How are people finding campgrounds in 2017?

[Honwing]

3 round trips from Seattle to Florida in the last 2 years. My wife looks for campgrounds on our Rand McNally GPS about 2 hours before where we plan to stop. Normally she will have a list of at least 3 or 4 to choose from. She then checks their website, checks reviews on her phone and then decides which one to call. Rarely do we make reservations until the day of. Things change and we are free to change our route.

[dkperez]

thanks for the replies....

We're also stuck with Verizon 'cause the data works everywhere we've been - and we've had "other" phone connections and actually checked what worked and what didn't. In the southwest a couple years ago I had t-mobile AND sprint (long story), as well as Verizon. In 42 days I had cell connections and data connections on Verizon for 42 days. T-mobile worked 7 - 8 days and the data connection (cell phone hotspot) almost never worked. Sprint was SLIGHTLY better, but still well under half the days and the data was "spotty" at best. So, we're stuck with Verizon but it's SURE not worth $80/month EACH for unlimited data.

In the course of 5 days, we used just over 2GB chasing Google maps, Good Sam, other RV park apps, more maps, zooming in, trying to find info about the campgrounds and on and on...

I"ll most likely get the Campground book from Good Sam - I THINK it's supposed to come out in December (at least that's what I've been told).

Anyhow, for y'all that are having great luck with all the online apps, excellent. All I can do is relate how well it worked for us... We DID have some truly AMAZING phone conversations with campgrounds when we could find someone to answer the phone. One of my favorites went like this:

"Hello?"
"Hi, is this xyz campground?"
"Uh, ... ... ... yeah"
"We've been referred to YOU by the ranger for qqq campground, which is closed (even though the online app says it's open". Are YOU open?"
"... ... ... ... ... yeah'
"OK, we're on Hwy 75, heading north toward <city>, where we'll be going west on Hwy 74. Are you near there, in the southwest area around <city>?"
"Yeah, I think we are." (Huh? At this point we still hadn't been able to FIND this campground in the online app)
"OK, we need a spot for the night."
"OK" (we made arrangements and provided a credit card)

After some additional searching, we FINALLY located the campground. At LEAST 20 miles from anywhere NEAR I-75 and I-74 in <city>. Called BACK to the campground.
"lo?"
"Hi. We finally found a campground with your name, but it's all the way up north, WAY outside <city>. Is this the right place?"
"Well, prolly. I don't use the highways much, so I'm not familiar with which is which."
"You run a campground here but you're not familiar with a major interstates in <city>?"
"No, I'm not real good with numbers."
"Oh"...

Since both these conversations occurred on the speaker phone, my wife who does all the driving (another long story) got to hear the entire thing. By now she, the ABSOLUTELY calmest, most type B person on the PLANET, who had been driving for 6 or 7 hours, had become a trifle "testy" and REALLY wanted to stop for the night. Having found a campground, we managed to get the nav system to take us through the backroads, neighborhoods, sidestreets, driveways, across parking lots and other byways about 30-40 minutes from the highway we needed to be on in the morning, on the opposite side of <city> so we could drive through at rush hour, and finally found the campground.

Interestingly, she didn't mention how I lack patience and am not always the most REASONABLE of people for the whole rest of the trip home...

[A32Deuce]

Originally Posted by powderman

As stated earlier, the Mobley doesn't need to be plugged into the OBD2 port. 12 volts on pins 16 and 5 will do the trick. And on the rare occasion I don't have cellular the co pilot app will work without a connection.

$30 for 3 gb. Not that good of a deal. Data from the vehicle? On star? I will stick,with a map book and a camping directory plus an up dated Magellan GPS. Thank you, but I will pass.

[LarrytheBear]

Another thin we do to keep from using all of our data (Consumer Cellular) is to do our campground searching and reviews while we are on campground wifi. As we all know, campground wifi can vary widely but for our fall trip we had good campground wifi at 3 out of the 5 places we stayed. At the other two the wifi was usable if we were patient enough.

When we have narrowed down the potential campgrounds we use the phone to finalize our plans.
We have the Good Sam and Passport America books which also help.

[ArmandV]

Before heading out on a trip, I go through all the campground directories and plan out my stops based upon what is available and how many miles I intend to drive.

I write down all the campgrounds that I would want to stay at on a legal pad and go from there.

[A32Deuce]

Originally Posted by ArmandV

Before heading out on a trip, I go through all the campground directories and plan out my stops based upon what is available and how many miles I intend to drive.

I write down all the campgrounds that I would want to stay at on a legal pad and go from there.

X2!

[bfisher003]

Originally Posted by A32Deuce

$30 for 3 gb. Not that good of a deal. Data from the vehicle? On star? I will stick,with a map book and a camping directory plus an up dated Magellan GPS. Thank you, but I will pass.

Nope, $20 for unlimited data. And no, no data is transferred from the car through the Mobley. It only uses the OBDII port for power as mentioned. The $20 per month unlimited data plan from AT&T is called the “Car Connect” plan, but they may no longer offer it. If we don’t have a good AT&T signal and have a good Verizon signal we use our Verizon Jet Pack MiFi hotspot for WiFi. We have the shared 8 GB plan with Verizon that we pay $59 a month (after the Veteran discount) for and what isn’t used in one month is rolled over to the next month. For example, this billing cycle we started out with just over 15 GB. All of this works very well for us, but then we are not full timers.

