jordanIt’s hard to find a good place to start, both with writing up all the things I’ve learned about being location independent and in how to start planning for a trip. So, let’s start at the beginning of a trip plan and I’ll work some of the technical components into the mix as we go along.
How Do You Know Where You Want To Go?
Well, this is very subjective. Some travelers want to see and do as much as possible. Some just want to get to a place that sounds nice and stay there for a while. Some are weekend campers, not venturing far from home at all. And most fall in-between these extremes or do a little of each. Where you go often depends on why you want to travel and the type of equipment you have.
My family loves road trips. We love getting far from home and taking advantage of the phenomenal interstate highway system we have access to here in the states. We’re fans of national parks, spending time with friends and family that live far from home, and having new adventures that don’t feel like home at all. We’re well suited for it, too. We’ve homeschooled for a number of reasons, but primarily because our middle daughter is disabled and we wanted the flexibility to attend to her needs without having to work with a schooling schedule. I’ve worked remotely for years, not really having an office that I need to go to and my work not particularly caring what geographic region I live in. And finally, our kids are freakishly good travelers. They enjoy being in a car (or truck in our case) for hours and enjoy new locations as much as we do. Not every family is this way. I imagine most actually aren’t.
I Know Where I Want To Go, Now How Do I Figure Out Where To Stay?
There are some great tools that help answer this exact question. My first stop, once I know where we want to go, is Campendium.
Campendium is a website/app that lets you find campgrounds, services, free parking, etc. across the US and Canada. I imagine it provides services beyond these borders but this is where I have used it, so that’s all I’ll claim for now. It’s crowdsourced information which can be very useful but needs to be taken with a grain of salt (like all review sites out there). The information collected are things like the largest equipment reported being at that location, what type of services are available at the camp sites (power, water, and sewer), campground facilities, campground policies, ratings by previous campers, photos, and cellular coverage. There also are free form reviews where previous campers can provide insight to their experience and any trouble that they encountered. Some of these features are behind a paywall but the amount of free features available is adequate at most. For those who do want/need the paid features, you need the Roadpass Pro subscription, which gives you access to Campendium and a few other RV-centric websites as well.
I like Campendium specifically for the cell coverage information that it provides. Until the never ending Starlink preorder that I put in comes to fruition, I’m beholden to using the cell networks for connectivity while on the road. Campendium lets me see other’s experiences with specific carriers so I can plan appropriately and make sure that the area I’m planning on staying has adequate coverage for my work.
Next up is Harvest Hosts. Harvest Hosts is a great service that connects local business that have large parking areas/capacity with travelers looking for an overnight parking spot. You need to subscribe to their service to get the listing of hosts included in the service, but once that is done there is no nightly fee to stay at any of the places. What is expected is that you would purchase or use the service that they offer when you stay. Often these locations are places like wineries, distilleries, farms, restaurants, golf courses, etc. so it’s usually easy to just grab dinner there or something along those lines, as a thanks for letting you stay. This is a great option for overnight stays that happen along your path, but aren’t your destination. Most sites limit stays to just one night but it can be very convenient and much more cost effective than paying for a full hookup site every night. We have thoroughly enjoyed our Harvest Host stays and plan on utilizing them whenever possible as overnight stops.
Last up when it comes to planning tools is RV Trip Wizard. RV Trip Wizard is part of the RV Life suite of tools and it helps those of us with larger vehicles plan routes that avoid hazards that the average driver doesn’t have to think about. Our new rig is 13′ 6″ tall, not much less than a tractor-trailer combo, and not every road is capable of handling tall or long vehicles. RV Trip Wizard asks you the type of vehicle you are driving, the constraints you want to put on your route (avoiding low overpasses, avoiding tolls, avoiding dirt roads… things like that) and then routes you like Google Maps would, but with all those things taken into consideration.
There are a couple of additional tools built into the trip planning capabilities that are very helpful as well. You can set how far you would like to go (either in miles or in hours driven) and it well overlay your range on the map so you can plan intermediary stops accordingly. It also asks you for your fuel capacity and efficiency, giving you warnings on what areas you should plan on looking to refuel. This came in unbelievably helpful with our previous rig and the truck that I bought with a gas engine, thinking that would make finding fuel easier. Long story short, it didn’t. Most gas stations are not set up to handle 54′ long combinations so much planning went into every gas stop, verifying every gas station we would use as to not put ourselves into difficult spots. RV Trip Wizard allowed me to plan each and every one of my gas stops for two months ahead of time and with few exceptions, none of which were because of a deficiency in RV Trip Wizard, we were able to easily get fueled up along the entire way. I’ve negated this need a bit as we’ve replaced the gasser truck with a diesel dually and I now just use the truck lanes, which clearly are built for vehicles of our length.
Also included with the RV Life subscription is an RV Safe GPS app that behaves much like Google Maps or Waze works. In theory, this is a great idea but the practical application leaves a lot to be desired. I use it, but never alone, and always run an alternative as well to sanity check its output. Near Glacier National Park it tried to send me down a 10 mile heavily rutted dirt road that would have added 45 minutes to my trip, when driving 2 miles down the road kept me on pavement and was far more efficient. I simply don’t trust it after multiple experiences like this and don’t recommend relying on it.
So that’s it. Those two apps are the ones that I use to plan trips. There are others like them but this combo works for me and the trips we take. In case your curious, I use a number of other apps that should be called out for being helpful, even if they aren’t part of the planning process. I’ll list them below in case you are looking for other ideas on how technology can enhance the RVing experience.
- Google Maps – essential tool for turn by turn driving directions.
- Recreation.gov – booking national park websites. This can be challenging as these spots are in high demand and often are booked as soon as they are released six months ahead of time.
- GasBuddy – this app helps you find the best fuel prices on the route you are driving.
- Weigh My Truck – this is the CAT scale app. Knowing your weights/capabilities is very important for a safe towing experience. I’ll cover this more in a future post. This app lets you get scale measurements without having to run in/out of a truck stop multiple times. Considering getting a pin weight this weight requires weighting in three different configurations, this is a major time saver and gets you off the scales quickly so others can use them.
- LevelMatePro – this is an app that teams up with a hardware device mounted in your trailer and it helps you find level spots to park in real time. Very useful in harvest host locations where you don’t plan on unhitching and leveling with jacks or blocks.
- Mopeka Tank Level – also teams up with hardware monitors but this monitors propane levels in your propane tanks. Nobody wants to run out of propane on a cold night.
- VictronConnect – I’ll spend a considerable amount of time on how I do my electrical system (probably one of the most important components that needs to be solid for working from the road) in a future post, but much of my setup is Victron based and this gives me visibility into my battery levels, input power, output power, and other critical electrical information.