Cross country trip

[old timer]

We love out new to us Montana and now are planning a cross country trip. Question I have is how far in advance do I start to make reservations at the next camp ground? We are going to 23 states and staying at 25 places. Going from west coast to east coast. Up the east and across the upper states. Taking off May 1st. and Not sure when I am getting home. Bringing the trailer home a week early to do my inspection to make sure everything is good to go on our trip.

[Murphsmom]

I'll be interested in the answers to your questions, as we are starting to plan a similar trip for 2017. We want to visit friends in New Brunswick and then do the return trip across Canada. We want to be home in time to see the eclipse in August.

[CWtheMan]

We’ve made a lot of cross country trips, northern, central, and southern. None of them were made with a schedule. In other words, we were just meandering.

From west to east I’d use interstate highways until clear of the mountains, then rural highways. You sort of get a better glimpse of America when on the rural routes. If you’re going all the way north, US-2 is a good highway with lots of good RV parks along the way.

When meandering as we do we seldom make reservations in advance. Doing so sort of locks in point A-B. Even today we always have an updated Woodall’s North American directory with us. With it and a good lap top you can find a place to park along the way. In all of our travels we have never boon docked.

We’ll be following your trip. Good Luck!

[bsmith0404]

I have a very specific answer for you, you ready? It depends.

If you are traveling in August, you can probably go many places without a reservation. If you are traveling over holidays such as Memorial Day, Labor Day, 4th of July...you better make reservations well in advance (4-6 months), especially if you want premium pull through sites. If it were me, I'd probably worry about the busy holiday/3-4 day weekend dates and then just go with the flow a bit for the other days. That gives me the ability to be flexible. If I like a certain location and want to spend an extra day or two, I can. I can plan a couple days ahead and start calling for reservations at the next stop.

[chuckster57]

When we did our cross country in '09 we were on the road from June 30 til August 20. I had a laptop and each day we stopped, I figured where I wanted to be the next day and made reservations. Can't say that I had any issues including 4th of July in Albuquerque.

[Tbos]

A friend of mine says reservations are needed after the 1st of July. A lot depends on where you will be and when. Some areas in TN and NC have limited availability right now for the time frame around the 4th of July. Have a great trip and please post reviews of your campgrounds.

[old timer]

Never gave the 4th of July any thought. Oh Boy. It's good to know about reservations as i have mapped out places to stay. I have figured out what we want to see at each stop. I do need to reconfigure resting, laundry, washing truck and a oil change along the way. Not sure where we will be over the 4th yet.
As for posting where we are along the way maybe not a good idea. I will however take notes and report here when I get home to protect the fact that no one is home.

[Barbell]

We use campgroundreviews.com to locate our stops. We are retired so are in no particular hurry. We rarely travel more than 300 miles per day. We generally stay more than one or two nights at each stop and try to travel on Mondays and Thursdays. Corps of Engineers campgrounds are our favorites but they generally fill up on weekends, which is why we want to get there on Thursday and leave on Monday. We have been from Calif to New England and Florida from July through February and have never had to Walmart it. We have been on I-10, I-20, I-40 and I-70 on our East/West trips and once East of the Mississippi, usually get off the interstates. Across West Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Eastern Colorado and Kansas, you need to plan ahead because the decent campgrounds may be hard to find. We haven't been across I-80 or 90 yet so can't speak to those areas. With relatively cheap fuel, chances are the campgrounds will be filling up faster this year.

[airforceret]

We usually look at our options for the next day after we've stopped, or early the next morning before (or shortly after) hitting the road. Considering the weather and how we feel (and a few other daily variables) we start calling ahead to get a reservation where we'd like to stop for the day. We usually start further and work our way closer until we find an opening. And if nothing is available we start looking for alternatives like truck stops, walmart, or other convenient overnight spots.

Sometimes you may find you need to reroute or stay put. Sturgis during the motorcycle rally is a good example!!! Not much available and if there is, you don't want pay the price...

[chuckster57]

I started a thread on the truck forum I am a member of. Got tons of positive posts, and even met a few members from other areas of the country.

[bsmith0404]

As I said earlier, it depends. Location and dates will play a factor in what you experience. An example, we just did a trip to AZ, this time of year, many campgrounds are full with snowbirds. Add to that, we were there the same time as the NASCAR race. We checked with many parks before finding one with openings. We had to stay about 25 miles away from our original planned location. So, location and date, sometimes something you didn't even consider, will play a factor.

[old timer]

I wan planing on calling two stops ahead during the trip. I will try to stay on the freeways as when I stop we will roam around. I will try to avoid low bridges on secondary roads. We are looking forward to this trip. Planing on how many days to stay at each place before moving on to the next one. It's just a ruff idea since things change along the way.