There is not a right or wrong way to do it. It is all about your personal comfort level. However safety is most important.

What they all said.  250 miles is great.  300 bearable.  Over 300 I'm crying.

My planning rule of thumb is 50 mph average.  Google Maps or GPS plus 2 hours.

I'm headed for Yellowstone in a couple of weeks.  My planning process is:
-Lay out route start to finish.
-Look for interesting places along the way and alternate route home.  Plan multiple day stops there.
-Then stick in additional stops to keep it under 300 miles.

Unsolicited testimonial: I really like RVTripWizard. You can put in range rings so it's easy to see about where you want to stop and the campgrounds around there.  Supplement with RVParkReviews and Google Maps.

Joel

I would not plan to do more than 300 miles a day (we prefer 250), but if you stop for 2-3 days you may not mind doing a 350-400 mile day after that. I wouldn't choose to do so, but if you only have 5 weeks for the round trip, some long travel days are probably needed. 5 weeks is NOT at all generous for a 6000 mile RV trip, especially when you want to be able to spend extra time in at least several great places (Yellowstone, etc).

A lot depends on you, but one of the best things about RVing is leisurely travel. Spend time in the campground or sightseeing rather than driving long miles most days.

If you want to make reservations (and it is advisable in high tourist areas or for holiday weekends), make them  a few days in advance as you go along. For a few places or for holiday weekends you may need more advance planning, but in between you can usually email or call ahead, sometimes the same day. That way you don't have to plan your timing quite so strictly.

If you want to make reservations (and it is advisable in high tourist areas or for holiday weekends), make them  a few days in advance as you go along. For a few places or for holiday weekends you may need more advance planning, but in between you can usually email or call ahead, sometimes the same day. That way you don't have to plan your timing quite so strictly.

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Generally true. But in Colorado State Parks, on weekends (Thu-Sat nights) in spring through fall, and holidays, you'll probably have to make reservations six months in advance. Usually they fill up on the first or second day that reservations can be made (six months in advance). I suspect there are other state parks the same way. But for most other places, Gary has it right.

I love seeing the differences between full timers and weekend warriors, sightseers and destination seekers.

In our current position, we are weekend warrior destination seekers. Our last major trip was 700 miles each way. We blasted off on a Thursday evening and arrived Friday morning. I took a quick nap while my wife took the kids to see her friend and then it was game on for the weekend. We left on a Monday morning and got back to the house that night then it was back to work on Tuesday.

My dad is now a full time RV'er. He drives until he doesn't want to anymore. If he sees an interesting town or sight, he pulls over to check it out. Sometimes he does 500 miles a day, sometimes he does 50. I'm envious of the freedom that he has!

joelmyer said:

Unsolicited testimonial: I really like RVTripWizard.

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Ah.  This is a website.  I tried searching for it on iPhone Apps and was quite surprised by what turned up. 
Looks like a useful site - thanks for the tip!

Sibermom said:

I'm trying to figure out where to make campground reservations for our 5 week trip. Since we find we need to stop every 2 hours for a break, we figured we could manage 6 - 7 hours of drive time each day plus breaks for a max of 10 hours on the road - or 400 miles which ever comes first. but now I've had two people tell me to plan on only 4 - 5 hours or 250 miles. What have others found to be realistic? We are pulling a 28' TT and are traveling all the way across the US and back with multiple day stops at several intervals.

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Sibermom
I cruise at 60 MPH on interstate highways and find that we average 50 miles per hour, (including rest stops, fuel stops, lunch stops etc.).
Some days we travel for as few as 3 hours, (150 miles).. and sometimes as many as 16 hours, (800 miles)... with 5-8 hours being the average daily drive.

While traveling to a particular far away location we don't make overnight campground reservations along the way... we overnight in rest areas in truck stops or at Walmart etc.... wherever we are when we decide to stop for the night.
Mel
'96 Safari, (148K miles) 

lone_star_dsl said:

My dad is now a full time RV'er.
He drives until he doesn't want to anymore. If he sees an interesting town or sight, he pulls over to check it out. 
I'm envious of the freedom that he has!

