My wife and I are planning a trip to Florida in early October. Except that we don't know the exact date we will be driving there from Dallas, nor do we know how long we will be staying. (But it won't be more than 2-3 days.) And we probably won't know until 1-2 days before we are going to leave that we are going on this particular day. (We will know that we are going, just not sure of the exact date of departure!)
Yeah, I know it sounds crazy. And we are planning on making the 18 hour drive straight, all in one day!
So my question is - what kinds of experiences, if any, have any of you had with similar adventures? No kids to worry about on this trip. And if I'm lucky I might be able to talk another couple in to going with us to share the expenses and some of the driving!
Just have the rig ready and watch the weather channel, as Hurricane season ends in November. We have 511 for traffic in Florida, so that will help to keep you from any major back-ups. Better figure on $5.00 gas and $5.75 diesel. Go to gasbuddy for best prices.
If you know where your going and plan out a route, I'm not sure that the unknowns in your case (exactly when and for how long) are all that important.
To me, the important parts of trip planning are:
1. Figuring out the specific route and alternates. We have Street Atlas and, at a minimum, I set the start and finish locations, letting the software figure out how to get there. Then, I trace every part of the route and force alternatives if I don't like what the program picked. This can be important because the software will pick the shortest route and not necessarily the best one.
2. Provisioning for the length of the stay plus some extra margin. For example, you say that you are going to drive it all in one day but weather, road work or an accident might dictate otherwise. Having extra clothes and few meals that you could prepare enroute could help you a lot. We generally, even for our long trips, don't take more than a few hours to load everything. The key is making a packing list (or several) in advance and then simply loading what is listed. We had an experience with a rental Class C where we had an hour to rent a car, unload the broken down RV and then drive 10 hours to pick up a replacement RV and return the rental car. That experience taught us to stay organized about loading and unloading.
I guess I think that taking off on short notice is one of the reasons that we have an RV. Think of this as a hurricane evacuation plan where you have just a few hours to get out of Dallas (OK, that probably isn't going to happen here but you could think of it that way.) The more of the RV that is always ready to go, minus last minute clothes and food, the better.
That actually sounds like our first summer in Rv'ing. I was working 4 day weeks so we had long weekends to do just that.
With the camping guide and a cellphone you can always find somewhere to stay. I usually let the "navigator"... ahem... decide where that is though.
Those were some of the best times we had. We kept stuff that didn't tolerate the heat very well like medicines, makeup, food.. in plastic bins where they would load and unload quickly. If you forgot something, it's at Walmart..
Having another couple go would be fun as well.
* This post was
edited 06/27/08 02:03pm by texasbaskets *
Michael, Kay and Hans (our Mini-Schnauzer co-pilot)
'05 Coachmen SportsCoach SE 372DS a.k.a. "Mana's Cabana"
Long, last minute trips? We in the winter when it looks like we are about to get an ice storm or snow (here in Georgia both only last a few days) we throw some clothing and a couple of baskets of food together and head south, or southwest to warmer climes. Mostly wing it, staying a day or so in whatever CG we can find. It is actually sort of fun.
We are nearly organized enough to plan routes or stays. We figure a general destination and start driving.
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