PLANNING AN RV TRIP in 2021!

hey guys we are sean and christy this is long long honeymoon the long longest running rv channel on the interwebs today we have a fantastic topic for you planning a big rv trip so by planning we're talking about going beyond just finding campsites we're talking about mapping out an entire journey if you want with daily driving distances fuel stops points of interest even restaurants activities that you can pursue in addition to campsites so it can really help you get a much better handle on your daily expenses and what every day is going to be like there are a lot of people out there who really enjoy planning out every aspect of an rv trip in advance down to the last drop of fuel just ran out he just died holy cow can you even get us off the road holy cow oh sweet jesus unbelievable and as many of you know in the past we have not been big planners we love the spontaneity of rv travel however in the post pandemic era it makes sense to do some homework and do some planning first up i have a really high tech resource to show you some genius out there had the brilliant idea of taking ink and printing images onto paper and then wrapping it together with a spiral binder i think it's called a book or in this case an atlas this is the national geographic road atlas adventure edition highly recommended and even if you have all sorts of high-tech tools that you use to travel these days it makes a lot of sense to have a road atlas we love traveling with the road atlas and this is probably the best one that we've ever had and i don't think it's ever going to be replaced by looking at a phone or a computer screen there's something about viewing a map that gives me a sense of distance and perspective and what's great about this adventure edition road atlas is that a lot of really interesting destinations are highlighted in red so you can browse the map use it to plan your trip and you're going to find activities and things to do that are spotlighted for you in this atlas these are 20 bucks on amazon we will put a link to the specific atlas in the descriptions video this is a no-brainer i don't care who you are if you're planning to do any serious road tripping with your rv you've got to have a road atlas on board especially if you have a phone die or you know you get somewhere where you don't have any cell coverage or your gps dies you'll have a way to figure out where the heck you are you young whipper snappers out there the battery life in this thing is incredible now shifting from the road atlas we're going to show you first and foremost what seems to be the premier rv trip planning software slash app out there so really it's a website it's rv trip wizard they do have an app that you can use but really for your planning purposes you're going to want to use the website it is super duper detailed it asks every question about your rv how tall it is how wide it is how much does it weigh are you carrying propane what your miles per gallon are what your tank capacity is it uses all this information to help in calculating your trip costs because it doesn't just calculate your distance and stops it's going to also calculate how much your trip is going to cost you so you can put in what you want to spend per day on campgrounds what you want to spend per day on food miscellaneous purchases so if you are somebody that is really detailed and you're planning for those accountants out there that want to know every nickel and dime and where it's going rv trip wizard is going to be the resource for you it's not cheap it's 49 a year to join but you get access to a lot of information every kind of campground you can think of you can filter by campground really specifically so you can specifically look for national parks state parks county parks city parks privately owned good sam parks passport america parks a thousand trail parks so you can get really specific in what you're looking for along your route and then you can also look for points of interest things to do places to see it has lots and lots of detail so if you are looking for really detailed trip planning software rv trip wizard i think is probably going to be the most detailed that you're going to find and it is really easy to use it's very intuitive it comes with access to rv life gps app which is what you're going to use to look at your rv trip wizard trip on your phone but you can also i believe export your trip to a gps if you want you can export it to google maps if you want you can email it to yourself you can share it with other people so there are a lot of options for how you can see your trip but there isn't a specific rv trip wizard app you're going to have the rv life app so that's confusing to some people so just know that you're also going to get ad-free access to campgroundreviews.com so most of the campgrounds that you're going to find within the rv trip wizard app it's going to give you access to reviews of that campground and it's going to be reusing the reviews that are found on campgroundreviews.com so it's just sort of all integrated in together you can do a free 7-day trial of rv trip wizard sign up try it for seven days and cancel within that time period if you decide you don't like it but overall i've been really impressed with it even as a non-planner i could see us using this in full disclosure we are affiliates for gave us our available we paid the 49 to join so we did that with our own money but rv trip wizard really does seem to be the most sophisticated of all these services that we have found all right next up which is technically paid but you're probably already a member of good sam anyway it's the good sam trip planner so if you have joined good sam which means you you joined at a camping world store to get the camping world discount or you're a good sam member to get discounts under camping you can use that same login information to access the good sam trip planner a goodsam membership is 29 a year and if you join for multiple years you get a discounted rate so we we are not affiliates we don't get any sort of