Trip Planning – Part 2

Last week I outlined a few of the necessary steps required in the early phase of planning an extended RV trip. Most of those steps involve logistical matters like route planning, reservations, distances traveled per day, as well as a few items on the home front like mail forwarding and canceling phone and internet services. My purpose was to highlight some of the tools we use in this effort. This week, I thought I would share the method I use to organize that information and point out some of the resources we use to enhance our travel experience once we get rolling.

Spreadsheet

In the previous post, I mentioned that we use RV Trip Wizard and MilitaryLiving.com to plan a route and to locate campgrounds approximately 250 miles apart along that route. At the beginning of this process, I create an Excel spreadsheet and list the preferred campground stops along that route.  I type in the phone numbers of each campground, the desired reservation dates, and the distance from the previous stop. Once I complete that list, I begin making phone calls to secure a reservations.  If I am successful, I enter the confirmation number in the spreadsheet and other pertinent data like costs and site number (if known).

More often than not, Military campgrounds will not accept reservations for retired personnel until 30 days or less from the desired date to give active duty service members priority, a policy I agree with completely. Therefore, the spreadsheet is always a work in progress and is revised often throughout the planning stage. If the military campgrounds are full, we try to find a commercial campground or state park close by, but a route change may be necessary at times, requiring more revisions.

Once the spreadsheet is at or near completion, I place a copy in our trip binder and give copies to family members so they can keep up with us. A spreadsheet can be a bit time-consuming, but it is valuable information.  I store a copy on my phone in the Dropbox app and refer to it often when looking up the arrival dates for various destinations.

Trip Binder

On our first retirement trip up the East Coast, I compiled a binder with tabs for each overnight stop along the way. A trip binder is now a part of every trip we take. Within each tabbed section, I place a print copy of the reservation confirmation along with other information like magazine articles, newspaper clippings, etc., that I gather about tourist sites or events like festivals or concerts in each area. I also place notes or emails from friends if they have visited the area and what they recommend for us to see and do (and eat).  Finally, I add a few sheets of loose-leaf notebook paper at each tab to write down information about our visit to share with friends or Easin’ Along readers in blog posts. The spreadsheet mentioned above is usually the first tab. I have all of the binders for past trips…mostly to re-live some of the memories.

Tour Books and Reference Material

Helen (adorable wife) has the job of planning the activities at each stop.  She brings me along to drive, cook, and wash dishes. There are a lot of resources out there for information about cities and restaurants anywhere in the country and we use a lot of them like Trip Advisor and Fodor’s.  Sometimes, a Google search will give us more than we can take in, but that is a good a place as any to start. Trailer Life Magazine does a great job of pointing out information to RVers from other RVers about travel to certain destinations. As soon as our spreadsheet is nailed down, Helen pays a visit to the local AAA office to pick up the latest Tour Books for each region along our route. These travel guides are updated often and are an excellent resource for restaurants, “must-see” attractions, and historical information about a particular city or town. She brought home a haul for our next trip.

RV Manuals and Checklists

Ok, we’re on the road and the awning gets stuck or a light on the refrigerator starts blinking—now what? When we purchased Lucy, the RV dealer gave us a binder filled with the manuals for all of the appliances, warranties, and other moving parts.  I used that binder to organize, as well as add, additional information on maintenance procedures for RV equipment like the generator, fifth-wheel hitch, and portable gas grill.  I also inserted checklists for critical procedures like hooking and unhooking the trailer and a checklist for preparing the trailer before departing for the next stop.  The owners manual has a section that outlines the hookup procedures, but I found that some of the necessary steps were either omitted or not clear enough for a novice like me and I created my own. I keep a copy of the checklist in the RV reference manual stored in Lucy and a laminated copy near the RV control panel. We secure the departure checklist to the refrigerator with a magnet.

Let’s Roll

The plans and the preparations are wrapped up and we’re ready to roll. Even though we love it here, we’re eager to move on to someplace a little drier and bit warmer for a few months.  We’ve had more rain in Tennessee this winter than we’ve had in years. Two weeks to go and we’ll be Easin’ Along once again. I hope you’ll stay in touch…this trip should be a lot of fun.