To plan or not to plan

[wadders]

We will be rving at some stage in the next couple of years from the UK.
We will be purchasing an A class from Florida.

The question i have, is do you plan your route or just go where the road takes you.

One thing that i want to do is visit new England in the fall, if i do it traveling north, I'm heading for Canada towards winter, so i guess i need to be heading south.

How much planning do you advise?

Terry

[CampDaven]

I started a thread on exactly that late last year. Lots of opinions and info.

http://www.irv2.com/forums/f59/plan-...el-144613.html

Happy trails!

Dave

[RickO]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

We fall into the camp of non planners. We typically drive a stake in the ground some time in the future saying we have to be at some certain place at some certain time and then we just meander around wherever we want until it's time to reach our "destination".

Two examples:

We sold our California home in Sept 2009 to begin full timing. We knew we wanted to be in Florida to witness one of the final Space Shuttle launches on April 5th. We had no plans (nor did we even make any CG reservations) between those two dates.

We bought another stick house in 2011 but last year wanted to see New England in the fall. We left Arizona in mid July and worked our way north... crossed into Canada in Michigan's Upper Peninsula... and toured Canada to the east coast waiting for the colors to begin changing. We dropped down into Maine and spent several weeks following the colors around. All of this was without reservations at any CG's.

Some folks just can't take the uncertainty of traveling (or living) this way but it works well for us.

Best of luck.

Rick

[MRUSA14]

Yes, you should plan your route. People here can help you if you state your interests and your time frame.

If you are traveling for a month, one set of plans will work. If 6 months, a whole different plan. If you have the time, the best thing would be to go north from Florida in the late spring and spend your summer touring the northern states and/or Canada, then swing over to New England in the fall. If your time frame is shorter than this, other plans will work. Let us know your schedule.

Originally Posted by wadders

We will be rving at some stage in the next couple of years from the UK.
We will be purchasing an A class from Florida.

The question i have, is do you plan your route or just go where the road takes you.

One thing that i want to do is visit new England in the fall, if i do it traveling north, I'm heading for Canada towards winter, so i guess i need to be heading south.

How much planning do you advise?

Terry

[vraines]

You will hear good cases presented for planning or not, but one consideration is for some route planning. Your class A will probably be over 12' tall. There are plenty of two lane roads and streets in New England that will not clear that height. True, there are almost always good warning signs, but it is easy to miss them. We travel mostly in the south and southeast and mostly stay on interstates. We missed an exit in Nashville last year and ended on a street with a low overpass. I caught the sign and avoided that mess, but I was lucky. New England is a whole other ball game.

[PyrateSilly]

We were going to take off from CA to go to FL then to AL and back to CA. Did not make one reservation and it's a good thing too because we had electrical problems and had to cancel the trip only about 30 miles into it. So no lost monies on reservations.
We were leaving one campground in TX last year, did not make reservations for the next stop and a good thing too since we had a tire blow out on the trailer and had to turn around to get a new tire, took most of the day too.

No reservations for us, ever, since you never know what may happen.

[bailiff]

As a new RV enthusiast in 1988, myself and family started our trip from NE Florida to parts west. 29 days and 9600 miles later, not the first reservation Florida to California, Montana, the Dakotas and back home. The same holds true today, we start early and stop around 3 pm and very seldom are turned away.

[MSHappyCampers]

Hi Terry! When we take a long trip we pretty much take it one day at a time. We never know how long it will take to see everything we want to see at one location. Of course you can only do that if there is no time limitation. In our case we are retired and can stay gone as long as we want.

When we are ready to leave a location we decide where the next stay will be and make reservations there. Works for us!

Good luck, happy trails, and God bless!

[mel s]

Originally Posted by wadders

We will be rving at some stage in the next couple of years from the UK.
We will be purchasing an A class from Florida.

The question i have, is do you plan your route or just go where the road takes you.

One thing that i want to do is visit new England in the fall, if i do it traveling north, I'm heading for Canada towards winter, so i guess i need to be heading south.

How much planning do you advise?

