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Planning a Trip
Here's one way to plan a trip to a location that you've never traveled to before.
- Determine the destination or purpose of the trip
First you need to select the destination of where to go or what you want to see. For example, you may select to tour a section of the country like the Northwest, or you may decide to go to the Kentucky Derby or Indianapolis 500, or you may want to visit the National Parks in Utah. Use some of the Travel Sites above to discover any special places, activities, or events to experience along the way. Use a map of the US to identify the locations to be visited and the most distant location of the trip from your home base. The idea is to form a sort of loop outbound and then inbound without back tracking very much. This saves fuel and keeps the entire trip fresher. - Use a trip router to break up the trip into multiple segments
Use something like Good Sam Trip Routing to enter the starting and most distant location of the trip. The results will give you the most direct route to the most distant location as well as an idea of how long it will take you to get there. Using the initial results, break up the trip into manageable segments that can be driven within your single day trip limit (e.g., 6 hours or 350 miles or whatever your limit is) taking into consideration those special stops you discovered along the way. You may have to go out of the way a little or have a short driving day in order to pick up some of those special places or activities on the outbound part of the trip, or keep them in mind for the trip back to the home base.
The idea is to create a hub and spoke system so that you only drive or pull the RV between hubs and then use the towing or towed vehicle for the spokes/day trips out to the sights. If the hub happens to be in close proximity to the sites to be visited, so much the better. If a site to be visited is on the way from one hub to another, then that's great too because you can stop off at the site on the way and perhaps save a day trip if you're limited on time. If you only have the RV to get around in, you might think about a rental car at various points where driving the RV may be challenging such as inner cities or difficult terrain.
You'll also need to keep in mind those locations where you will need to refuel. You can use one of the fuel price tracking sites to get the best prices if you know the location's zipcode. You should be aware of how far you can travel on a given amount of fuel so you don't run your supply to low. Some calculate fuel weight into their mileage calculation, since at about 8 pounds per gallon, close calculation of fuel requirements will save a noticeable amount of money over filling the tank every time with 400-500 pounds of fuel.
- Look for campgrounds at trip segment boundaries
Use the Campgrounds and Parks page to locate one or more campgrounds near each segment boundary. These campgrounds represent the optimum locations for travel time and fuel consumption and, as such, have different amenity requirements for an overnight stay than if you were to stay for several days or weeks. Keep in mind there will be times when you will need to do laundry and restock on supplies. There will also be those days when you just want to relax and savor the enjoyment of RVing. Or you may need to take care of some banking business or catch up on emails. Any of these reasons will influence the selection of a campground with the right amenities for the occasion. After you've taken a few trips, this selection of campgrounds will become routine and repeat stays at your favorite campgrounds will become common.
Make reservations as you think are necessary. Calling ahead the day of arrival to reserve a site works in the off season and saves reservation money in case your schedule is interrupted because of weather or equipment problems or because you want to stay an extra day in the current location. But during busy times or at busy places, you can be left without a place for the night rather easily and making reservations ahead of time are strongly advised. To be absolutely safe, once your travel plans are set, then make reservations and beg for refunds if problems arise. Spring and fall trips are often more difficult to pull off than summer trips because of having to travel around the frequent storms and changing weather. - Record the trip planning information
Either print out or save the web pages used to plan and route the trip. This will help you when you need phone numbers and GPS addresses and will also provide a record for those you tell about your trip, both before you leave for safety purposes and after you return for talking points and photo descriptions. It's always a good idea to let someone know where you'll be and when you'll be checking in with them during the trip so if things go wrong, help can be dispatched or home base problems can be handled as soon as possible.
Top 10 American Tourist Destinations according to Forbes Travel
1. Times Square, New York City: 37.6 million visitors
2. The Las Vegas Strip, Nevada: 30 million visitors
3. National Mall and Memorial Parks, Washington, D.C.: 25 million visitors
4. Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston: 20 Million visitors
5. Disney World's Magic Kingdom, Lake Buena Vista, Fla.: 17.1 million visitors
6. Disneyland Park, Anaheim, Calif.: 14.9 million visitors
7. Fisherman's Wharf/Golden Gate National Recreation Area, San Francisco: 14.1 million visitors
8. Niagara Falls, N.Y.: 12 million visitors
9. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tenn./N.C.: 9.04 million visitors
10. Navy Pier, Chicago: 8.6 million visitors