Hi All! We are planning a trip from Florida to Wyoming with a stopover in TX for a family re-union next summer. How do you find Forest Service, Corp of Engineers, Federal, State, County, and City campgrounds along your route? I've become very frustrated spending hours online going to each state's Parks Website, pulling up a map of every Park, trying to find the ones near the roads we will be traveling etc etc. and that doesnt cover County, city, Forest Service, COE and all the other campground options. It's very time consuming and I feel I'm still missing a large bulk of campgrounds. Is there a resource out there that puts all this info at your fingertips? I wish I knew somebody who had the knowhow to design software that maps all these types of campgrounds along the route you designate. I'd also have an option to map all non-commercial campgrounds for the entire state in case you'd like to alter your route or end up taking a detour. We have guides and software for commercial/private campgrounds, why not public? Somebody could make a fortune here and I'd be first in line to buy!

Thanks for any resources that can be provided,

Melissa

AAA.com

You have to be a member and you have to use Internet Explorer... but their on-line "Trip-Tik"^® found all of those sites for us, with links to the campsites' webpages. Using the Trip-Tik^® is a little quirky, but once you're there and play with the software, you can figure out how to find everything you're looking for. I used it to plan my 3 week trip from San Diego to Portland to Saint Louis to Phoenix and back to San Diego last July, and it found County and Forest Service campgrounds for us along with Private and State campgrounds.

I find the best place to find a campground and find out about a campground is RV Park Reviews. There are a number of ways to search, by state, city and they always give a list of nearby campgrounds. I particularly like the reviews.

http://www.rvparkreviews.com/

I use Microsoft Streets and Trips to find campgrounds along our intended route. If I need more info I look at their website.

I use Google maps, satelite view, to look at the campground layout before I decide to camp there. This also gives me incite as to where the entry is and how to get to the entrance.

I call ahead and make a reservation if possible. Especially during busy weekends and holidays.

While travelling across the Northern US states, we would stop as we crossed onto a different state and find an information place. We got local maps and directions to area campgrounds besides finding things to do locally. Plus we met an awful lot of very nice people who were just out to help others and sometimes we even found out about some local history that wasn't even in the guide books.
In S Dakota, near the Black Hills, we paused to sign the guest book and there on the line directly above was my wife's cousin. We missed them by twenty minutes. They were going the opposite direction. How often when crossing the continent would that happen?

Melissa I suggest you buy the Trailer Life Campground Guide. You can get it at Barnes and Noble or Borders for sure. You can probably peruse one at your local library to see if it meets your needs. For sure it does not contain every single campground in the USA but it probably does include the large majority of them. It details the campgrounds by state and then city providing enough initial info for one to determine if a web check is worthwile. Woodalls has a similar type guide but my use indicates it does not include as many campgrounds as Trailer Life does and Woodalls seems to me to be less user friendly. Lee p.s. the Trailer Life Guide is probably $20.00 plus

I didnt realize Woodalls and Trailer Life listed Public/Federal/State Land types of Campgrounds. I was under the impression they mostly dealt with private campgrounds. Thanks for this insight.

Melissa

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearc..._-9780760785874

Not sure whether this link will work but, we have this in the 2008 version that we picked up in Roanoke Va for $12.00. For long trips we use the internet and roughly plan our trip by plugging them into the GPS

Lookin for places to stay is great by book or laptop but i have downloaded tons of interesting places to my GPS from this site..... including all flying J truck stops, national and state parks, rest area's, wal marts, sams clubs and much much more and i store it on an sd card that i simply put into the GPS when needed. worked really good for me once i figured out how to do it. One thing i did notice is that it only searches out so many miles from your present location but updates continually as you drive or manually change locations..
Joe
http://www.poi-factory.com/

Mellisa, We use a little of all the suggestion already stated only to get an idea of what the area might be like. But just wanted to say, we don't make reservations till we get to an area. I really only make pre-reservation in certain areas, such as when we will be in a National Park, destination areas or if our travels are near/during a holiday weekend, only then do I make sure we have spot. You never know when your gonna drive thru/by some place you actually want to spend more time. I just think that life happens, flat tires, lingering at a great lunch spot, cranky kids, engine issue or a great little town/site, etc etc etc make it sometimes impossible to "plan" your trip. Putting you behind or off course for making a certain campground or even town when your ready to get off the road. You can spend hours and hours exploring all the camp grounds available along your travels, only to have something interupt all your planning.

