How do you plan your camping trips

[sunnyone]

Originally Posted by Mattedfred

Probably our biggest lesson learned is to count every day you are changing locations as a 'travel day' regardless of whether it's a 3 hour drive or a 12 hour drive. You never know what can happen on the road, and it puts less pressure on you to get there because you had something important planned at the next destination on your travel day.

The second biggest lesson we've learned is to always book 2 nights consecutive nights at a destination unless you are only 'passing through'.

Since we learned these lessons, while travelling the world and travelling in our trailer, our trips have become more relaxing, more enjoyable and left room for serendipitous events that we will remember for the rest of our lives.

Good advice. Thanks for these tips on making the camping trips more relaxing and less stressful.

[Raspy]

We plan very little and only really outline the trip with the date we want to be there, a few highlights along the way, and the general route. I leave some extra days to allow longer or more stops as decided along the way.

Carefully planning means to me that we are locked in with dates at each place and if we want to go slower or faster, we can't. It's better to be more free-wheeling and open to staying longer.

The very nature of a vacation trip means you have a chance to be less structured than normal and have a chance to explore. None of us can see the trip before we go on it, that is part of the fun of going. To see new things, meet new people, and be more free. How can anyone predict the most special moments of a trip, or when they will happen? And rushing off to be at the next reservation is disappointing.

I have had very little trouble finding good places to stop for a break or for the night. For instance we are camped right now next to a beautiful stream, in the forest at 7,000', with nobody around. I had no idea where we would camp and just saw a small dirt road yesterday, and took it. I was only going to drive a couple hundred miles yesterday, but chose to go over 500. We had lunch in a Walmart parking lot and a short nap. A while back, we found a rest area in Arkansas that was so nice I marked in on the map as a destination. When going to the Oliver Rally, I glanced at the map and found a park in Florence Alabama where we could stop for lunch. It turned out they had beautiful campsites right on the bank of the Tennessee river. We stayed for several days, instead of just for lunch. This kind of thing happens on every trip and we see much more than we expect. If all else fails, in the middle of the night, pull into a Love's or flying J truck stop and find a corner out of the way in back. They all have well lit lots for just that purpose. If you are in a town, ask a cop where you can park for a few hours. Kanab Utah has a Wendy's that is perfect for this. Ely Nevada has an RV lot behind a casino where they don't even want you to ask. The Safeway on the Columbia River in Astoria has a specific area in their huge lot for RVs. We found it by accident and listened to the sea lions in the background all night. The list goes on and on.

Right now, we are on our way home form a great trip to Baja. We decided to go whale watching after arriving in Guerrero Negro, an unplanned addition to the trip, and ended up actually touching whales from the boat! As we prepared to cross the border, we decided to stay a few more days at San Felipe and went to the SCORE Baja 250 off-road race. A very fun day and a huge party in San Felipe. All it meant was that we crossed a few days later than we thought, but since we had no reservations anywhere, there was no problem. The two best parts of the trip were not planned in advance.

[Raspy]

Following up on using the services of Boondockers Welcome.

This system works well for travelers, but be careful and read all the fine print, if you plan to become a host. Think carefully about your commitment as a host.

To become a host, you must affirm, as a homeowner, that you have homeowners insurance that covers medical expenses for injuries to others on your property. In other words, you must affirm that you will be providing medical insurance for any and all guests associated with Boondockers Welcome. Boondockers tries to play this down by stating they have insurance for this purpose, but closer inspection reveals, and they have clearly stated to me in writing, that their insurance will only kick in once the host's homeowners insurance is completely exhausted.

The chance for an unscrupulous guest to take advantage of this is present. Or the chance that someone might fall down and hold you responsible as very real. I was a host for a while until I realized how this works, and we had some marginal guests that deceived us in the process. I wrote to Boondockers and corresponded with them enough to confirm their policy and their actual intention with respect to their insurance and responsibilities. If a guest gets hurt on your property, you are liable, if that guest decides you are. Making new friends and helping a fellow travelers is a fine idea, but not everyone has the best of intentions. An injury, even one not caused by you, can change how people look at things. And again, Boondockers Welcome is not on your side in that situation.

Please be careful and go into it with your eyes wide open, if you plan to host.

[Jane P.]

We plan our trips around specific dog events. If the event involves several days travel, try to set up "training stops" on route to meet with groups I know and train with them for a day or 2. This allows my dogs to stay in working mode. It's also fun to visit friends. I usually camp on private training grounds on friends driveways.

If we are going cross country, we take out the Atlas and plan a route. I use Good Sam's online trip planner to ID potential trailer parks. I appreciate having access to comments from past visitors to these parks. Particularly if towing solo, I look for "safe" parks located on dog friendly grounds.

My husband is always on the lookout for complimentary overnight spots. Between the dogs & him, I tend to feel fairly safe and keep notes on those stops that worked well, and those I'd not visit again. BTW, I have learned that Indian Casinos are usually great places to park. They are usually far enough off freeways to be fairly quiet, they have security guards, and usually serve dinner and breakfast. Fellow Rvers are parking for just the night and offer another layer of safety.


When soloing, I like quitting for the day around 5 PM. That allows me time to hook up the trailer, exercise and feed the dogs, put together a decent dinner. The list of potential parks in that segment of the route is helpful. Once I have an ETA for reaching one of those parks at days end, I can call to make a reservation.

The addition of solar allows me to forego hookups. I do appreciate the opportunity to empty my grey & black water tank.

Once I have travel to a particular area, I pretty much know where I want to stop each day. For that reason, I do keep travel diary which includes parks that I particularly like.

[parmm]

We're not campers, we're travelers. We use the Scamp 19 as our motel/hotel room. We usually pass thru several states when traveling. I'm getting up in age and have medical issues (wife says I'm high maintenance), so our daily mileage is around 300 miles between campgrounds. Our trips usually range around 1200 mile one way. We use Google maps. Use to reuse Microsoft Streets and Trips, but Microsoft quit supporting it. On Google I put in the destination address, click maps then directions then add the starting point. At the destination, I already checked out all the rv parks/campground reviews and gotten reservations. For reviews we use Google reviews, www.campgroundviews.com, campgrounds.rvlife.com, www.campendium.com, https://www.allstays.com/apps/camprv.htm, along with NPS and COE, state park campgrounds and State DEC/DNR campgrounds, and as a disabled veteran I prefer to use Army FamCamps and other military campgrounds (www.militarycampgrounds.us/milcamps) but you have to meet the requirements to camp at military campgrounds, along with campground review apps on my phone. You can find campgrounds on Google maps by clicking "nearby" and typing in "campgrounds". As they say - "Google is your friend".



Before we leave I plan the trip by mapping it out and then find overnight stops every 300 mile along the way. Once I have picked the stops, I find a campground in the area. We usually spend a week or two at our final destination. Sometimes we will send a week at one location and a week at another about 150 miles away from the first. We use those location as a base camp while visiting the sights in that area. Often we stop to see DW's sisters and stay a while. They live about 200 miles from each other.



I prefer campgrounds with full hookups where I have 30 amp, water and sewer right at the site. That way I don't have to mess around stopping at the dump before leaving. I find that little extra they charge for full hookups to very worth while. Some times we stop at Walmarts or other places without hookups. I have lithium batteries and have stayed 4 days without hookups at certain State Parks like Maryland's Assateague State Park to see the wild ponies (very hard to get electric hook up site there). I can charge the batteries with the DC/DC charger by idling my pickup several hours if needed. I make sure I have full hooks after staying at places like Assateague to make sure I get a full charge on the Lithium batteries.