The best way to plan an RV trip

How much time do you spend planning an RV route? Can you trust the campground reviews you find online? Could you use some practical help in not driving too far and coming up with a comprehensive map and route that will take all the hassle out of trip planning? And do you want to save money doing so? If you could use some help in any of those areas, then stay tuned because in our interview of the week, we’ll talk about a tool Jennifer and I just used on a long trip that even allowed us to keep to our 330 Rule for RV travel. Plus, lots of RV news, your RV Lifestyle questions, and off the beaten path report from the Burketts and much more. Show Notes for Episode #248 June 26,2019 of The RV Podcast: WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK Jennifer, Mike and Bo on a hike last week in the Adirondack Mountains MIKE - We’re back now from a big trip out east, mostly in and around the Adirondack Park region of upstate New York, with a couple of days in the Finger Lakes district and then down to what has been voted the best state park in America – Letchworth State Park south of Buffalo (I was one of the travel writer judges for the USA contest that so designated Letchworth, by the way). Much of our travels and discoveries will be fully detailed in a soon-coming Seven Day Adventure Guide to the Adirondacks. And we’ll also have a couple of YouTube videos coming, too. JENNIFER - The park itself is immense, bigger in size than greater in size than Yellowstone, Everglades, Glacier, and Grand Canyon National Parks combined. It was created in 1892 by the State of New York to protect the land from too much lumbering and clear cutting. It is a constitutionally protected “Forever Wild” area. Of the Adirondack Park’s 6 million acres, 2.6 million acres are owned by New York State. The remaining 3.4 million acres are privately owned. MIKE - As such, the Adirondack Region is the largest publicly protected area in the contiguous United States. It is also home to 105 towns and villages. There is often a misperception that the Adirondack Park is a national or state park, yet the region’s mix of public and private land allows for conservation and civilization to thrive. JENNIFER - We were out in the Adirondacks to get lots of photos and information for one of our Seven Day Adventure Guide books. We hope to have it finished in several weeks and it will join a growing library of these guides that will eventually cover every region we can think of that will be of interest to RVers in North America. MIKE - We have four of our Seven Day Adventure Guides already published with many more planned. Also we want to point out that our Beginner's Guide to Boondockingand our How to Buy an RV books are very helpful for newbies and those looking to get a new RV. We now have a special page with information on all our guides and books at https://rvlifestyle.com/books Please check them out and share the link on social media with your friends. JENNIFER - But besides the upcoming book, the best way to tell you about this area is with video and Mike is putting together an epic one of all the sights and sounds we experienced in this magnificent state. Look for it Thursday on the RV Lifestyle Channel on YouTube. In fact, there’s so much to see and do there that we think it will take two videos to adequately tell the story, one this week and one next. MIKE – We also want to give a shout out to a listener named Lily who left us this great review of the podcast on iTunes. Says Lili: “Love this RV podcast! One of a handful I listen to regularly and the only RV podcast I listen to regularly. The information is great for all kinds of RV'ers. So many helpful tips, links, and information. And best of all, it's FREE! Thanks Mike and Jennifer, for all your efforts! I travel for work a lot and look forward to each episode!" Please remember to rate and review the show on iTunes or your favorite app. It really helps new listeners find us. RV LIFESTYLE NEWS OF THE WEEK JENNIFER Snow closes roads, alters camping plans in several national parks and more out west The calendar may officially say summer, but in many parts of the country, temperatures are uncharacteristically cold. So cold, in fact, that snow caused road closures last week in Yellowstone National Park's Beartooth Pass and Rocky Mountain National Park's Trail Ridge Road. It is so cold, in fact, that some of Colorado's mountain areas typically filled with campers received 10 inches of snow by the end of the weekend. MIKE Heavy rains close campgrounds, lead to flooding in many parts of the midwest and Ontario Speaking of the weather, while much of the higher altitudes of the west dealt with snow, in the midwest and eastern parts of the country the issue was rain, lots of rain, sometimes causing flooding. We certainly experienced lots of rain in upper New York these past few weeks. Numerous state parks in Ohio, Missouri and elsewhere