Gertrude Goes Into Planning Mode

While we were staying in Canyon Lake, TX we bought a membership into Thousand Trails. We weighed the pros and cons of a used membership, new membership, or just sticking with the camping pass (with a lot of help from RVLove's post about their experience). We ended up going with an Elite Connections new membership for us. We were living this full-time life and were excited to see if we could do this whilst staying in the system most, if not all, of the year. If you are thinking about a new membership, please don't hesitate to reach out to Doug Smith for advice. He is a Membership Specialist and all-around great guy! **No smarmy sales guy that will leave you with an ick feeling.**

We are just about a year later, since buying the membership, and we've only been out of the system a total of about a month. *We "moochdocked" at a friends' home for a few weeks then stayed in an park out of the system for about a week. I often get asked how I go about planning our trips and where we will be going. Since my official role is as navigator, I'm often in charge of taking care of this travel outlook. From time to time we have a certain event we'd like to attend in a region (i.e. Rockland Lobsterfest at the end of Summer). Below is a picture of my basic setup whilst I'm in the throws of this endeavor.

I have my calendar open to the time I need to account for, a pencil for marking the possible destinations in the calendar (they only go in ink once booked/confirmed online), a piece of paper with the outline of travel and approximate drive times between parks, my computer open with windows for the Thousand Trails website (for booking online), a map we made of all the parks in the system - shown below (and some personal places of interest), and Google maps to plan the approximate drive times.

I try to keep our drive times down to 5 hours or less, if possible. We always need backup plans of different parks we could stay in, just in case the first choice isn't available. I like to plan out at least 4 months in advance, and tend to get antsy when I don't have things in ink in the calendar for that window of time.

From time to time I am not able to book online, or I have other questions, so I will call the company's membership service line (keep in mind they are NOT open on weekends. I believe their hours are 7am-7pm EST Monday through Friday) and generally the folks on the phone are very helpful in getting me booked into the campgrounds I'm seeking and/or answering any questions we might have along the way.

When we get ready to move to a new campground, we use an RV specific GPS program called Sygic. It installs directly to a smartphone and has many features we haven't been able to find on the free GPS programs out there like Google Maps or Waze, for example. The feature we like the most if that you can program it with your RV's dimensions and it will be sure to avoid bridges/underpasses that are too short for your rig. No more low clearance panic attacks! Yay!! We can avoid unpaved roads, toll roads, and the like as well. Sygic will also take into account whether you have a gas or diesel engine and gas stations along the route that can accommodate your needs. We have had some scares and tricky maneuvering before getting this app because we didn't have any way of knowing the bridge heights until we were upon them. We call this GPS program "Emma".

That about wraps it up for how we figure out where we're going, when we're going, and how we plan to get there. Happy adventuring everyone! Hope to see you on the road!