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lone_star_dsl
That's how many of us retirees, (old folks with a lot of time), travel.
Reservations require planning...and planning is one of the things I no longer have to do.

lone_star_dsl said:

I love seeing the differences between full timers and weekend warriors, sightseers and destination seekers.

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I guess I would fall in to the "destination seeker" category. As a couple have mentioned I like having reservations, at least for now. As a "planner" it's actually more stressful for me not knowing where we're going and/or what the campsite/park is like. I'm not satisfied with just having someplace to park, I want to have a place that adds to the traveling experience, not somewhere that detracts. As someone who doesn't fulltime, this well may change as we are less schedule sensitive.

In June we're launching on the longest trip I've ever taken in an RV, about 4,000 miles and 47 days. But, necessarily, the entire route is planned and reserved (although there are some "extra" days and overlaps thrown in for some wiggle room). Destinations include Bryce, Zion, Yellowstone and coastal Oregon, much of which is now booked up. Yellowstone was booked 6 months ago. As it was, in UT, WA and OR I had to go to my second and third choices sometimes as my first choices were already unavailable. Also, because many of our stays are in state and federal parks, planning included alternating dry and full-hookup camping to replenish and dump.

We're contemplating a 3-4 month trip starting in January across the southern US, something over 5,000 miles. I'm going to try and 'loosen up' a little and perhaps plan ahead just the next stop or two. No guarantees though  :

Coming back to OP's question, if you have somewhere you have to be, or you have to return by a certain date, you have to figure out if the trip can even be done, and if will be enjoyabe or if you're pushing too hard. On our upcoming trip we have a couple of 7+ hour days incl stops, the rest range from 2 to 6.

Old Blevins said:

Ah.  This is a website.  I tried searching for it on iPhone Apps and was quite surprised by what turned up. 
Looks like a useful site - thanks for the tip!

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That site wants money before you even start using it. I don't mind paying for a good service, but I like to see what I am getting for my money before ponying up.

This site seems to do a lot of the same stuff and you can play with it quite a bit before finding an opportunity to pay them money.
https://roadtrippers.com/

So, you have 5 weeks and you intend on traveling across the country and back.  That will be about 5000 miles or 1000 a week.  If you plan on moving, say 5 days a week, you would need to do 200 mile days.  If you plan on moving only 3 days a week you would need to do around 333 miles a move.  My guess is that you have some "hard stops" that you fully intend to make - like visiting the Grand Canyon.  That will cause you to have to fudge some travel days to land at the right places and times.

Once you decide on the above, you are ready to start planning stops.  Try this:

1. Go to Google Maps on your computer
2. Right click on your starting point
3. Pick "measure distance"
4. Move the mouse along your route where you guess your first trip distance would be (no need to be exact at this point)
5. Click on that spot, and then, take the mouse and drag the end spot to the distance you want (like 300 miles).

You now have a destination.  Go to www.rvparkreviews.com and start looking for a suitable spot to stop.

Once done, rinse repeat for your next stop.

Hope this helps.

Old Blevins said:

Ah.  This is a website.  I tried searching for it on iPhone Apps and was quite surprised by what turned up. 
Looks like a useful site - thanks for the tip!

Click to expand...

Here are a couple you should look at.
http://www.rvparky.com/
http://www.rvparkreviews.com/
CoPilot USA
Passport America
Oh, Ranger, locates state and local parks and outher interesting things.
Yelp, helps you find good places to eat and outer things
Gas Buddy,
Visitor Tips
Rest Stops
Bill

The app I most rely on is Allstays Camp and RV, which lists nearly all camping in the U.S., from Corps of Engineers to Walmart to various RV resorts. It includes the dates open (say, if it closes from Nov to Mar), how many sites, hookups, amenities, relative pricing, phone numbers (will even dial it for you), and you can pick from listings or a map. It also has RV businesses, low clearance, rest areas, truck stops and more.