A year in, what we have learned about Rv'ing

Picking your place and getting there

When traveling with a 39 ft toy hauler, knowing where you are going and how you are going to get there becomes very important. We're 13 feet 3 inches tall—the same height as a semi. Although lots of RV parks are close to major highways, we wanted to stay at some that were a bit more off the beaten path. We found a combination of methods assisted us in choosing the parks we wanted to stay at. After talking to other RVers and reading many forums, we learned that the biggest thing was not to use Google Maps to plan your route. Our primary research source and route app is RV Life. RV Life Pro, a paid subscription, allows you to research parks to stay at and the routes that are applicable to your RV. https://rvlife.com/ iOverlander was one of the websites/apps that we used as well for our research. https://ioverlander.com/ We paired these websites with Google searches of parks and read the reviews of the parks we liked. There are RV-specific GPS on the market, but we have chosen to use RV Life Pro as we can use it through the Android Audio in our truck.

When picking your place, researching the weather is something we didn’t even think about. We made the error of thinking Arizona is one big warm desert. This worked well for us when we were in Casa Grande but less so as we moved north to start our trip home. We stayed in Camp Verde, which is starting into the high desert. Daytime temps weren’t bad, but it was below freezing most nights. We had to go buy a heated hose to deal with this. When people asked about our destinations and we said one was Flagstaff, the response was pretty much always the same, “you know it snows there in the winter, be careful.” Strangely, it snowed twice in the week we were there. Although I knew that Salt Lake City had hosted the Winter Olympics, I wrongly assumed that it only snowed in the surrounding mountains. It did snow when we were there, and the weather was great, but it did snow just before and after our stay there. Bottom line, I now look at the historic weather patterns as part of my planning process.

Getting from A – B

Having picked our stay and route to get there, it is now time to join the rest of the road warriors. I did learn several things about driving in Canada vs. driving in the US. Here in British Columbia, there are mostly only single- and two-lane roads. On these routes, the right-hand lane is the place we hang out. There are a few exceptions, one of which is Highway 5 Hope to Merritt, where I, for the most part, stay in the center lane. What I found driving the I5 initially was that the right lane is where all the on/off ramps are and that the truckers stay out of it. I did try the right-hand lane at first but eventually learned why the truckers avoid it. While traveling California 210 and the I10 going around Los Angeles and through San Bernardino, the right-hand lane became treacherous. We ended up in a situation where we had a semi on our left and an on-ramp merge to our right. In order to match the traffic speed of those entering and leaving the freeway, we had to travel at 75 mph (120 kph). We definitely felt uncomfortable at this speed with the size of our rig. After this, we stuck to traveling in the same lane as the semis. We also found that, for the most part, you could travel in any lane that you were comfortable in, and the traffic would go around us in any lane that was open enough for them. What we really learned was to pick a speed you are comfortable driving at and then drive in the lane that most closely matches that speed. Initially, we avoided secondary highways as we were still getting comfortable towing this big a rig. By the end, we just picked where we wanted to stay and let RV Life Pro pick the route. We definitely ended up on some roads that made me question the sanity of that choice, but as Stan of Over The Hill Adventures says in their YouTube videos, “slow is pro.”

Pre-trip Checklist

Cat and I have gotten into a rhythm now, but initially, it was a bit of a thing for us. We both have our set of tasks inside and outside the RV and truck. I take care of all the outside items while Cat works her way through the inside. This is a good time to decide whether you want to tow with your tanks empty, full, or somewhere in between. We decide this the day before so that I know how long I need to do my outside pre-trip. For you, this may also be determined by your load and/or tow capacities. Before we pull in the slide-outs and hook up, we swap places and do a quick double-check of each other’s list. So far, this has worked well for us. Once we are ready to hitch up, we work together to make sure we get it all done correctly. Safety is paramount before you venture out onto the road. Double-check the hitch connection with a tug test, raise the jacks, and double-check the brakes. We do our light checks together, loving our truck and the trailer light check feature. Lastly, Cat guides us out of the site to make sure we don’t hit anything before she gets in, and away we go.

On Arrival

Once we get ourselves checked in, we prefer to leave the RV parked there and go for a walk. This is discussed in many places online; we walk the drive check-in to site to ensure we know the route and any potential obstructions along the way. This also lets us see how the entry to the site is set up, and they are definitely not all designed for easy entry, so that we know how best to place ourselves in the drive lane. We had one park early on where the staff drew the route on the map; we followed that only to get to the site and find out we should have been coming from the opposite direction for ease of backing in; the roads in the park definitely would have allowed for it. Whether we are in a back-in or a pull-thru site, Cat always gets out and guides me in. Because we have done our walk and pre-check, we have a good idea of how we want the RV situated on the pad. Once in, it is all about fine-tuning for the hookups and slide-outs. Once we are disconnected from the truck and leveled, we work together for the slides and go about our individual setup routines. Spend some time discussing what needs to be done and who should do it. This will make for speedy setups. After our first few stops, we got our routine, and now we can be set up and relaxing in about 30 minutes.

Know Your Rig

Cat and I talked in an earlier blog post about the process of picking your RV and then finding a vehicle that can safely tow it. Once you have your tow vehicle, find your local weigh scale, go and weigh it empty, then weigh it with all that will be in it before you hook up the RV. The first stop on your first trip should be this same scale for weigh-in. This will give you a great idea of what your hitch weight is for load capacity (rear axle weight less what the original pre-RV weight was), what your RV weight is for tow capacity, and what your GCVW (Gross Combined Vehicle Weight) is. This also lets you move some load around to best set yourself up. Our setup weight and length mean that we must watch for restrictions on the roads. We have been through areas when driving around that we would never have been able to tow through, weight restrictions, and lengths over 50 ft combined length. Happily, between being aware of our size and the use of RV Life Pro, we have not gotten ourselves in any situations where this became an issue.

Be Flexible

In the big scheme, things happen, things go wrong, things require repair, weather changes. We had all these happen to us during our first winter travels. I didn’t fully rely on RV Life routing, and we had to adjust on the fly and learn as we went. We had our backup camera break. We quickly found a mobile tech who got us fixed up and on the road without any delays to our plans. Our furnace quit; we had to use our portable electric heater to stay warm at night for a couple of weeks. Phoning ahead and finding a mobile tech at our next stop meant that he was there the day after we arrived to get the ball rolling on the warranty repair. This did delay our trip, but we were able to work with both the park we were in and the one we were going to adjust our dates; it all worked out. Weather got us a few times; we canceled a whole leg of the trip and stayed where we were due to a winter weather warning for Albuquerque; we didn’t want to get caught in that. We left one park a day early to get ahead of a storm instead of staying an extra three days. In all these cases, early liaison with the RV Parks for cancellations and changes made it easy, and a shout out to the parks as they all worked with us to make sure we had what we needed.

Happy RV'ing and Safe Travels,

Bill & Cat