How to Plan RV Trips
We bought a camper, now what?
The rush of excitement from buying our new camper brought in a whole new feeling…how do I plan RV camping trips? Staying close to the action is rewarding, but it can be overwhelming to plan RV trips! Especially in the beginning! We know first hand.
There are so many websites, apps, Facebook groups and more. Everyone has a favorite place or easy way to do things.
How do we accomplish this?
We break our trips into weekend trips and longer destination trips. And we plan for each of these a little differently.
Weekend Trips
Step 1 – Finding Time
We start by looking at our calendar, usually many months in advance. In January or February, we are already planning what weekends will work to get out of town. Sometimes we plan and still have to cancel a trip but we do our best to make it work. Some campgrounds book many months in advance. Planning ahead is a must-do or hope for a cancellation as your travel weekend gets closer!
Step 2 – Campground Selection
I Google campgrounds in certain areas we want to visit. Then I deep dive into reviews. I look at a lot of reviews! Facebook Groups can be helpful. I really like RV Parks & Campground Reviews, RV Atlas and RV Miles. These FB Groups let me refine my searches for specific cities, parks, or campgrounds. Screen shots of nearby campgrounds that are mentioned with good reviews are also very helpful. Members of the RV camping community like to share what they know. Lean in and listen!
Step 3 – Campsite Booking
Campgrounds don’t making booking easy! We haven’t found a one stop shop app or site to book our get aways. Sites like Recreation.gov, KOA.com, Campspot, and RV Life Trip Wizard (see our article on how to use RV Life Trip Wizard) help make the process easier. But, booking sites can be a chore!
Once I have some dates and potential campgrounds, I start plugging our dates into these sites and hopefully get a match. Filters on the websites allow me to include the length of our rig and the amenities we want…like water, electric or a Full Hookup (includes a sewer connection).
During the school year, we try to stay within 30-45 minutes of home that way if we need to come back for a game or event, it is doable. We do our best to work camping around our lives and enjoy our time at the campsite. When school is out, we expand our weekend trip radius up to about 2 hours of home.
Step 4 – Enjoy
Now count down the days or weeks until your trip. Plan your meals and activities. Get ready for your weekend adventure!
Destination Trips
Longer trips are definitely harder to plan and I usually put it off for as long as I can. But once I start, look out!
Long weekend trips
We typically plan a long weekend around Kentucky Derby Day since we are off work and school on the first Friday of May! This is a Holiday where we live! We also like to travel around Thanksgiving. Our family has been flexible with celebrating early so we can leave the day before Thanksgiving! It’s nice to have a flexible family sometimes!
Be careful around the traditional start and end to summer (Memorial and Labor Days)…campgrounds are super crowded and bookup early. If a site is open, be careful and do extra research because it might not be level or it may be less desirable in some way. But, sometimes you get lucky and snag a hard-to-get spot at the last second!
We also have dedicated the week between Christmas and New Year as a fun time to travel. This is where we stay in one campground for 4-6 days and travel 8-12 hours over a day or two.
Multi-stop trips
Summer travel gives us more options than long weekends or parking in one spot for a week. We love to span over at least 2 weekends to create an EPIC road trip. Most of the time, we start by reading a positive review about a campground and our planning takes on a life of it’s own! We like to limit our driving distance to about 550 miles or less. This means we plan an easy stopover in certain states we might not otherwise visit. Usually, KOA’s fit the bill perfectly because of their long pull thru sites where we can park and leave the camper hitched to the truck. This makes for a quick and easy getaway the next morning. RV Trip Wizard is a great tool to see what campgrounds are in the vicinity of your travel. This site even has reviews. Read the reviews!!!!! The desktop version is much easier to navigate than the app.
Our recent trips
Our summer trip usually has multiple stops. For instance, we wanted to see all the Great Lakes. We decided we could drive a certain distance in Michigan and looked at campgrounds that were close to it. We just knew we wanted to see the giant sand dunes and found several contenders around. I had read amazing reviews of a Campground near Mackinaw so we knew we wanted to go there next and then we read many reviews of the campgrounds in the Upper Peninsula. We input these campgrounds into RV Trip Wizard and our plan came to life. Sometimes that plan needs to be modified and other times it works out perfectly!
The following year, we planned to see the remaining Great Lakes. Our primary destination was Niagara Falls. Since our son loves war history we decided Pennsylvania was on the way to Niagara Falls (we live in Kentucky). So we researched Gettysburg. Never in my dreams did I ever plan to go there, but it is definitely a must do! Needing a stop over on the way home we decided to toss in some fun at the Roller Coaster Capital of the World…Cedar Point! Sometimes plans just work out!
We recommend using stopovers as a way to cover a lot of miles without being too tired to enjoy the main attraction! Look what might be on the way, it has worked out great for us!
Flexibility
RV Travel allows flexibility that travel by plane or car often does not. Traveling by RV gives us the chance to visit so many places we never would have by car or plane. We love exploring on our journey across America!
