Good Sam Trip Planner and Rand McNally

[johnangev]

Just logged into the Good Sam Trip Planner to some work on our Summer Trip. There is note that says they are discontinuing the Trip Planner in April and will not have a replacement until at least the end of 2019!

There is no ability to export your saved trips to a file that you can upload somewhere else. You can only transfer it your Rand McNally GPS which will also not let your save it anyplace else.

The only way to plan a trip now on the Rand McNally GPS is to use their Trip Plan software that includes no information about campgrounds.

Looks like it is time to dump both services and find something reliable.

[Sue46]

I have switched to RVtripwizard. You need to buy a subscription and of course there is a learning curve and bugs. It is the best I have found so far. The only problem is it is internet based and I am an old Streets user and prefer a piece of software on my computer.

[Gordiegaffer]

I have not found a way to transfer Trip wizard to Rand McNally units successfully this trip i took the print out and manually entered it into Good sams than loaded it on to GPS

[travelinJ]

Like it or not GoodSam is owned by Camping World. Their primary focus is bottom line profits. Selling Ethics are an afterthought in many cases.
My wild guess is the new model will be fee based. Marcus Lemonis, CEO, was brought up selling cars for his dad's very successful auto dealership business. Marcus will not let any aspect of the business provide value without extracting maximum profit (aka fee revenue).
Marcus is a good businessman. Hopefully the new Trip Planner will be worth the Fee.

[traveldawg]

It's too bad you can't export a GPX file and put it anyplace you want it. maybe Goodsam figured out they had a dog of an app on their hands are planning to fix it. Seems they'd provide a new planner first then stop supporting the old planner but whatever.......

Rather than pay for RVTripWizard (do they own this site too?????) I use the free http://www.myscenicdrives.com It seems it is a bit more robust for planning activities at each stop and maybe not so easy to ID RV parks; but you can use RVParkReviews, or RVParky without cost to help with that. Best of all, you can download your drives in KML and GPX.

[chindog]

I have several past trips saved on the Good Sam trip planner. I have used the email function to send a text listing of the stops to myself. As a fulltimer, I have used the trip planner quite a bit, and this development is very disappointing. I'll break down and sign up with RVTripWizard until something better comes along.

[762vram2043]

This is NOT good news. I'm in the process of planning this year's trip using it and once on the road was planning to use it to flesh out trips in the area of the campgrounds. This REALLY SUCKS. GS needs to rethink their timing on this. They need to roll out and beta test the replacement BEFORE dumping what they have now. It isn't perfect but it is better than nothing.

There must be more to the story that they're not telling for them to proceed this way. Is there a way to convey our dissatisfaction to their management?

[Dr. Q]

Originally Posted by Gordiegaffer

I have not found a way to transfer Trip wizard to Rand McNally units successfully this trip i took the print out and manually entered it into Good sams than loaded it on to GPS

You need to use the Rand McNally Dock software to transfer your RV Trip Wizard to your GPS system

[stang37]

Originally Posted by 762vram2043

There must be more to the story that they're not telling for them to proceed this way. Is there a way to convey our dissatisfaction to their management?

On the page where they tell about changing is a survey asking for comments about the existing program and suggested enhancements for the new program.

[762vram2043]

Originally Posted by stang37

On the page where they tell about changing is a survey asking for comments about the existing program and suggested enhancements for the new program.

Yes, thanks, I already sent feedback there and at the "contact us" page on the planner. Maybe if they got lots of complaints they'd delay or provide a better explanation of why they can't wait until after this travel season. Makes no sense to kill what is there until they are ready to roll out the replacement. Imagine if Apple or Microsoft did this with their software.


Is there an alternative that can be used to plan, download trips to the Good Sams GPS?

[mikeannetta]

Originally Posted by Sue46

I have switched to RVtripwizard. You need to buy a subscription and of course there is a learning curve and bugs. It is the best I have found so far. The only problem is it is internet based and I am an old Streets user and prefer a piece of software on my computer.

Agree, RVTripWizard is a great solution. It’s a great planning tool and when I do, I want access to the internet.
And as others have said, from what I understand, iRV2 owns RVTripWizard. I see nothing wrong with that! I worked 37 years with one of the worlds largest companies. And in the industry we competed, we had the largest budgets for IT, Research and Development. I’m confident that together they both will get better.
BTW, I used both programs well before they got married.

[travelinJ]

Agreed, post your comments and concerns in the Survey. There is an open comment box at the end of the survey.

Originally Posted by stang37

On the page where they tell about changing is a survey asking for comments about the existing program and suggested enhancements for the new program.

[762vram2043]

Originally Posted by traveldawg

It's too bad you can't export a GPX file and put it anyplace you want it. maybe Goodsam figured out they had a dog of an app on their hands are planning to fix it. Seems they'd provide a new planner first then stop supporting the old planner but whatever.......

Rather than pay for RVTripWizard (do they own this site too?????) I use the free http://www.myscenicdrives.com It seems it is a bit more robust for planning activities at each stop and maybe not so easy to ID RV parks; but you can use RVParkReviews, or RVParky without cost to help with that. Best of all, you can download your drives in KML and GPX.

Thanks for info and link, I will try it out. May plan this year's trip in both Good Sams and myscenicdrives.

[762vram2043]

Just found the Rand McNally tripmaker and it looks very similar to the Good Sams item and is the base for the Good Sams trip planner. Only obvious difference is that Good Sams has the listing of campgrounds to pick from, not so with RM tripmaker.