Trailer Life Directory on CD. Shows at a glance campgrounds along the way, instructions on how to get to them, plus much, much more. I have it loaded on my laptop. Also, if you are looking for a place and have an address, it will take you to front door.
Wouldn't leave home without it.
GM
Discovery 39S Tin Teepee
Honda CR-V Toad
Jeep Cherokee Toad
Enrolled member of the Comanche Tribe
English Bride
Bichon Frise bear killers:
Lord Shonefeld von Reginald-Friese IV.
Lady Annabelle von Lichenstein-Friese III.
These are all great ideas. Woodall's, Trailer Life, and Passport America all have apps for your smartphone. Another app we use is called Oh Ranger. It shows state, federal and local parks. We also carry the next exit with us to find RV friendly gas stations.
We use woodalls guide , camping with the corps ( army core of engineers) the next exit guide and KOA's campground guide we have always found a place to stay.
That's one of the reasons that we overnight at Wal-Mart as much as we do - it's just a lot easier to find them near the interstate for quick off / quick on. We also find that's it's a lot faster to pull into a Wal-Mart parking lot and 'setup' than it is to pull into a campsite, check-in and setup. (Also since we don't usually travel with a toad, we usually want to stop at Wal-Mart to shop anyway. Since we have 2 young kids, this works best for us since one of us can stay with the kids while the other does the shopping).
As far as finding them, we usually pick an approximite destination (e.g. 50 miles away) and then search for Wal-Mart (or campground) near that destination using our GPS or Streets and Trips. Streets and Trips has a feature to search along a route but it only works well in certain situations. We often have a route for hundreds of miles (e.g. Canada to Florida). Searching along that route is useless since it will give us mostly unsuitable stops (e.g. stops near our destination when we're still 1000 miles away). Easy work around for that is to simply pick a new destination that's closer to our current location (e.g. within 100 miles) and then search only that route.
Once you have been down the road from point A to wherever, you can refer to your Log Book and see where you stayed before and if you liked it, stay again.
We have been out for eight years and our map books are crisscrossed with the yellow marker we use to cover where we have been. When we find a place we like, we Log it and also make a yellow circle round it so we can go back again.
With the Computer it is easy to check your intended route and ask the computer to show camp grounds near the area you need to be.
Most of the time, if you are breaking a new trail you can even print off a Map from the Computer that will give you turn by turn directions. Save your trails and reuse them next time!
Happy Trails..
Capt. Chet
03 Journey DL 39.5 w/330 CAT and bells & whistles!!!!
Toad is a 04 Malibu
Full timing
Out Door World Elite/ Thousand Trails/ Pass Port America
FMCA f10045d
Bought a copy of Nerxt Exit and was VERY disappointed that it didn't really tell everything that was at the next exit,especially rv parks.I tend to do what most others do.
1.plan the route and use RV park reviews,trailer life directory and now,Passport America.
2.previous trips thru the area.
3.luck in finding one that is s'posed to be there according to others.
A couple of times I have had a place picked out in advance and the DW said those famous last words, "hey,it's early.Let's go a little farther".Both times have almost been a disaster..Nuff Said....
I use MS Streets and Trips to identify potential stops for planning my travel days. The version I am using has a RV park and campground directory from the Woodall's guide.
There are two "nearest places" modes in S&T that help. You can estimate an end-of-day location, and do a radius search, e.g. someplace within 10 or 20 miles from X. The other mode, if you want to stay close to your route, is to do a more narrow search (say 2 or 5 miles) along the route, and the program will look for places in that strip of land.
Once on the road, I may use the Trailer Life directory (hard copy, carried with me) around lunch time to find a place where I might be late afternoon or evening. DW liked KOAs, so she carried and consulted the KOA directory as well.
For what its worth, I find very few campgrounds close to the Interstate highways. Most of the places close to the highways are RV parks, typically "overnighter" RV parks, rather than campgrounds or destination parks. These are often near gas stations, close to the highway and to the exit, and have a convenience store (and sometimes restaurant or cafe) somewhere nearby. Not a place many people would want to camp, but OK for the night in a closed up, hard-wall RV with air conditioner running for white noise.
The campgrounds I find tend to be further from the highway, a few miles to a couple dozen miles from the dust and noise, and usually in a rural area, wooded area, or near water. A place where people can pitch a tent, build a fire, sit outside.
We alternate buying Woodall's one year and the Trailer Life Directory the next. The directories are easy to use, a wealth of information for the RV'er, and give excellent directions to the campgrounds. I've yet to see a GPS that had as many campgrounds listed as those the two directories I've mentioned. When we go on long distance trips we always have it with us...always.
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