RV Road Trip Tips

Week #25

Hello! I’m Aaron Kardell. In this Sunday newsletter, I pick one random topic weekly to go deep on and have some disparate quick hits at the end.

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I took last Sunday off. Sometimes, it’s better to not force it.

Occasionally, I get asked for tips on taking an RV road trip. I’ve only taken an RV trip once, but it was an epic trip on multiple levels. If not for COVID, I don’t think I would’ve ever taken an RV trip. But this one trip has sold me on wanting to do it at least a couple more times before the kids are packed up and moved out.

Here are a few of the recommendations I can remember.

We rented our RV from Cruise America. I’d definitely rent from Cruise America again. For only $19 more per day at Cruise America, you can get full coverage and not worry about the ramifications of accidentally backing into something. Cruise America was cheaper than Outdoorsy, the primary option for person-to-person rentals. You can get a nicer RV on Outdoorsy, but it seemed like a lot more pressure to drive someone else’s RV. Also, if something broke down, it was nice to know we could call Cruise America and get a replacement quickly.

Our rental was a 25’ truck. It was super easy to drive. For our next trip, I’d get a 30’ truck. At 25’, we were fine but just slightly cramped. Our kids would’ve been 12 and 7 at the time of that trip. I think we’ll need more space next time.

I highly recommend plotting out your path with Roadtrippers. Pay the $29 annual fee to upgrade from the free version. It’s worth it.

Here’s the actual path we took on our trip. We hit up six national parks in 14 days:

1. Arches (UT)

2. Canyonlands (UT)

3. Grand Canyon (AZ)

4. Saguaro (AZ)

5. White Sands National Park (NM)

6. Bandelier National Monument (NM)

All four family members picked a different favorite national park from the list above. Except for Saguaro, which was a bunch of cacti – and didn’t really resonate with me – the others were all amazing, and I’d strongly recommend them.

If I had to narrow it down to just one of those places, though, I’d go to Moab, UT, and hit up both Arches and Canyonlands. I liked both parks even more than the Grand Canyon.

In addition to Roadtrippers, I recommend using sites like Campendium and Campnab to help pin down which RV parks to stay at and to watch for a spot to open up if bookings are full. Hopefully, on your trip, you can truly get away. I needed predictably good wifi or cell service on my trip. Campendium helped search for that with a premium membership. Note that Campendium and Roadtrippers are now owned by the same company. You can pay a single membership fee to access both.

When traveling by RV, keep an open mind and some flexibility. We adjusted our itinerary along the way to adapt to changing needs or preferences.

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This Week’s Quick Hits

• Kate and I celebrated 20 years of marriage this past week. I joke that it’s amazing she’s put up with me for that long. All kidding aside, we’ve got a pretty good thing going. I’m grateful we found each other.

Image by Jill Wellington on Pixabay