How do you Plan your long trips?

[GR 'Scott' Cundiff]

I'll share a planning tip from my blog on the topic:

There?s a terrific feature on Streets and Trips called ?create drivetime zone.?  Right click on the starting point, type in the number of minutes you want for your maximum drive (like 360 minutes for 6 hours) and it will create a zigzagging circle around your center point.  That circle tells me how far I can expect to drive in any direction in six hours.

If anyone is interested, the entire article is here: http://pastorscott.com/travel/travel-planning-i-confess-im-a-planner/

 

[jagnweiner]

I'll go ahead and enter the fray.  I've only been RVing for a few years, and the only long trip I've taken, I planned and mostly made advance reservations.  The reasons were ones  already mentioned by others. 

(1) All the overnight planned stops were in high demand state and national parks in Utah and Colorado.  I made reservations for many on the first day the reservation window opened and for some of the sites I checked back a few hours later and they were already booked.  For one park, Dead Horse Point in Utah, I didn't get online until 10 minutes after reservations opened and several of the sites I was interested were already booked and one of the nights I wanted was already completely full, causing a change in itinerary.  The trip as a whole worked out beautifully and we stayed in some amazing sites in amazing CGs.

(2)  My wife and I work full time and the kids are in school, so schedules are less flexible.

(3)  I actually enjoy the planning part almost (but not quite) as much as the trip itself.

The one tool I would recommend that I don't think has been mentioned is the AllStays Camp & RV app.  I have it on my iPad and it is outstanding.  It is only about $6.  You can also get it for smart phones, but I don't have one of those.  They have a free version on their website, but it isn't quite as easy to use.  Basically, the app interfaces with a mapping program, showing every campground and identifying it with a distinct icon (i.e., commercial campground, state park, national park, BLM, etc.).  Click on the icon and it pulls up a menu with basic information such as number and type of sites, GPS coordinates and phone number.  It also includes buttons to link to the CG's website, if applicable and reviews (usually reviews on rvparkreviews.com).  I found that the information was very accurate, and I could also use the satellite photo feature to zoom in on the aerial view of the CGs to see exactly what the sites looked like.

Good luck and enjoy the journey.

Edit:  I just looked back and see that of course Gary did mention the AllStays app a few posts ago. 

 

[RGrimm]

I'll share a planning tip from my blog on the topic:

There?s a terrific feature on Streets and Trips called ?create drivetime zone.? ...............

If anyone is interested, the entire article is here: http://pastorscott.com/travel/travel-planning-i-confess-im-a-planner/

Scott,  Thank you for sharing the Streets and Trips Tip (I learned something today - so it is a good day) and for sharing the Link to your Blog article - it was good.

When I started this thread it was driven by two things, I was working on a 'future' trip to the West and Northwest (from Florida - about 10,000 miles and over 70 days)  and was looking for 'tools' that others may use to Plan trips. As you and some others, I am a planner, but for me it is part of the adventure and I enjoy the time I spend in the research I do as a plan my adventure.  I do not find it restricting and for me there is a comfort in knowing where I am going and how.

As others have said, what is important is the journey, the adventure, and not how it came about, be that planned or spontaneous. At the end of the day if your happy, then it was a good day. The link we all share is that when we travel we take our home (or second home) with us.

Thank you everyone for sharing your ideas.

Safe travels wherever the road may take you.

Russ

 

[sandiern]

It all depends on where we are going. If we are planning on staying at state or National Parks, we make reservations because these sites fill  up quickly. That is also true for the NE, as there are not as many campsites available, and we usually reserve on holiday weekends. When traveling in the South or the West, reservations are not as necessary. Since we are fulltimers, we loosely plan our travels. We do reserve our winter campsite in Port Aransas, TX.