kickback for that just fyi the trip planner is only on the website they do have a good sam app where you can find good sam campgrounds but it's not as detailed as just using the good sam trip planner on the goodsam website you can alter your route on the map you can find points of interest but there's only a few to pick from it's like where's the nearest camping world so i mean i don't know if i really count that as a point of interest it does give good sam directory ratings for the parks so you remember the big campground review good sam you know it looked like a phone book that we used to use back in the day that gave you ratings on all different campgrounds it was like the trailer life guide basically it's that that get access to through their website and so you can read the details about the campground and know you know what kind of amenities they have how clean it is that sort of thing so that's nice it does actually show koas which i think is interesting because koa does have a trip planner that is terrible but it doesn't show anything but koa campgrounds so it's just kind of funny to me good sam does show all kinds of campgrounds not just good sam park so it shows national parks state parks all those sorts of things so it's actually a pretty good trip planner if you're not willing to pay for rv trip wizard if you happen to be a good sam member it's an additional benefit of your membership yeah absolutely next up are just some free options that are out there that aren't super fancy but it's going to be a way for you to plan from point a to point b google maps come on it's been around forever it's super simple to use if you use google maps on their website or on a computer you can actually search for campgrounds in the locations that you're looking at so that's kind of nice whereas on your phone you can't really do that the other one that you could look at is called free roam they have an app and a website it's pretty basic but you know it's easy to use it does give some more detailed information on camping areas like it'll tell you what the cell phone coverage is for a certain campground or how crowded the sites are or how busy it is how noisy it is so it does have a few more you know details as far as the campground that you're looking at as far as reviews and that sort of thing so that's interesting free roam is totally free but some of these apps have a free app and then you pay for upgrades and for access to more information within the app yeah so the ones you're thinking of with that regard are road trippers and to-go rv i guess i'm saying that right it's to go rv both of those have the plus versions that are paid so there's a free road trippers there's a free to go rv and then there's road trippers plus and to go rv plus and those are paid and of course they offer more resources i think road trippers is more about the road trip itself so it's got a lot of like weird places to stop you know like it's where you're gonna find like the world's largest ball of twine and you know a weird quirky museum along the way so if that's important to you that would be a good resource to use but again the free version is very limited if you want to really get access to the resources you're going to have to pay for it if you're like me you've heard about these gps systems but maybe never really experienced traveling with one next up i want to give a shout out to our rv gps we do travel with this garmin rv890 what i really love about this gps is not so much the navigation ironically when we're traveling with this we typically have two gps's going simultaneously we'll use google or waze or like a phone gps yeah in addition to the garment because sometimes even with these gps units it's helpful to have more than one route option when you're traveling but what i love about the garmin are all of the rv specific features there is even a trip planner built into this gps and for those of you out there who enjoy planning out your maps on that garmin basecamp software this is compatible with basecamp so you can plan out your stuff on base camp and i believe import it into the gps it's also got all sorts of just rv specific features like campgrounds and ioverlander a lot of you have mentioned that you like to use ioverlander which is a free website and app this garmin rv890 actually integrates ioverlander sights and stops into the gps so there's a lot of features like that in here there's ultimate public campgrounds tripadvisor got koa all sorts of just great features built into the gps i think garmin has done an excellent job putting rv specific features in the gps yeah sometimes i think it's just sitting down and familiarizing yourself with it and learning how to use all of those features because you get a gps and you look at the map and you're just like okay i'm going to put in my address where i want to go and that's sort of all you think about a lot of times but it's really digging into those different screens and sort of learning all the features that are hidden in there that can be super helpful you know just make your trip a little more a little more pleasurable so i would recommend it overall it's not perfect i don't think there's any gps out there that's perfect we've yet to find that but it's the best that we've found for rv travel yeah absolutely there are some other apps that you can look at that will be helpful in planning your rv trip you know last week we did the video where we talked about finding specific campsites and that's where we talked about campendium and rv parky harvest hosts there's also boondockers welcome there's allstays there's ioverlander like he was talking about all those are great but a couple of others that can be helpful for your actual travel days are gas buddy scrub those bugs where you can find the nearest gas station and it will actually tell you the prices on the fuel for those of you penny pinchers out there who want to find the absolute lowest price on fuel you can use gas buddy and it will show you all the different fuel prices at different fuel stations in your area and so you can