Plan? Why plan? Pick a direction, and go. Stop when you want to, visit what you want to, and when you hit salt water, change directions and continue.
In September, mount a snow shovel on the front of your rig, and head south. When somebody says "What the HECK is that?", you are far enough south.
Plan? don't need no steenking PLAN, just enjoy.
CM1, USN (RET)
'94 Dodge 3500 4X2 CTD, Std. cab, LB, 5 speed, 4.10 LS diff., Jacobs Rambrake, 273,000 Miles
'99 Monaco McKenzie 32' triple slide
'95 Tioga 29H Ford-based Class C
Daily driver: '06 Jeep Liberty CRD
Towed: '06 Jeep Rubicon Unlimited
The way we did it, this year, was to head in the direction we wanted to go, stopping at every state line to get info. Then we decided where we wanted to go in that state.
We are taking 9 weeks to go from Georgia to Washington state, to meet up with our Alaskan caravan. We will travel in the South on the way up, and North on the way back. We will travel about 350 mi each week.
A plan is a good idea - a schedule is a poor idea. Make a list of the places you'd like to see. Get Trailer Life Navigator (it's available from the Good Sam web site), it's a routing program with parks, RV parks, etc. listed and shown on the map. Lay out the various places you want to go and it will route you to them in the most effective way to drive it. But DON'T DO RESERVATIONS or set a time line. You'll find that one place that sounded like a week really sucks and you can't wait to leave and another that sounded like a day has some of the best riding you've every seen and you want to stay a week or two to explore the many little highways and byways.
Good luck and ride safe.
John Ewing
2007 Allegro Bus 42QRP ("TisIt")
2005 Sportster/HydraLift ("Dinky")
2002 Miata toad ("Mellow Yellow") www.jandse.com
FMCA 104106
What goes around comes around - always treat others the way you'd like them to treat you.
You've been given some good ideas. We've been FT for three years and generally pick an area of the country we want to explore. This year it was the National Parks in the SW (Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico) and planned our trip around that area with an eye to being in Texas by December. We did some reservations (usually about a week in advance) because we were in some of those areas during busy times. On the other hand, we changed "plans" more than once because we learned about something else we wanted to see.
In other words--we had a general idea of our route when we started out based on what we learned from our research (both online and by talking to friends who have made similar trips) but we didn't commit to a specific schedule and timeline within that plan.
Beachcomer wrote: Currently overseas and returning the end of 08 when I plan to buy a used truck and trailer to travel a year or so. I also plan to haul a motorcycle in the bed of the truck to sightsee while camped.
I am looking for suggestions on HOW to plan a year long travel around the States. Yes, I know that what each person wants to see and do will be different, but I am NOT asking what to see or where to go, but how I can plan this.
I would like some ideas on how to plan to do this with the least amount of unnecessary driving. I don’t want to be driving haphazardly around each State and crisscrossing the United States unnecessarily.
Like most people, I would plan to see the northern States in the summer and southern States in the winter.
I have started requesting travel information from each State. Upon receipt, I will look through them and decide what I would like to see in each State.
Being retired, I am not locked into doing this in one year. I may like it so much, that I will continue longer than a year. Also, I am not a complete newby. I owned a small class C, Tioga II (16’9”) for a few years in the late 70’s. Yes, there were RVs back then.
Any and all suggestions on how I can plan this will be appreciated.
Beachcomer,
Actually some on this forum have been doing this for a lot longer than the late 70’s.
First thing I might suggest is a good cell phone and a strong bank account.
Second would be to be sure you get something that fits you and is reliable in terms of the RV and the TV. The industry has evolved into a new and better, IMHO animal.
Third thing I would do is plan a few short local trips to get yourself re acquainted with the lifestyle and how it has changed over the last thirty years. Trust me it is not even close to what I used to do thirty years ago – these things are really nice now – the DW almost likes it.
Now getting into the planning part of the adventure – what I would do is figure out what you enjoy doing – Hiking? Biking? Photography? Driving? Warm weather? Cool Weather? Lakes? Rivers? Mountains? Deserts? Cityies large or small? I could go on and on but I think you get the idea.
What we have tried to do and this has evolved over a number of years is see it and then take the time to get out and TOUCH IT. This means two things to me; one is to get off the interstate highways when ever I can, two is to visit the places when they are least crowded.
One of my best trips ever was when we saw a break in the weather and headed up to Yellowstone in late October early November, more animals than people just my kind of trip. When we hit Red Lodge and Cody the people were great – no hurry they had time to just talk and tell you their stories.
Getting carried away here suggestions are to get this book;
My DW and I are on our 50th Wedding Ann. Trip Around America. We have been full time about two years and before that spent Winters in Florida and Summers in New England.
We were in Maine in August and that is where we started off from on our trip. We headed West, knowing that we wanted to see the places we had heard about but had never been.
We left Maine on August 14 and were looking at the Pacific Ocean September 11. Looking back we were going too fast. We didn't miss anything we wanted to see, but we should have been spending more time looking than driving.
We went South along the Pacific Coast, going slower and looking more and were in San Fransisco on Sept. 22. Then it was Reno, Along the CA-NV Border with stops at Yosemite, Death Valley, Las Vegas and Boulder Dam and over to the Grand Canyon. On October 13th we were in The Verde Valley Area and then over to Yuma,Azirona for a two week stay, due mostly to the fires in Southern California making our progress to that area impossible.
We finally got over to Palm Springs on November 6th and have been in the Palm Springs to San Diego Area since.
Our plan is to leave this area around January 14th and head East through Azirona and New Mexico and down into the RGV.
We have reservations to be in Florida in late March and will head to New England in mid May.
The only reservations we have had are at Thousand Trails Preserves and RPI Resorts, usually making them within just days of arrival.
We have had a funtastic trip thus far and would urge you to plan only the major spots you want to go to and spend most of your time visiting the areas inbetween.
Feel free to PM us for specifics, be glad to help our fellow travelers
Good Luck
Capt. Chet
03 Journey DL 39.5 w/330 CAT and bells & whistles!!!!
Toad is a 04 Malibu
Full timing
Member ODW, TT Alliance,PA
FMCA f10045d
1. Read everything you can find on buying an RV.
2. Buy RV (eBay worked for us)
3. Arrange for RV training, either at a rally, a driving school, or at the dealers lot (RV Bible has a chapter on driving that is handy).
4. Consider an escorted Tracks or other RV tour, problems are easier to solve when there is someone to help.
5. After tour, ask partner where they would like to go, if no partner, find one. (2 legged, 4 legged whatever)
Okay, this is as far as I have gotten in our planning. See you on the road after May 2009 for us.
Understand the need to plan when you have ONLY one year. We just pick a general route to where we might want to go and what we want to see and we may or may not get there because we found something else. The one thing we remember is that we have the time so every day doesn't have to be PERFECT.
2003 DISCOVERY 39L QUAD SLIDE
2003 CHEVY TRACKER ZR2 4x4
Blue Ox Aladdin, Brake Safe, Kar Guard
What areas should you avoid at particular times of the year? For example: When are tornados the worst and wehre, and how does that fit in to a circle of the US starting from the west coast.
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