Drive time/mileage

For this trip it's all about destination - we have a wedding, a baptism, and a reunion to go to. Sightseeing is not part of the schedule, at least this trip. OTOH, we've driven most of route many years before (without an RV, when we were a lot younger) so it's not like we'll be broken up about what we are missing.
Reservations - for me a lot less stressful to know we don't have to go searching for a place - we can just go directly there. As far as  being set up by4 and chilling out for the evening - most of the stops we'll be making probably won't be the sort of place I want to do that. I would rather hurry and get to the destination and visit with family.
Yes, I found out the hard way that Colorado fills up 6 months in advance. However, I was fortunate to find 3 campgrounds that still had space and got those reservations secure. Years ago we experienced the frustration of needing to drive all night for lack of a place to stay. This time we may be taking our motel with us, but we still will want to count on a place to park.
Thanks to the feed back, I'll keep most of the legs of the trip short, although one it looks like we'll be stuck with a long day. At least it's sandwiched between a couple of short ones.

Wow!  I'm in trouble!  We are planing our first "big" trip next month, to Monument Valley.  About 860 miles each way.  I was figuring on having one night on the road, and being there the second day.  I am used to doing 500-600 miles on my bike to get to the start of a multi day off road excursion. Sounds like I should re think it and "go with the flow" rather than having "get there itus"mentality.

The main issue is you aren't going to make as good of time driving your coach as when riding the bike. I use 50 mph as an average when planing and it comes out pretty close.
Bill

Sibermom said:

For this trip it's all about destination - we have a wedding, a baptism, and a reunion to go to.

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Sibermom, That's a little bit of a different program than I think some of us were responding to.  If you have two people who can trade off driving and you stay mostly on the main highways, I think 400 miles a day is a reasonable goal. Not as much fun as 300 miles a day, but for your goals, not that big of a deal. The suggestion of the Allstays app is a good one. So is rvparkreviews.com. Using those you can figure out where to make your reservations in advance. It's probably worth checking on each place's cancellation and check in time policies just in case you do get delayed.

One caution - double-check driving distances with google maps. Some of the apps seem to use straight line distance rather than driving distance.  Hit the road reasonably early each morning and you'll be fine.

Have a great trip!

I just did a 200+ mile one way trip and it was exhausting. Only had 1 break for 5 mins, but I was in a pickup truck, not motorhome or pulling a trailer. The limited sleep didnt help either.

OutdoorFT said:

I just did a 200+ mile one way trip and it was exhausting. Only had 1 break for 5 mins, but I was in a pickup truck, not motorhome or pulling a trailer. The limited sleep didnt help either.

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I guess we all react to driving differently. When I worked in Odessa, TX, I used to drive to Lubbock once a month to get Krispy Kreme donuts for my crews. About 2 hrs and 130 miles each way. I would leave the house at 4:00 am and arrive back at the shop around 8:00 am. Never once did I consider that to be a long way.

lone_star_dsl said:

I guess we all react to driving differently. When I worked in Odessa, TX, I used to drive to Lubbock once a month to get Krispy Kreme donuts for my crews. About 2 hrs and 130 miles each way. I would leave the house at 4:00 am and arrive back at the shop around 8:00 am. Never once did I consider that to be a long way.

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In west Texas that's not a long trip. What took you so long did you stop in Lamesa for breakfast?
Bill

Mooney 78865 said:

Wow!  I'm in trouble!  We are planing our first "big" trip next month, to Monument Valley.  About 860 miles each way.  I was figuring on having one night on the road, and being there the second day.  I am used to doing 500-600 miles on my bike to get to the start of a multi day off road excursion. Sounds like I should re think it and "go with the flow" rather than having "get there itus"mentality.

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Kinda depends on where you're starting from, and what kind of interim stop you want to make. And, of course, the highways you will be traveling.
If you can run all day on interstate, with the sole purpose of making miles, you can knock out 500 miles in a day. then have an easy day 2. That works fine for many people, but if you tried to keep up that pace for more than a couple of days, it would get tedious really fast. We made a run from Colorado to South Florida in three days. We had a week on the beach after the run, so it was good.  On the way home though, we decided to take a week, and enjoy the ride.
Our upcoming trip to Maine, we plan to make a run for Omaha the first day and get as far east as we can, the take a week for the rest of the trip.

LarsMac said:

Kinda depends on where you're starting from, and what kind of interim stop you want to make. And, of course, the highways you will be traveling.
If you can run all day on interstate, with the sole purpose of making miles, you can knock out 500 miles in a day. then have an easy day 2. That works fine for many people, but if you tried to keep up that pace for more than a couple of days, it would get tedious really fast. We made a run from Colorado to South Florida in three days. We had a week on the beach after the run, so it was good.  On the way home though, we decided to take a week, and enjoy the ride.
Our upcoming trip to Maine, we plan to make a run for Omaha the first day and get as far east as we can, the take a week for the rest of the trip.

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We should have a pretty good time of it actually.  HWY 99 to HWY 58 to I 40, and no real mountain driving to speak of.  I suspect we will be able to make pretty good time, for sure the first day.  I have driven that same basic route many times on a bike.

I like to be at my overnight sites and set up by 4:00 pm (cocktail hour).  Living in NC and heading west I have the luxury of the time changes but not
so heading home.  As you plan your trips don't forget about time zones.  Google maps, RV Park Reviews.com and my Garmin RV660 make planning a breeze.  Happy RVing everyone.

For us it's on the road by 9-10 and try to get off by 5.  With stops in between we never go by miles driven and we never go with reservations because if we find something of interest we stop.  Using the different apps we do find campgrounds along the way.  Sometimes we drive longer as in 6 or 7 at night, but I really hate it every time I do it.  With the 5er, I want to be parked before dark.

larrypowellnc said:

I like to be at my overnight sites and set up by 4:00 pm (cocktail hour).  Living in NC and heading west I have the luxury of the time changes but not
so heading home.  As you plan your trips don't forget about time zones.  Google maps, RV Park Reviews.com and my Garmin RV660 make planning a breeze.  Happy RVing everyone.

