The first step is to decide what you want to do. It seems obvious, but we are pretty sure many people skip this step. This is not about where you want to go, but what is important to you. Kate had older relatives that she had not seen in many years, we prioritized visiting them as the first thing we needed to do. It turned out to be the right decision because that relative passed away later that year. Due to this, we have made it a priority to visit family and friends every other year. The alternate year, we try to check off a place on our national park bucket list. In 2025, it was Yellowstone National Park.

Once you have determined what is important for the year, you can decide where to go. For the family visits, we have a series of way points on our loop around the country. We will have some flexibility based on who we visit and the time of year, but our options will be limited due to the proximity of the planned stops. Once we have made that trip three or four or five times, we will likely have all the route options worked out. In the alternate years, the sky is the limit … well … for an RV, the ground is the limit. The routes for the alternate years are going to be significantly different almost every year. Granted, we will probably have common ingress and egress routes for Oklahoma and Wisconsin.

Next, you need to identify the different paths from here to there. Travel trailers and smaller class C RVs have more leeway in route selection. For larger and better known parks, you can find guides that talk about the different routes to the parks and the trade offs. Due to the size of our RV, we plan our routes to travel along interstates, even if it is a longer path. Post-1960s interstate bridges are required to be 16’+, which is plenty of clearance. Pre-1960s interstate bridges were only required to be 14′, which still gives 6″+ for repaving and bounce for the tallest standard RVs. Any bridge or overpass with less than 3″-6″ of clearance is suspect. We have run across people that drove under a bridge marked higher than their RV that damaged their roof by hitting the A/C unit. A bridge that is marked as 13’4″ might only be 13’1″ after re-paving the road, which would damage our RV. It is not safe to count on the height signs being accurate or updated promptly (or at all).

We prefer to spend most of the year driving no more than 300 miles at a time with two week stays at each stop. We generally limit our speed to 55 to 65 mph based on road conditions. For 300 mile days, we generally stop twice for 30 to 60 minutes to feed the cats and give them a break. A 300 mile day generally takes between 6 and 9 hours, depending on the road quality and traffic. When we can, we prefer going 150 to 250 miles. If we have to sprint somewhere, it is less stressful to do a series of 3 day, 4 day, and two week stays instead of three one week stops. For longer stretches, 2 day, 3 day, 2 day, two week stays instead of four 5 to 6 day stops work better. A one week stop generally involves the same setup and tear down work as a two week stay. With the shorter stops, you unpack less, so it is less stress and work with a long wind down time at the last stay of the sprint. For two and three day stops, you can sometimes just leave the RV attached to the truck with the front stabilizers taking some of the weight off.

Different articles and people will give you different guidelines. A common guide is the 3-3-3 rule, which suggests no more than 300 miles per day, arriving by 3 pm, and staying a minimum of 3 days. This is a combination of comfort and safety guideline, but this is very dependent on your gear, goals, preferences, and tolerance for suffering. If you have a motorhome that you drive 75 to 80 mph doing two hour shifts driving with minimal stops, you might be okay with 500 to 600 mile days. If you are a putzy solo driver where you or your little dog need a bathroom break every hour, you might need to limit yourself to 250 miles. These are just guidelines, you will need to determine the pacing that is safe and comfortable for you.

Now, search for campgrounds and road issues along the routes. There are various useful sources for this.

• https://www.google.com/maps lets you search for campgrounds near your pacing interval, and it shows warning symbols for construction.
• State Park websites
• https://www.recreation.gov has a lot of the Core of Engineer (CoE) campgrounds and National Forests. Some of the CoE campground are nice, but they often are only electric or water/electric sites. The National Forest might require boon docking.
• https://www.reserveamerica.com runs about 20 state reservation systems, but it is rebranded by the state. The general site appears to list an eclectic mix of private campgrounds, RV parks, NPS, and USACE (CoE) options. It might be better to find them on that site and research and book directly from the location, when possible.
• National and state park tour guides
• Atlas books, such as the Rand McNally Motor Carriers’ Road Atlas often show state parks. The Motor Carriers’ Road Atlas also shows which roads are safe for tractor trailers. Many parks have no tractor trailer routes to the park.

