Campground/travel apps

[moose&squirrel]

We are new to the forum and planning a trip from St. Pete, FL to Austin, Tx. We'll be in Austin for a few weeks and trying to locate a campground with full hookup. Can anyone recommend an app or website to help find a good campground?

We are pulling a 5th wheel, a little over 13' tall. Is there an app that will accept rig dimensions and avoid height restrictions when planning the route?

[wiredgeorge]

Originally Posted by moose&squirrel

We are new to the forum and planning a trip from St. Pete, FL to Austin, Tx. We'll be in Austin for a few weeks and trying to locate a campground with full hookup. Can anyone recommend an app or website to help find a good campground?

We are pulling a 5th wheel, a little over 13' tall. Is there an app that will accept rig dimensions and avoid height restrictions when planning the route?

Best campground app is one affiliated with this site:
https://campgrounds.rvlife.com/

If camping in the Austin area, keep in mind that traffic in and around Austin is abysmal. IH35 should be avoided. I am sure you will be able to use a map to navigate either to the east or west of Austin and most of the really great campgrounds I know of personally are on the west side near the lakes.

[NH_Bulldog]

I use the RV Life Trip Wizard (again, associated with this site). https://tripwizard.rvlife.com

I have planned multiple long-duration trips without incident. Positive features are too numerous to go into here, but it really does check off all the boxes for what an RV Trip app should be able to do.

[sourdough]

Originally Posted by moose&squirrel

We are new to the forum and planning a trip from St. Pete, FL to Austin, Tx. We'll be in Austin for a few weeks and trying to locate a campground with full hookup. Can anyone recommend an app or website to help find a good campground?

We are pulling a 5th wheel, a little over 13' tall. Is there an app that will accept rig dimensions and avoid height restrictions when planning the route?

Do you need to be "in" Austin? If not I would avoid that if possible in any way. If you can stay outside 30 minutes, or more, your happy factor (IMO) will be much happier.

[JeffJohnston]

Originally Posted by NH_Bulldog

I use the RV Life Trip Wizard (again, associated with this site). https://tripwizard.rvlife.com

I have planned multiple long-duration trips without incident. Positive features are too numerous to go into here, but it really does check off all the boxes for what an RV Trip app should be able to do.

Does Trip Wizard work like a standard GPS map (google maps on my phone) and can I set it to avoid roads where campers are not allowed? Google Maps currently doesn't do that, and I am willing to pay for an app that will help me avoid another ticket for driving on a road where cmapers are not allowed.

[NH_Bulldog]

Originally Posted by JeffJohnston

Does Trip Wizard work like a standard GPS map (google maps on my phone) and can I set it to avoid roads where campers are not allowed? Google Maps currently doesn't do that, and I am willing to pay for an app that will help me avoid another ticket for driving on a road where cmapers are not allowed.

Yes. You enter your RV specs, fuel consumption rate, distance between breaks, total distance per day you want to travel, avoidances - dirt roads, tunnels, ferries, HOV lanes, etc. The app looks and acts like a regular GPS on your phone. I will post some screen captures.

[JeffJohnston]

Originally Posted by NH_Bulldog

Yes. You enter your RV specs, fuel consumption rate, distance between breaks, total distance per day you want to travel, avoidances - dirt roads, tunnels, ferries, HOV lanes, etc. The app looks and acts like a regular GPS on your phone. I will post some screen captures.

Thanks! Hopefully it just "knows" what roads I can't go on. It's not neccessarily that I want to avoid roads, I just am not allowed on there. For example, I don't want to avoid tolls etc. But I assume you are from NH (which is where we just bought our TT). Coming home I didn't realize that on all NY State Parkways NO trailers of any kind are allowed. My GPS didn't know that (and neither did I LOL) and I don't know what to put in to avoid things liek that. Google maps has the ability to avoid things, but not trailer specifi things. Does that make sense?

Thanks again!

[NH_Bulldog]

As long as you enter your RV specs correctly, it will recognize banned routes and will indicate that it is an RV Safe Route. Here are some screen captures. I just intentionally plotted destinations near various Parkways in CT and NY and the app routed me around and away from them without taking me on them.

[JeffJohnston]

Originally Posted by NH_Bulldog

As long as you enter your RV specs correctly, it will recognize banned routes and will indicate that it is an RV Safe Route. Here are some screen captures.

Thanks so much! I will definately be downloaduing the app before our first trip in the spring

[GlasNav]

We will give RV Life Trip Wizard a try and compare it to what we have been using and that is inRoute. InRoute also offers elevation and grade avoidance routing as well as current weather interaction in particular wind. I don't know if I would recommend the app to anyone that doesn't have a good grasp of waypoints and setting stay / rest criteria. Reminds me of Maritime Navigation Programs. It isn't a campground app, and only available for Apple products.

[flybouy]

Originally Posted by GlasNav

We will give RV Life Trip Wizard a try and compare it to what we have been using and that is inRoute. InRoute also offers elevation and grade avoidance routing as well as current weather interaction in particular wind. I don't know if I would recommend the app to anyone that doesn't have a good grasp of waypoints and setting stay / rest criteria. Reminds me of Maritime Navigation Programs. It isn't a campground app, and only available for Apple products.

