Planning Our First Road Trip

We have ahead of us a two-week drive from Cleveland, OH to Lantana, FL scheduled for mid-June. Being the planner that I am, I have created a full itinerary of our rest stops, camping stops, and activities all along the way. I'm not neurotic, however, so I have some backup tools lined up just in case things don't go quite as planned.

The Plan
Because we're traveling with two small children (Channing will be 11 months and Willie will be 3.5 years), we decided not to travel for more than about 2.5 hours at a time, or 5 hours in one day. So, we'll leave at a reasonable time Saturday morning, drive for about 2.5 hours, stop for lunch and potty breaks, then get back on the road and hit our first campground. Sunday, we'll do the same, but arrive at my brother-in-law's house in Columbia, SC, where we'll spend a few nights. Then, we'll ship off Wednesday morning on the same drive schedule, camp for the night, and then hit my brother's house in Florida the next day. After hanging out at the beach for a few days, we'll pack up and head back to Cleveland, stopping at a different campground each night until we make our way home. Our last stop will be a local dump station before we head home and clean up the RV.

The Tools
Fortunately for us planners, the Web is teaming with little digital tools to assist us with our neurosis -- I mean, planning. Here's a few that I used:

• Google Docs - Where I created the planning spreadsheet that would become my stop-by-stop itinerary. I called it my "Brother Trip 2013" and added the following columns to the first sheet: Date, Time, Action, Location, Cost and Notes. However, I ended up pasting additional information and alternate campgrounds in additional, unlabeled columns. Sheet two included my cost estimation and links for the tools I used.
• Free Map Tools: How Far Can I Travel - The plan is to stop to rest or camp or visit about every 2.5 hours, so I needed a tool that would show me the area I needed to look for stops. This did the job.
• Google Maps - This web application just gets better and better as time goes on (or I figure it out). First, since I could figure out the town where we needed to stop, I could use Google Maps to find campgrounds in that area. I could also use it to look for local attractions and get distances. The handiest, feature, however, is an ability to save locations to a map for sharing. I created attraction maps for Columbia and Lantana so that we had things to do. I shared the Columbia map with my sister-in-law who is helping us figure out what we want to do.
• AllStays Interstate Exit Guide - For our lunch and pit stops, the online AllStays directory allows you to zoom in on the gas stations, restaurants and parks along each interstate, browseable by state. AllStays also provides a series of smartphone apps that make for great "Plan B" options should your plans not play out on your trip.
• RVForum - Never underestimate the value of advice you can get from people who have been doing this for a lot longer than you. Among important things I learned at this forum is that we are going to need a driveway camping "trip" so that we can run into the house for things we forget, followed by a local campground near a Wal-mart for the same reason before he hit the road. Also, there are companies out there like Wal-mart and Cracker Barrel that have no problem letting RVers park for a while or for the night. I never would have known that otherwise. They're helpful for more than planning trips, however, so I highly recommend joining one or two discussion forums related to RVing.

Camp Discount Clubs
There is one caveat to this planning because I didn't just choose my campgrounds based solely on location. According to forum members, regular campers can save some cash using either Good Sam (10% off at participating grounds) or Passport America (50% off with some strings attached). Basically, you can get a good deal on Good Sam ($25 a year) and, if you camp often enough at participating sites, you'll make your money back. Passport America is a little more expensive (around $44 per year), but the 50% discount is going to earn me that money back just on our trip, and we plan on doing a lot more camping all summer long. So, I used the Passport America and Good Sam websites to find campgrounds in the general areas of our scheduled stops, successful in 4 out of 5 stops.

There is one stop that the grand waterfall nearby trumped program participation. Willie loves waterfalls and I didn't want him to miss this one. (P.S. If you opt for Passport America, please use the link in this blog to purchase your membership so that I get credit. Thanks!)

Figuring It Out

1. So, step one was using the Free Map Tools: How Far Can I Travel to estimate where we'd be after driving for about 2.5 hours. On the first stretch of our trip, that put us around Williamstown, WV. 
2. I hopped on over to the AllStays Interstate Exit Guide to see what was available along I-77 near Williamstown. As it turns out, there wasn't a convenient stop in Williamstown, so I decided to look right across the Ohio River in Marietta, OH. There, I found a shopping center right off the interstate, the perfect place to stretch our legs and make a quick lunch. If needed, we can shop Kmart or Wal-mart off this exit and fill up the tank nearby, as well. 
3. I plugged the exit link into my spreadsheet, along with the address of the shopping center as my "midpoint" stop for the day. 
4. Then, I ran the Free Map Tools from Marietta to find out where our first campground needed to be.
5. I checked Passport America and Good Sam websites for participating campgrounds.
6. I used Google Maps to find attractions around the campgrounds and in Columbia and Lantana areas. I plugged info about these places in my spreadsheet, and also saved maps for reference.
7. I repeated this process all the way down to Lantana, FL and back to Cleveland, OH, with stops at my brother-in-law's house in Columbia and my brother's house in Florida.

So, there you have it. The tools I used to play this cross country trip! I hope you find it useful and plan your own cost-effective, family fun road trips.