Planning a Long Term RV Trip: What We Did Right and What We Did Wrong.

~And, we rode off happily into the sunset!~

Let me just go on record right now: our 10,000 mile road trip around the eastern half of the United States was pretty near perfect.  I would like to pin all some of the credit on my expert planning, but the truth is that the trip was one of those rare life moments where the skies opened up and sunshine and goodness poured down.   Of course, not every moment was kismet, but for once it seemed like Murphy decided to take a holiday with some other family. 

So, if I were planning it all over again-and you know that I am-what things would do exactly the same and what lessons did we learn that would make us do it differently?

What We Did Right On Our Long Term RV Trip

1. We kept our driving to 6 hours/300 miles per day.  Die hard road trippers will say you can go much farther in a day, and in a car, you absolutely can travel longer per day.  Adding a 10,000 pound camper to the trip is a game changer, though.  You definitely have to drive slower, and the navigating requires a much higher degree of focus to stay safe on the road.   6 hours was the outer limit for what was comfortable and safe for us in a day.

~Camper, safely parked before sunset~

2. We parked before dark.  Another reason to limit our driving hours was to be sure we could park the camper before sunset.  Backing a massive trailer into a restricted area is just so much easier when you can clearly see all the obstacles you could hit.  Backing in is one of the most stressful parts of RVing, (and, if I were to guess, the leading cause of divorce among RVers), so it’s best to do it in optimum conditions and while you are still fresh.  The one time we pulled in after dark was a nightmare, that not only included almost hitting a tree, but also rain and a fair amount of yelling.

3. We watched the weather, and rerouted accordingly.  The Mister and I are not really detail people.   Seriously, it’s a wonder we manage to stay alive and pay our taxes on time.   We tend to just take a leap and hope for the best, and it’s managed to keep us in pretty good stead.  However, for this trip, I was understandably worried that we would meet up with some weather and need to make a quick decision about whether to ride it out or hit the road.   We did have two hurricanes that forced us to make plan detours, and I am grateful that we were paying attention to the weather and could plan accordingly.

~If the days were too full, the troops rebelled.~

4. We didn’t over plan. We generally have a “you can sleep when you’re dead” philosophy of traveling, but we knew that wouldn’t be sustainable for such an extended trip.  Fighting my natural tendency, I purposely planned our days with no more than two activities and plenty of time to get home before dinner.  We needed the downtime.

5. We had realistic expectations.  We told ourselves that if we had more good days than bad days, the trip would be a success. Happily, we had mostly great days, and although not every moment was a poster for RV America, we definitely exceeded our expectations.  There was such a huge build up for us as a family that it would have been easy to ignore reality and put the trip on an unreachable pedestal.   I am glad we were mentally prepared for the tough days, so that we could stay positive when plans needed to change.

What I Would Do Differently on a Long Term RV Trip

1. I would take a break from the city.  Maybe it’s that we aren’t city people, or maybe it’s just that the city is so cold and hard, but we really tired of touring in the city week after week.  Geographically, it just worked out that we were in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC in a row.  The parking, walking, public transportation, and general busyness of the city atmosphere was hard on us country folk.  If I were doing it again, I would plan some retreats to the country between the city time to revive and recharge.

~A Foggy view of NYC~

2. I wouldn’t plan to stay in one place too long.  With a fairly open ended schedule, we thought it would be great to settle into one place for a while and dig into the area.  In practice, we got antsy by about ten days and were ready to move on.  I wasn’t expecting that, but it turned out that we wanted to keep moving.

3. I would have checked the seasonal schedules.  In Texas, there aren’t many, if any seasonal closings.  It’s not something that is on my radar, here.   In the North, there were several occasions where attractions were closed or not fully operational for the time of year we were visiting.  I don’t think it would have changed our schedule much, but I could have shuffled some things around for a more optimal visit.

~Oh look, there's a familly photo…where we are all wearing hairnets?!?!?~

4. I would have taken more pictures of the whole family.  We took a lot of pictures-about 9,000 at last count, but we have very few of the entire family.  There are pictures of me and kids or the Mister and the kids, or just the kids.  I really wish we had just asked someone to grab our camera and take a picture of all of us.

5. I would have kept a journal.  I thought I would keep up with my blog while we were traveling, but I was too busy living to worry about blogging.  I do wish I had kept a quick, even hand written journal of our daily ins and outs.  After only three months, the memories are already starting to have a dream like fuzziness, and I am quickly trying to write them all down before I forget forever.