were under water, according to numerous news reports, causing campers with first of summer plans to make other arrangements. JENNIFER If heading to Olympic National Park beware of flying goats If you're heading to Washington's Olympic National Park this summer be sure to check road closures for flying goats. Yep, you heard that right. The national park is planning to continue to catch mountain goats, drug and blindfold them, before helicoptering them out of the park and moving them to the their native habitat in the North Cascades. As they continue their plan to remove 700 of the non-indigenous creatures, several roads will be closed. MIKE Father called hero for jumping into water to save son High water levels out west have made many rivers there particularly dangerous this spring, even taking several lives. When water levels get high, the currents, even if only knee level, can knock a person down, and sometimes these rivers even make waterfalls. Apparently that is what happened last week at Utah's Gunlock Reservoir. A man and his 7-year-old son were walking on a trail when the son slipped, fell into the water, and then was taken away. His dad dived in, broke a vertebra, but saved his son. A witness who helped the father and son described the dad as a hero. JENNIFER Man dies after a fall when hiking alone in Idaho Every year at this time we see start seeing stories of people who head off to hike a trail in a beautiful place and either get lost, or much worse, become injured in some way and die. A sad story out of Idaho last week about a man who apparently fell and died while hiking alone at Owl Creek hot springs got me thinking of an interview we did for the podcast some time back with an expert hiker. The expert shared several important tips on what every camper needs to know before hitting the trails that we wanted to share with all of you here. This part of the podcast is brought to you by RadPower Bikes,an electric bike manufacturer offering direct to consumer pricing on powerful premium electric bikes. Now with free shipping LISTENER RV QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK From Benoit LeClerc via the RV Lifestyle RV travel blog- How are you going to manage your battery to be able to use it in your winter camping, I think that in freezing temperature it is not good to charge lithium battery. From Sean Pedlar ,via RV Lifestyle Channel on YouTube - What ever happened to that satellite internet system you had? I heard you talk about it on a podcast a while ago. Also how did you find the wifi throughout your trip through Canada? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer, or a comment on the things we’re discussing. If so, we invite you to leave us that question or comment on the special voicemail number we have for the podcast – it’s 586-372-6990. If you are driving and can’t write it down right now, just go to the RV Lifestyle travel blog at rvlifestyle.com and scroll down the page. You’ll see that number prominently posted on the blog. This part of the RV Podcast is brought to you by Battle Born Batteries, maker of quality, safe and reliable lithium batteries that can be installed in just about every RV. Get in touch with Battle Born to find out what lithium batteries and an upgraded energy management system can add to your RV Lifestyle. Check them out at https://rvlifestyle.com/lithium RV INTERVIEW OF THE WEEK You can learn more about this tool at https://rvlifestyle.com/rvtripwizard We’ve never been big on planning. Then we signed up for a tool called RV Trip Wizard. I just used it to plan our trip from Michigan to Lake Ontario, to Montreal and down through the Adirondacks and the Finger lakes area. You can see a map of the route from my trip as the featured image at the top of this page.. But I have so enjoyed using this tool that I had to get someone from the company to come on the podcast and talk about it. It costs just $39 and it works on any device. I like to use it on our iPad or laptop but it also works on smartphones, whether iOS or Android. I am blown away by this. You can check it out yourself at RVLifestyle.com/rvtripwizard Our guest this week is Pat Buchanan of RV Trip Wizard, who will tell us how this great RV trip planning tool works. Here’s a transcript of the interview: Mike Wendland: Pat Buchanan from RV Trip Wizard joins us to talk about this great planning thing. Pat, first of all welcome to the program. Pat Buchanan: Thank you sir. It's a pleasure being on. I've listened to you multiple times before and it's great to be on the other side this time. Mike Wendland: Well I'm glad to have you on the other side. I have fallen in love with RV Trip Wizard. I'm not so much of a planner as I am a serendipity traveler, but with your Trip Wizard it's like being able to take the journey before I even leave home. There's so many features on it that I didn't want to explain them to our listeners. I thought that I would get you to do it.