You can get all of that with a Garmin RV GPS and not have the issues of loosing cell signal or having a call interupt the guidence.

[Roper46]

Originally Posted by flybouy

You can get all of that with a Garmin RV GPS and not have the issues of loosing cell signal or having a call interupt the guidence.

I highly recommend Garmin RV GPSs. I have been using the Garmin RV 785 for a couple years now. It has a dash cam and you can set up two profiles, one for when you are towing the RV and one when you are not. I use mine in my truck every day and then just switch profiles. As stated you just set up your profile with your RV info and the GPS does the rest. You can also set any avoidances you want.

[NH_Bulldog]

Originally Posted by flybouy

You can get all of that with a Garmin RV GPS and not have the issues of loosing cell signal or having a call interupt the guidence.

Current “smart” phones have their own built-in GPS that is independent of cellular service. Some can even access satellite services for emergency calling absent cell service. For someone not wanting a extra chunk (or vast array of space shuttle-like hardware) on their dash when they already have and use a smartphone anyway, the travel app is a great option.

As an added bonus (if your vehicle supports it) is that the app is supported in Apple CarPlay. On my truck, I start the app, connect my phone to my truck and select the app on my center dashboard screen and can use it in place of my built-in factory navigation just like I would Apple Maps, Google Maps, Waze, etc. I download the route to my phone so cell service isn’t a factor. It is a very cost effective, neat, clean and fully functional solution without all the unsightly clutter.

YMMV

[LHaven]

I also have gravitated to using the RV Life app to plan my trips, find campgrounds, and outline my RV-safe route. But I don't use it for live navigation simply because it's not an app safely resident on my own equipment, it's entirely web-based -- if you travel in areas where your Internet connection is spotty or nonexistent, the service evaporates accordingly, and we travel in a lot of those.

Most of my travel is done along the I-10 corridor where there just isn't much in the way of RV-unsafe hazards like low clearances or tunnels that entirely forbid propane tanks, so I just use Apple or Google Maps to get me between campgrounds and fuel stops.

When I travel in areas like NY with its thruways or MD with its tunnels, I've used Road Trip Planner, which lets me plan an itinerary and a safe route, and then download it to a fully-contained app on my phone that I can use for nav without worrying that my Internet will go down.

I learned the hard way not to use Waze or Google Maps; when forced to, I learned NEVER to answer "yes" to "Slowdowns detected, choose a better route?"

[NH_Bulldog]

I create and download my trips to my phone and can navigate all or a portion of my trip in airplane mode without any cell service whatsoever (I used to do this in Canada before I changed carrier and plans). So the app data resides on my phone not the internet.

I create trips on my laptop then pull them up on my iPhone app, download, connect to truck, hit “go” and I am all set whether I lose cell service or not. Also, don’t forget that modern smartphones have a separate GPS system for maps/navigation independent of cell service.

I get it that this level of technology isn’t for everyone, but it really is the best RV-safe navigation app I have found.

[flybouy]

"I get it that this level of technology isn’t for everyone, but it really is the best RV-safe navigation app I have found."

To me it's exactly the higher level of tech that attracts me to the separate GPS. I embrace a a " mission specific" device , like the GPS, the tire pressure monitor, etc. I'm used to scanning different devices for information without having to touch or switch a device. I've done this for many years while operating boats and piloting aircraft.

To each thier own and whatever anyone likes is best for them.

[moose&squirrel]

After posting the original questions and getting responses, I downloaded the tripwizard app to my phone. Then I went to the website and planned the trip to Austin and back to St Pete on my laptop. Used the state park feature to locate campgrounds along the route in map mode. Used points of interest features to find truck stops for diesel. It provided a comprehensive overview of the trip in one place. Based on some of the other posts I plan to download the trip to my phone so I can operate independent of the web connection. Tripwizard is a good tool. Thanks for the help!

[LHaven]

I entirely forgot there was an RV Life GPS app for the phone that can offline-nav my trips planned in RV Life Tripwizard. Clearly I knew it existed at one time, because it's already on my phone! Next trip, I'm going to give it a try.

[ljdriscoll]

We stayed at Oak Forest RV park just outside Austin

[LERD]

Originally Posted by moose&squirrel

After posting the original questions and getting responses, I downloaded the tripwizard app to my phone. Then I went to the website and planned the trip to Austin and back to St Pete on my laptop. Used the state park feature to locate campgrounds along the route in map mode. Used points of interest features to find truck stops for diesel. It provided a comprehensive overview of the trip in one place. Based on some of the other posts I plan to download the trip to my phone so I can operate independent of the web connection. Tripwizard is a good tool. Thanks for the help!

RV Trip Wizard is what I use as well to plan our trips initially. It works great in that aspect. But after that, I'm stuck using Google maps. RV trip wizard won't work with Android Auto. Because of that, I'm not renewing that service. I have a large 12" display on my truck. I don't want a bunch of extra screens taking up rent on the dashboard. I would love to hear about any other Android Auto app for truck and or RV travel. I already called Ford about an upgrade on their system. But for Super Dutys, it's only available on a 2023 or newer, there is no backwards compatibility.