When we had the resort, I actually had a guy who came in insisting he had a reservation with us, he didn't! but I was able to find the campground he did. But what was sooooooooooo sad, is while he was trying to convince me he had a reservationg with us he brought in his travel intenary which was planned down to 15 min increments (hello, its a vacation!) He honestly had his whole 3 week trip planned down to which gas station to stop at and how long they would spend at that gas station. I was shocked! As long as it's not someplace I know I have to be, such as you know you need to be in town for a family reunion, we wing it! Cause as you said, all that searching can be time consuming!



Yes many times you will find public campgrounds in the pulications that are geared towards the private/commercial campgrounds. This next camping season may be frustrating due to many states not opening certain camprounds because of budget issues, I would be crazy if I drove to a certain campground only to find out the state had to close it for the season because of state budget issues. Just another reason for me to wing it along the way.

Great Suggestions! Sounds like I may need to look into a GPS as well. I had no idea you could download your own POI. Maybe I need to start another post for what features/brands RVers like best in a GPS. I will definately keep a guide book with us as I know better than to try and rely on technology all the time. Sounds like the best place to start would be purchasing an atlas that shows campgrounds along the route and then research them from there. I no longer have AAA but do plan to re-new in the future when it's in the budget and I'll start reading up on GPS brands.

Robin, you are so right about Life Happening. I would go crazy if I was married to somebody who had my life planned down to 15 minutes increments. How is that a vacation??

Thanks so much!

Melissa

There's a couple other resources that are cheaper than private RV parks. Here's one US Forest Service. Lots of information about campgrounds in NF.

Melissa.....
I've had many GPS's and while all brands are pretty good i myself favor any of the Garmin Nuvi Line that will pronounce the street names insted of "Turn in 100 Feet"
Joe

That sounds good Joe as I have no idea how far 100 ft is, lol.

Try this site - click on a state for listings or use their search engine.

Also, this book is good, but the above site may be more current than the book. (BTW, it's cheaper on Amazon).

FYI, I know from experience that you can park overnight in the city park in Douglas, WY -- when last I parked there it was free. They have toilets, but no other facilities, just parking space. It's close to I25, just east of the fair grounds (north interstate exit).

A lot of towns in Texas have city parks where it's free or very cheap to park overnight, most without facilities, but some have water and even electric hookups.

Thanks! I'll check ebay too. We're actually going to Sundance, WY up in the Northeast corner but it's good to know for future trips elsewhere in the state about camping in Douglas.

Melissa,
Online is where I do all my trip planning by going to the federal lands sites usually such as Army Corps of Engineers, National Parks, National Forests, and BLM.

Once you have decided the route you are going to take which means you know the states you'll be in, you easily can find maps of various federal camping places for the states including links to individual places.

Out west I was used to paying for showers, etc. but in Arkansas and Missouri, hot showers free in clean surroundings. I've stayed in several federal places in both these states and have been absolutely happy with them. A couple of times, I had no reservation and stopped at manned rest center where the desk person made phone calls to find me a place and gave me an Arkansas or other camping book - free.

Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi all have federal camping places easily found online. Once or twice when desperate, stayed all night at pull out spot meant for big trucks - no problems. Louisiana where I live has some federal spots but camping here needs to be checked online for state and federal since there is usually hurricane damage in some places and they may be closed.

