How we plan

Now that our next trip is upon us, we are knee-deep in planning mode. After being RVers for over four years we have our planning down to a fine art. The first and foremost rule of thumb is that no matter how exact our planning is, we must be prepared to throw it all out the window at a moments notice. The philosophy we've developed is that adventure begins the moment we leave the house and like any real adventure, you never know what lies ahead of you. It could be a missed flight, a snowstorm or a flat tire. It's all part of the adventure and we take it in stride. For example, our last trip was all about driving from Boston to Cincinnati through northern Pennsylvania. A series of three snowstorms caused us to reroute then do a crazy 7hr drive to southern Connecticut before heading east. If we had stuck to our original plan we may not have made it to Cincinnati. Sticking to the plan was definitely not worth the risk of being stuck in a snowbank. As a reward we were granted a beautiful night in Mystic CT, watching the stars and eating take out from Mystic Pizza!

Sometimes we change our route because we have discovered a place we don't want to leave so that involves shuffling our dates around. Perhaps having to drop another location down the road. It's all good - its all part of the adventure.

The only real constant we have on our trips is the beginning and the ending. We always know where the RV is stored and where we want to store it to fly home.Then we start looking at all the points in between. We try not have long driving days and I love staying in places more than one night, but that isn't always possible. Glen is the music expert so the first thing he does is look for festivals or venues with live entertainment. I watch YouTube and listen to podcasts to get tips on interesting areas to visit. Once we've narrowed down our routing we start looking for places to stay. State Parks are usually our first choice but they aren't always available or convenient. We try to book a KOA' s at the beginning and end of a journey so we can access electricity, water and laundry facilities, then its an assortment of options. The Allstays app directs us to Walmart, Cracker Barrel, Cabelas and truck stops for boondocking. One of our favourite sites is Harvest Hosts - for a membership fee, we've had great experiences with the properties we've been in. Boondockers Welcome is also a fun experience.

I'll go into our preferred apps on a later blog, but for now all we have to do is pack our bags and hit the road!