The Best Laid Plans

Even before we bought the truck or picked upped the RV, we knew our first trip would be a month in Florida visiting our family and friends. Planning our route, coordinating visits, and booking the campsites fell to me. Little did I know this would be an adventure all its own.

I did not have the Big Book of RV Campsites. I knew nothing about truck stops. I had no knowledge of apps or other RV resources. I had no idea that you had to book the March before to go south the following February. Eleven months, that’s the magic number. Seasoned snow-birders know it. We didn’t.  We actually thought four or five months was plenty of time to plan our first RV excursion. We were so naive.

The first step was to plan where to stop on the way down. Bill didn’t want to drive more than six hours a day. That makes me laugh now. Did I say we were naive? Boy, oh, boy, we were so clueless. I used Triple A’s TripTik Travel Planner to find campsites and approximate how far each location would be from the other. Based on this, I chose a site in Maryland and a site in South Carolina as our stopovers. I booked one night at each stop. As you will learn in future posts, due to many factors, assuming that one night each would be enough time was like wishing on rainbows and fairy wings.

We were visiting four places in Florida: Cape Canaveral, Jupiter, Dunedin and The Villages. I contacted the people we would be visiting and set up a schedule. We would stop in Cape Canaveral first then in Jupiter. Next we would head to Dunedin and up to The Villages. Going home, we would retrace our steps and again stay in South Carolina and Maryland.

Sounds grand, yes? We thought so, too - until I tried to find campsites and make reservations that matched our timeline. You see, we knew we couldn’t escape the entire NY winter, but we had our hearts set on missing at least part of it. That is why we bought our rig. I’m chuckling to myself as I remember the ensuing insanity. At least, I can laugh about it now. It was the beginning of what would be a series of challenges we would face on this trip.

Anyhow, I soon realized February was a no go. So, we rescheduled everything for March. After what felt like a million hours online and a trillion phone calls, I managed to piecemeal together a trip that looked surprisingly similar to the original, but in reverse: The Villages, Dunedin, Jupiter, and Cape Canaveral.

We learned a lot from this experience. We booked our upcoming trip much earlier. Thanks to the RVers we met along the way, we know that truck stops are an option. We know that the drive time is never going to be what the online map says. We have better resources and are much better prepared. Most importantly, while nothing ever goes as planned, we now realize that’s part of the adventure and we welcome it.

-Diane