Here
are some tips that might help make your planning you cross country trip easier!
And don't forget, that you can travel across country and stay at cabins instead of with an RV!
If
you haven’t tried the KOA Trip Planner, we highly recommend it. You can bookmark it at (https://koa.com/trip-planner/). It is a great tool for planning your
trip. Simply enter your starting
address, and your ending address, and press the “Get Directions” button.
What
pops up next is a map with every KOA within 5 miles along that route. Your can change that option to 10 miles or
some other distance, if a particular area doesn’t seem to have a KOA right
along the route, but remember to add that extra travel time and expense to your
trip travel calculations.
Next,
click on the KOA’s along the route that you estimate might be about 5 hours of
travel time away. Then, Google the
distance between those two destinations, until you find a KOA that is about 5
hours away.
If you
stop every couple of hours for potty stops, fuel, or meals along way, the 5
hours on the GPS equates to 8 hours of travel time a day. So we’ve found that 5 hours of travel time
works about right for us, and equates to about an 8 hour day. If you spend an hour on lunch, or don’t want
to be on the road for 8 hours a day, then lower the miles to 400 or whatever
amount will work for your travel style. Fatigue becomes an issue if you travel more than 8 hours a day, and then
of course, you run out of daylight too. So we try to arrive at or before dusk,
so we’re not trying to get into an unknown campsite and set up in the dark.
Then,
simply repeat this process over and over until you’ve completed your whole
trip. If
you’re planning a cross country trip, don’t forget to download The KOA Camping
App! It is available for download at the
Apple App Store and Google Play sites. It’s a great way to have 500 of the best
campgrounds in the USA and Canada at your fingertips. For more information or
to view a special video on the KOA Camping App, go to http://koa.com/get-the-koa-app/. It’ll help you find KOA’s across the county,
and provide you easy access to their addresses for your GPS. It’s a great idea to carry that paper KOA
directory too for backup just in case you need written directions to get you to
the campground or RV Park.
Unfortunately, there are places that the GPS can’t find, and places
where there is no cellular service. So
until technology catches up, a plan “B” is always a great idea!
In
addition, “stuff happens”. There will be
traffic jams, or high winds which means you need to slow down, so you can’t
make your desired destination for that travel day. When that happens, you may need to find
another park along the way to get you off the highway that became a parking
lot, or out of the bad weather. So a physical
directory and the app, will help you do both!
By Robyn
Chilson
Tim
& Robyn Chilson own and operate Meadville KOA Campground. Robyn can be reached at 814-789-3251.
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