But hey, use whatever you like and think works best for you. It’s called freedom of choice. [emoji846]

[A32Deuce]

Originally Posted by bfisher003

Nope, $20 for unlimited data. And no, no data is transferred from the car through the Mobley. It only uses the OBDII port for power as mentioned. The $20 per month unlimited data plan from AT&T is called the “Car Connect” plan, but they may no longer offer it. If we don’t have a good AT&T signal and have a good Verizon signal we use our Verizon Jet Pack MiFi hotspot for WiFi. We have the shared 8 GB plan with Verizon that we pay $59 a month (after the Veteran discount) for and what isn’t used in one month is rolled over to the next month. For example, this billing cycle we started out with just over 15 GB. All of this works very well for us, but then we are not full timers.

But hey, use whatever you like and think works best for you. It’s called freedom of choice. [emoji846]

I looked it up and that was the price. You may have been grandfathered in. What I read said something about vehicle data.

[dkperez]

"$20 for unlimited data. And no, no data is transferred from the car through the Mobley. It only uses the OBDII port for power as mentioned. The $20 per month unlimited data plan from AT&T is called the “Car Connect” plan."

That sounds great. No cell phones, phone plan, or any other cost? Just $20/mo for unlimited data with this thing connected to the OBDII port? 4G hopefully?

Everything I'm finding keeps saying "with 2-year contract w/qual. plans," and they all seem to cost as much as the Verizon Unlimited... Do you have a link to just getting this $20/mo thing.

And a link to the plan at Verizon that does this:

"If we don’t have a good AT&T signal and have a good Verizon signal we use our Verizon Jet Pack MiFi hotspot for WiFi. We have the shared 8 GB plan with Verizon that we pay $59 a month (after the Veteran discount) for and what isn’t used in one month is rolled over to the next month. For example, this billing cycle we started out with just over 15 GB."

Do you have a link?

Are others of y'all on plans like the above with Verizon - $60/mo for 8GB with rollover and all that? It would certainly make all the data consumption involved in doing this online less onerous.

As far as planning all the stops and places and directions and deciding where to be every day and all that, I'm cringing... Reminds me of family trips when I was a kid, with the route planned, and reserving hotels and missing things that may have been fun and stopping either really early 'cause you didn't take as long to get there, or REALLY late 'cause you didn't get there by when you were supposed to. Not much spontaneity (ok, none) in those trips.

It was pretty horrid, and in the last 40+ years we've managed never to have to do that.
Vacation planning for us has always been something like "Well, we haven't gone northwest in a while, lets go that way." Head off for a few weeks, eventually circle around from wherever we are and make our way back home. If we get somewhere and find it interesting don't have to leave just 'cause we've got seven reservations for future places. And if something changes our plans, like running into extremely good fall colors in a different direction, we can turn left and completely change the trip...

As a nature, wildlife, event photographer, obsessive planning is not my friend. The most recent, month long trip, involved exactly ONE reservation and it was pretty much the worst campground we stayed in.

BUT, one way or another we'll manage to negotiate the tangled web of online finding of places, but so far I'm NOT impressed... And I'm gonna STAY with the rest of the dinosaurs and buy a campground book.

[bfisher003]

Perhaps I was not clear enough because I was trying to keep it brief. The $59 I mentioned for the 8 GB a month is for the Data only. There are also the costs for the phone and Jet Pack line access and the $59 is after the Veteran’s discount is applied. I believe the 8 GB plan is/was $70 a month without the Veteran discount. Just go to Verizon. It’s all there. I bought our Mobley outright from AT&T, so no contract. I think it was $100. The “car connect” plan was not real easy to find on their site and maybe they no longer offer it. A lot of RV folks jumped on it back a few months ago. Sorry, but I don’t have a link for it, but if you search for Mobley on this site you will find several fairly long threads about it. Good luck!

[RKins]

Originally Posted by dkperez

"$20 for unlimited data. And no, no data is transferred from the car through the Mobley. It only uses the OBDII port for power as mentioned. The $20 per month unlimited data plan from AT&T is called the “Car Connect” plan."

That sounds great. No cell phones, phone plan, or any other cost? Just $20/mo for unlimited data with this thing connected to the OBDII port? 4G hopefully?

Everything I'm finding keeps saying "with 2-year contract w/qual. plans," and they all seem to cost as much as the Verizon Unlimited... Do you have a link to just getting this $20/mo thing.

And a link to the plan at Verizon that does this:

"If we don’t have a good AT&T signal and have a good Verizon signal we use our Verizon Jet Pack MiFi hotspot for WiFi. We have the shared 8 GB plan with Verizon that we pay $59 a month (after the Veteran discount) for and what isn’t used in one month is rolled over to the next month. For example, this billing cycle we started out with just over 15 GB."

Do you have a link?

Sorry to tell you this but the Connected Car $20/mo unlimited data plan is over. It was offered for a short time, some of us were lucky enough to jump on it and then it ended. They offer lame plans now.

[A32Deuce]

That's what I found when I went to their site.

[Boiler52]

Originally Posted by A32Deuce

That's what I found when I went to their site.

Sorry I may have missed a response, but what campground book do you use and/or recommend? I’m a newby and prefer to have a real book as a backup to the apps and GPS units. Thanks in advance!

[bfisher003]

Originally Posted by RKins

Sorry to tell you this but the Connected Car $20/mo unlimited data plan is over. It was offered for a short time, some of us were lucky enough to jump on it and then it ended. They offer lame plans now.

Bummer!!!