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Good advice. I learned to set my dashboard clock to the time of the destination time zone before I leave. Then I don't get fooled by the change. 

Back home again. We did put in a 400+ mile day twice, but paired it with a short day. most days we found 250 - 300 miles were the best. several times we did less than 200 miles because that's where our destination was - not bad. We did spend two nights at one sight so we could unhook and sightsee in the area without the trailer - a really smart move. At Moab we parked the trailer at the visitor center and toured arches with just the truck on the park's recommendation. Again, a good decision.
We had planned on alternating drivers, but first thing out I took sick and had to stop enroute at an urgent care center. I wasn't doing any driving with all the drugs they had me on, and coughing and sneezing to boot.
We stopped several times at rest stops/truck plazas for an afternoon nap in the trailer which helped a lot with the longer driving days.
We kept our mornings leisurely, usually pulling out about 9:30 - 10 am.
I think the 50 mph average was pretty accurate.

I am now 80 and have been hauling a 25 foot trailer for the past twenty years.

Our criteria is to get on the road around 8:00AM and then pull into a RV park between 3:00 and 4:00 PM.
This gives me ample time for breakfast/ coffee in the morning and then in the PM plenty of set up time , take a shower , relax with a glass of wine and then have supper
It doesn't always work out that way, but that is what we shot for.

Jack L

Basically, I would suggest doing whatever you find suits your traveling style and comfort.

When we are traveling long distances we leave early and drive until we're ready for supper.  We average about 500 miles per day of freeway/highway driving in a 10-hour period (averaging 50 MPH with our 31' TT).  We use travel centers/truck stops to spend the night along the route - no reservations needed.  Our truck has comfy seats and has Sirius Radio so we listen to our favorite music and/or TV channels along the road. 

When we're in the 'meandering mode' our drive distances are much shorter with more stops along the way...

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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LarsMac said:

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/

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Even when you enter your profile it doesn't let you put in your RV size or clearances.  I wonder about RV Trip Wizard.  For a tool that is to serve RVs it ought to at least have that.  Like other tools I have seen it doesn't appear to transfer seamlessly to a Nav tool like GoogleMaps or Apple Maps, probably because the egregious terms that those companies put in front of small SW developers.

On our recent long trip, we mostly winged it without cg reservations
Our goal was to push through the initial few days to get out West, but we still wanted to ideally stop and enjoy something each day.
1st day was about 400 miles after an early start, then we stopped at a museum and then a nice dinner at a beachfront restaurant
then we pushed on roughly 500 miles, with a museum and park visit in the middle of that drive
then we pushed on around 200 miles to another museum break, followed by another 100 or so miles to where we stopped for the night.
This was all dry camping up to this point and I was getting wiped out.....since I don't relax as well dry camping (walmart type stuff)
So this was about the time for me to stop at a Campground....after 2-3 nights of hard pushing.

The trip pretty much continued like that..... till we got out West where we stopped for a couple of near-zero mile days here and there.
I feel like after about 3 nights we need to stop at a CG and/or take a slow day
and around 500 miles is a good generalized limit to plan as a maximum.  Depending on traffic, road conditions, wind, it's not too bad but far enough.  I wouldn't want to push out more than one or maybe two days in a row at the 500 mile pace....

Sibermom said:

For this trip it's all about destination - we have a wedding, a baptism, and a reunion to go to. Sightseeing is not part of the schedule, at least this trip. OTOH, we've driven most of route many years before (without an RV, when we were a lot younger) so it's not like we'll be broken up about what we are missing.
Reservations - for me a lot less stressful to know we don't have to go searching for a place - we can just go directly there. As far as  being set up by4 and chilling out for the evening - most of the stops we'll be making probably won't be the sort of place I want to do that. I would rather hurry and get to the destination and visit with family.
Yes, I found out the hard way that Colorado fills up 6 months in advance. However, I was fortunate to find 3 campgrounds that still had space and got those reservations secure. Years ago we experienced the frustration of needing to drive all night for lack of a place to stay. This time we may be taking our motel with us, but we still will want to count on a place to park.
Thanks to the feed back, I'll keep most of the legs of the trip short, although one it looks like we'll be stuck with a long day. At least it's sandwiched between a couple of short ones.

Click to expand...

I am one who has always liked reservations, but in the past year I have become more comfortable with winging it when I don't have a specific destination.  The nice thing about an RV is that if things change, e.g. winds pick up to where you don't feel comfortable driving, you really can spend another night where you are. Or, you can stop almost anywhere, even many Walmarts if necessary just to get a night's rest. I spent a night in a Oregon rest stop to weather out one storm. On my last trip I suffered an injury and still needed to make it from San Diego to San Jose, but I left spontaneously a day earlier than planned to shorten my day of driving. Instead of driving the full distance we drove to Bakersfield using one of these search tools we happened onto one of the best RV Resorts there that I had yet to experience.

Arrived in Louisville friday after a 530 mile leg from Little Rock (Tara swore the GPS said 400). This was all Interstate so only 8.5 hrs with a stop for fuel. I was really beat. 300 is my usual limit and that gets old after a couple of days.

Ernie

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
When traveling in our coach I drive no faster than 60 MPH... and average about 50 MPH... including breaks.
However we never make reservations because we never in know in advance how many hours/miles we will feel like traveling each day, and/or if we will want to make "multiple day stops" along the way.

BTW at 149,124 miles on the odometer my engine hour meter shows 3102 hours of run time... (which equals 48.07 MPH).