Trip Planning

Benjamin Franklin supposedly once said "If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail" 

Sir Winston Churchill  is credited with another saying "Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it"

In my 10 years of RV'ing I have made thousand of mistakes and about 50% of them more than once. In order to cut down on the mistakes I start to plan our next years journeys in October. My thought processes (in no particular order)

1. Where do we want to go, What do we want to see
2. How long is the drive and should I drive it straight or make intermediate stops
3. Where will we stay? What are the reviews of the campground (these are actually comical)
4. If we stay at <<insert campground name>> what type of site do we want? Waterfront? Full Hook Up, Near Bathhouse...etc
5. What maintenance will be needed on our current unit?
• Oil Change
• Brakes Checked
• Windshield Wipers
6. What supplies will be needed needed?
• Toilet Paper
• Slide Lube
• Black & Grey Tank Treatments
7. How many gallons of fuel will be needed
8. How many people will be coming with us?
1. This will affect campground costs
9. What is the typical weather for the area during the time frame that I want to go
10. The costs of "fun stuff" while we are there

This year I started using an Application called RV Trip Wizard  RV Trip Wizard allows me:

• Input basic information for our RV (Miles Per Gallon, Tank Size) & Trip Preferences (Toll Roads...etc)
• Input all of my planned trips and export turn by turn directions and/or an excel file with all of my planned expenses for each trip.
• With the excel file I download and then merge all of the files for all of my trips into one excel workbook. Once they are in an excel folder I link all of the spreadsheets so that I get a rollup of miles driven, gallons used and total expenses.