pick out the lowest price and the really helpful thing about gas buddy to us is it also will show you what stations have diesel fuel so if you are a diesel truck driver or diesel motorhome driver whatever just know that you can search specifically for diesel stations and you won't waste your time going to places that don't have a diesel pump yeah there's nothing worse than pulling over and going to a station and then discovering they don't have diesel the other one that i was going to mention is called i exit there used to be a next exit book that we used to carry around with us that would list all the features at each exit off the interstate and again it was like carrying a phone book around with you well now there's an app called i exit and it's free and so basically you can have it find where you are on your current location or you can look based on interstate and it will tell you the the services at the different exits so you can find out that at exit 310 there's going to be a cracker barrel and there's going to be a chevron and there's going to be a walmart and yada yada so very helpful another one that you can look at is called windy and it's windy like w-i-n-d-y and that's going to tell you when the conditions of where you are now for us in the south that's usually not a big deal unless there's like a hurricane coming through but if you're somewhere that's really flat and wind factors are really something that you should be worried about when you're driving like south texas or nebraska or utah yeah utah places like that where they do have wind advisories it can be very helpful for those days when you're going to be traveling through those areas because you can find out if there's going to be dangerous winds in your area and lastly there's one called mountain directory it's actually a paid app you can also buy a book if you would rather have a book that you can look through but it's going to tell you about mountain grades and you know steep driving conditions on your route so if you're somebody that's really worried about a 10 grade coming up and you want to know about it in advance that's the app to get it's not cheap but if you're really concerned about it it's worth it and i will point out the garmin gps will give you advanced warnings if you're approaching a steep grade which is pretty nice but it's only a few miles in advance so not necessarily enough in advance for you to alter your route yeah this really shows how detailed uh it has gotten that you can get a wind app a mountain grade app i mean that's pretty remarkable another one that you can get that actually i downloaded last year and it's free is a fire and smoke map and it was because of all the wildfires that were happening out west we were trying to see what the smoke conditions were so we would know if we were going to be going to camp somewhere that was going to be miserably smoky or not so there's apps for everything i mean it's really just just start googling and you'll find specifically what you're looking for really so we'll run through some additional resources that we've mentioned previously on our channel one is harvest hosts harvest host is a club basically that you join and once you are a member you can stay at different locations for free basically now most of these locations are places of business they could be farms they could be museums they could be brew pubs or wineries and most of these places have shops or stores so you know you're kind of expected to go in and give something back by making a purchase at the store drinking some beer having a glass of wine yeah it's usually not anything that's much of a burden no it's usually actually a lot of fun so that can really add an interesting dimension to your rv travel there's no hookups in most of these places i mean this is you're purely dry camping boondocking you know typically you're probably not going to have any kind of water or sewer or anything like that available it's a place to park overnight that will be interesting and a fun experience right usually much quieter than you know a cracker barrel or a walmart parking lot of that sort of thing and usually they're in pretty scenic locations and yes we are affiliates with harvest hosts we'll have a link to harvest hosts beneath this video a lot of you have mentioned boone docker's welcome we have not used boondockers welcome but apparently it is a way to find boondocking spots that are privately owned privately owned so maybe we'll be trying that later this year yeah to see how it goes all right i don't always get a printed receipt for fuel but on this occasion i think i will [Laughter] oh what an adventure say thank the lord right yeah man we barely made it here that was divine intervention we did ptl and thank you seymour we have not traditionally been great planners but in this current climate with so many people rv traveling planning is becoming more and more important we ask you what resources do you use when you're planning an rv trip that's right if you are an rv planner yourself what is your favorite way to plan and if you've got something that we didn't mention already give us the details on it as always thanks for tuning in to long long honeymoon the long longest running rv channel on the interwebs if you enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up share it with your friends and family if you haven't yet please click the subscribe button down below we would love to have you be a part of lolohon nation and until next time what do we say hello we continue to receive a number of questions about the rv nanoshield ceramic coating installed at vinnie's north bay airstream repair if you're interested in having your airstream covered with a protective layer of ceramic glass the best in the industry contact vinnie or you can call brian and yes you can tell them sean and christy sent ya

Channel: Long Long Honeymoon

Views: 49,207

Rating: 4.9826488 out of 5

Keywords: airstream, rv, camping, travel, loloho

Id: reElF6OfFJk

Length: 18min 54sec (1134 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 07 2021