Our preference is to stay at state parks because they usually have better views, hiking, and kayaking. The next option would be regional, county, or CoE parks. They often have less utilities, but they can be nice and cheaper. Private parks often have more amenities, such a pools, events, and playgrounds, but they are frequently vastly more expensive with more screaming children. We will stay in National Parks, but it is often cheaper with better utilities to stay in a state park nearby.

You have a list of campgrounds along the driving routes that you identified. Now, you need to research those campgrounds and parks.

• What months are the campgrounds open?
• Is the opening impacted by weather (e.g., snow)?
• When is water turned on in the campground?
• When are you allowed to book the sites (e.g., 3 months early)?
• How large are the sites?
• How long is the driveway?
• What material is the driveway (i.e., grass, gravel, asphalt, concrete)?
• What utilities are available?
• Do you need open skies or shade?
• What amenities (i.e., showers, laundry, etc) are available?
• How well maintained is the park (i.e., trees trimmed, potholes, etc.)
• Is there anything to do in the area?
• Are there stay limitations (i.e., 3 days on weekends, max 14 days, etc)
• What is the cost per night?
• Are there discounts for weekly or monthly stays?
• Which campsites work best for your needs?

Use your gear limitations and preferences to filter out the campgrounds that will not work. In many cases, you can use Google Maps, Bing Maps, and Google Street View to get better view of the park, but check the date for the Maps and Street View. Sometimes the Map or Street View is a decade out of date. For example, Ohio and Illinois tend to have older campgrounds with short camp sites. Some campgrounds have no sites long enough for our RV. Virginia does not appear to be great about trimming trees back.

Determine your trip timing.

• How long do you want to be out of your home state?
• When are the campgrounds on the route open?
• How fast do you want to get to your destination?

Heading to Yellowstone National Park, we had to camp in Oklahoma and Kansas for almost two months before heading north on the route to Yellowstone because the northern campgrounds did not start opening until April. If you are going south, you might be more limited by leaving before summer. If you are going north, you have a few options:

1. Stay south longer and sprint north with shorter stops to your destination
2. Dry camp using rest stop and truck stop showers and restrooms
3. Semi-dry camp carrying a little water in your fresh tank
4. Camp at private RV parks with year round water service

These have various advantages and disadvantages. So far, we have done a combination of 1 and 4. You have to careful with 3 because filling the water tank too much and driving on rough roads can cause damage or the tank to fall out. You want enough water for minimal hand washing and flushing, but not enough weight or slosh to be an issue. Some places recommend no more than 10-20 gallons.

You should have the information required to select a route and plan the timing for the stops along the route. We find it useful to create a spreadsheet of the plan containing information such as:

• Arrival Date
• Departure Date
• Number of Days of Stay
• Name of the Park
• Acceptable Sites (In order, at least three)
• Distance to next stop
• Booking Date and Time
• Is It Booked?
• Total Cost
• Up Front Cost (partial or full)
• Vehicle Pass Date
• Vehicle Pass Cost
• Annual Pass Date
• Annual Pass Cost
• Refund Policy (Date and Forfeiture)

This provides the information needed for tracking what bookings and expenses are coming up, including whether vehicle or annual passes are needed.

We have found it useful to follow up with the park about a week before arriving to verify the best route from the interstate to the campground. We use the Rand McNally Motor Carriers’ Road Atlas to verify as many roads as possible are tractor trailer safe, but you often have to trust the park personnel for the last few miles of route. To the extend that we can, this ensures there are no weight issues with bridges and height issues with underpasses.

At this time, we generate directions for the route to the next stop. We always compare against a trucker’s atlas and review the path on Google Maps and/or Bing maps. Along with the directions, we annotate rest stops for bathroom breaks, feeding the cats, and feeding ourselves.