Route Planning?

[APPRVD]

How much time do you take to plan your route? Back up route’s? GPS and go?

We’re cruising from VA to New London for a couple nights before heading to Acadia NP. We’re still very much newbies, and have mainly taken the weekend warrior trips, so this is the longest we towed our camper My gut is to travel 100 miles off the beaten path to avoid all things I-95 from VA to CT; am I overreacting? Thanks.

[Tyvekcat]

That sounds like a great trip. My rule of thumb avoid anything east of I-81 North of I-66 until I-90

Last year I was up that way before we bought our AS, and I did the 81, to and over 84 to I-90 then 495 to 95. But unfortunately you get caught by conn. to get to 95 north of Boston.
Next year I am going up 88 from Binghampton to near Albany and cut across NH and Vermont on a two lane road route 7 in NY and route 9 in Vermont and NH and come out near Concorde NH but I want to see those two states.

Have a safe trip and stay alert,
Have a good one!

[Goal15]

Originally Posted by Tyvekcat

That sounds like a great trip. My rule of thumb avoid anything east of I-81 North of I-66 until I-90

Last year I was up that way before we bought our AS, and I did the 81, to and over 84 to I-90 then 495 to 95. But unfortunately you get caught by conn. to get to 95 north of Boston.
Next year I am going up 88 from Binghampton to near Albany and cut across NH and Vermont on a two lane road route 7 in NY and route 9 in Vermont and NH and come out near Concorde NH but I want to see those two states.

Have a safe trip and stay alert,
Have a good one!

If you do go 7 and 9, you will love it, very pretty drive. You go over Hogback Mountain in Vt and if the day is clear you can see pretty much all of New England from there.

[Tyvekcat]

> " If you do go 7 and 9, you will love it, very pretty drive. You go over Hogback Mountain in Vt and if the day is clear you can see pretty much all of New England from there."

Awesome, thanks Goal15 ! This might sound weird but when I am thinking of a route, I look at the roads on a map and then drive the 'google car' on the roads(streetview). I try to get a sense of what I am about to drive on.
It helps me. Then its like when I show up at an interchange, i've kinda been there before. I know already which lane to be in and am prepared. I hit the highlights, bridges, interchanges, switchbacks, towns. I'm kinda weird like that, I remember roads pretty good.
If I can't drive google car there, then I look at satellite pics.
You all ever follow railroad tracks with a satellite ?

I was hoping that routes 7 & 9 were good. Thanks !
Have a good one !

[APPRVD]

Thanks Tyvekcat, I like it! I also was using the google maps, with their traffic overlay feature, and am trying to avoid all the red (which is in line with your rule of thumb). I think I might try Routes 7 and 9 on the way back. We've only been streaming the dream for about a year, so I know we're bound to sit in traffic sooner or later, but I just have a fundamental issue with an airstream sitting in traffic - they need to be cruising down the road making everyone's day brighter

[Protagonist]

I've learned by well-earned experience that a scenic route isn't terrilby scenic for the driver! I traveled Arkansas Scenic Byway 7 a little over a year ago, and never even SAW any scenery, because I didn't dare take my eyes off the road long enough to notice anything else!

So my route planning these days is geared toward the easy drive, not necessarily the scenic drive. That means my preference is generally US highways first, Interstate highways second, and State highways third. Anything more local that a State highway only when that's the only way to get from the highway to the destination. Of course if I've driven the road in question before, and know that highway X is end-to-end potholes and highway Y is well-maintained, I'll ignore my order of prference to stick with the roads I know to be better-maintained.

I plot my route on Google Maps first, and print a list of all of my turning points. Then I enter those turning points into my GPS as waypoints. Takes a while sometimes, but it's worth the extra steps. That way, the GPS is telling me the way I want to go, and not telling me the way IT wants me to go!

[68 TWind]

We had a nice trip a couple of weeks ago to the Smokey Mountains. On the way home I decided to try a state 4 lane highway that basically paralleled the interstate. We had better sencery, fewer hills and a lot less traffic. Was it faster, no. Was it a nice drive, yes. You never now till you try but as Protagonist said, the US highways tend to be my first choice then the interstates. I might add that with my 01 Tundra I never run over about 62mph, that is the "sweet spot" and the truck and Airstream just seem to "like" it. On on the interstates you get passed a lot. Also, I start looking for an easy gas station to get into at about half a tank. Many of the newer stations have the pumps perpendicular to the store and unless you can find an end pump where you can pull out to the side or go around the back it can be hard to fill up. I find nothing worse than being in unfamiliar territory with the gas gauge getting low.

[Jim Lee]

Trip planning.... ah jeez.
Regina and I are about three weeks into our trip. The first part was easy, getting to Tucumari New Mexico from Springfield MO, we went north to Collins Jct and took US 54 west and passport america stopped. That part was easy.

From Tucumari to Albuquerque to Santa Fe to Taos was relatively easy also, the campgrounds we stayed at had wifi and we googled blm and forest service campgrounds.

When we got to Taos, we spent an afternoon at the public library using their wifi and benchmark maps to plan the next week. which got us to Manti Utah.

Then from Utah to Ogden .... right now we are in the weber country public library with our maps and google. We each use our laptops and I use the ipad for the routing.

We try to plan a week ahead. Only this week I may have messed up, we want to go to craters of the Moon so I got a spot for tomorrow and teh next day at Moose Crossing north of Arco Idaho. Then a short jump up the road to a blm campground with full hookups at my senior discount pass. But where do we go from there? not sure yet but just this planning has taken about 2 hours and while fun......

How can you tell a real rver? Spends $260,000 for a coach and overnights in a walmart because he thinks $42 for a campsite is too dang much money!

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by Jim Lee

How can you tell a real rver? Spends $260,000 for a coach and overnights in a walmart because he thinks $42 for a campsite is too dang much money!

That's because after spending $260,000 on anything, one might not even have $42 left anymore!

I spent a lot less than $260,000 on my Interstate, and I still get people saying, "Gee, I wish I was rich enough to afford that!" My reply is always, "Well, if you save $15 a day, every day, for about 20 years, you might just barely afford it, same as I did."