Terry

Terry
We travel 6 to 8k miles every year, throughout the south and southwest, for 3-4 months each winter, and have for 10+ winters.
We never plan or make reservations, we "wing it"!
That's not "advice" just what we do.
Mel
'96 Sahara, 132k miles, (105k mine)

[wadders]

Originally Posted by MSHappyCampers

Hi Terry! When we take a long trip we pretty much take it one day at a time. We never know how long it will take to see everything we want to see at one location. Of course you can only do that if there is no time limitation. In our case we are retired and can stay gone as long as we want.

When we are ready to leave a location we decide where the next stay will be and make reservations there. Works for us!

Good luck, happy trails, and God bless!

Thankyou, and that sounds like my kind of trip, we are in no rush, I will be semi-retired and only do part time work when i have to leave the US for the 3 month period. We are looking at spending a couple of weeks in each location we stop, relaxing and exploring

[Trekkers]

Hi Terry,
Hope you enjoy your travels. I would plan to go slow and not overtire yourself. It is a change driving a large vehicle on the wrong side of the road unless you have had experience before.
I would recommend some general planning but stay very flexible. You know how much time you have available and what you most want to do. Plan out a general route that allows time to cover that. I would recommend following the 2-2-2 plan. That plan is drive no more than 200 miles per day, plan to arrive at 2pm or earlier so that you have more likelihood of finding a campsite and time to set up in the daylight and relax and enjoy the rest of the day. Stay at least 2 days in each location so you have at least one day of down time before you have to drive the MH again.
If your time frame and distances to desired locations don't accomodate that, consider scaling back where you are going so that you can enjoy, relax and maybe come again sometime. If you have all the time in the world, WONDERFUL.
This is what we do when traveling, we don't make our reservations in advance unless we are going to a popular site in high season (almost never.) However, about 2-3 hours before arrival (which should still be early in the day and in fact not long after we leave if we are on the 2-2-2 plan) we decide where it looks like we will want to stay along our proposed route. Smart phone apps are really useful. Allstays and Good Sam are our favorites. I usually look at both. I frequently will check this out discussing with my husband while he is driving. I call and make the reservations, confirm directions, etc. This is important because they may tell you things different than the mapping program based on local construction or traffic patterns. If you are towing once you are set up, you can unhook the car and begin driving around seeing the local sites or activities of the area.
On the routes to choose while planning your trip, if you must cover some distance you may want to stick to the freeways and major highways, particularly 4 lane divided ones. But if you have time to drive and relax, the scenic byways are what we enjoy most, and very nice if you have the large view front windshield of a class A MH. However, here it is best to have an RV GPS planning system that can take into account the heighth and length of your motor home plus tow if any, as you can run into roads that will not be passable and there may not be an adequate turn around spot. Since you are visiting from the UK, I assume you will not have a large amount of baggage to haul with you and you will probably best be served with a smaller MH which will be easier to manage and more accessible to camping sites. Get one small enough and you could use it almost like a big car. smile. I know of some Canadians who did just that, it was not a class A, however.
That's as much as I can say without knowing more about your situation.
Irene

[Arch Hoagland]

Going to New England in the fall requires some planning because everybody else is going there too. They are called leaf peepers.

So it is best if you have some reservations during that time. There aren't all that many campgrounds in the northeast. Be aware they usually close for the winter so do some planning for that trip.

We've hit all the lower 48 states and it's extremely rare for us to make any reservations. I'll call ahead the day before as we usually know where we will go tomorrow but I don't make reservations, I just ask if there will be space available. That way we can do anything we want without any obligations to an RV park.

[csrrsr]

Planning depends on where your going and what time of year. We planned this trip where we fish for salmon on the Pacific. Without the planning our ocean front spot where we can watch the fishermen coming in and walk to our boat just wouldn't have happened. On the other hand, our trip down the Oregon coast in April was totally unplanned. But, it was early in the year and we could pick our spots. After you've done this a few times you'll know whether you should be planning things out ahead of time or not. Good luck and safe travels!!

[wadders]

Guess I'm gonna be a leaf peeper at some stage then :-)