One thing I have done when all else failed in planning is to type into Google the name or number of the Interstate, state name and the word "camping". There's also online maps of Interstate rest stops where maps and camping spots can be gotten.

Really, this can be done online without buying a lot of books which clutter up your car. I print out the name of the park/site with location and directions and put it in one folder and then add to it as I complete the planning. As I use up the sheets going along on the trip, throw the sheet away or just put in back of stack. If there is a particularly daunting giant intersection of freeways and interstates I have to go through, I print a closeup of that to guide me and put it in the stack. The worse thing for me is pulling a trailer through huge stuff like that since I can't quickly change lanes - particularly if a lot of traffic. I try to stay on smaller roads and go around the cities.

Good luck
Pat

Melissa Just an addition to my previous info about finding campgrounds, I didn't think about this until after I had signed off yesterday. About 10 years ago we stayed at a campground at Abiquiu Resevoir in New Mexico and learned that it is under the management of the Corps of Engineers. The campground was really nice and nicely kept up. We have stayed at a couple more Corps of Engineers campgrounds since and they have been affordable and provided most of the amenities we needed i.e. electric, water, restrooms and showers ( obviously no cable tv of wi-fi ). I went on the internet today and found that if you google corps of engineers campground guide you will find a United States guide to their campgrounds available for about $15.00 plus postage. I intend to order one ASAP. We don't use Corps of Engineers campgrounds often ( they are mostly at dam sites, lakes etc. ) which are ofter a little, to a lot, off the beaten path and we are more mountain campers than lake folk. In any case this could be an additional resource for finding campgrounds. Lee

Speaking of which, one of these is Hasty Campground at John Martin Reservoir in southeast Colorado. I stopped overnight there one Feb, on my way to and from Texas. There were no attendants collecting any fees, but the water & electric hookups were open. I think this is normal during the winter months, but not sure. This one might be on your way, depending on your route.

Good to know the types of amenitites at the COE campsites as we are not fully self contained. Some time in the future we'd like to be as close to it as you can be not having a bathroom but at this point we're not. Thanks for the Guide, I didnt know they published a campground guide, that's cool.

The very best was by DeLorm years ago .They used the triple a information It was called MAP&GO but they saw fit to part ways with AAA and the info now is quite out dated but I still use it. Along with Microsoft and trailer life.

Lyndon,

I have to ask about your trailer name!

"TOGEATHERNEST"

I've been turning it over every which way in my mind, and I can't figure it out completely. I get "togetherness" and "nest," but what is the "A" in "TOGEATHER" for I have to know!

As you can imagine, when I see customized license plates, like IGO4LTR, I can't stop thinking about them until I figure them out!

Thanks,

Raya

We have S.L. Hinkle's book Camping with the Corps of Engineers. He has published several editions, and it's available in many camping stores and online through Amazon and bookstores.
Not all COE parks have a lot of facilities. For example, Cove Lake in Arkansas had no electric, a few fresh water outlets spotted around the cg, pit toilets, and the showers are at the swimming pavilion a good long drive away, but the sites are beautiful. In Missouri, we've stayed at Wappepolo and Pomme de Terre, in the primitive sections, but other sections had hookups available. Online, google army corps of engineers lakes gateway and you'll find a map and information of other locations.
I find the official state maps have more camping information than the AAA maps and Walmart atlases, so I collect them as we travel. I don't find AAA or Woodalls camping guides to be very helpful to us.

Lyndon,

I have to ask about your trailer name!

"TOGEATHERNEST"

I've been turning it over every which way in my mind, and I can't figure it out completely. I get "togetherness" and "nest," but what is the "A" in "TOGEATHER" for I have to know! :

Well ya see I am a machinist-Farmer not a speller and thats the way i thought it was

Well there's my answer! Thanks

Maybe you're from Albert Lea? If so, there's a plausible reason for the "EA"

(Native Minnesotan here; missing my home state)