By Ramona Creel
As a full-time RVer, I invest a lot of time (and I mean a LOT of time) researching where I want to take my rig for its next adventure. For a Professional Organizer (whose greatest thrill is categorizing information and arranging logistics), there’s nothing more enjoyable than sitting down with an empty calendar and an endless bucket list of places to visit! But I totally understand why travel planning can seem a bit overwhelming to other folks -- especially when you’re visiting a new city and know nothing about the area.
How do you figure out the best sights to see? Places to eat? Cultural activities? RV parks? You could ask friends and family for recommendations, but you may miss out on some amazing experiences if you limit yourself to what your inner circle has already done on vacation. These days, it’s much easier for a do-it-yourselfer to find both the fun activities and the super-saver deals -- by harnessing the power of the Internet to plan a safe, successful, stress-free trip.
I remember as a child, spending hours poring over my father’s AAA books and Rand McNally maps – imagining all the places I might visit in the future. Unfortunately, those days of pulling out a road atlas to figure out where you want to go are over! Now you’re generally expected to plan your route online or via an app. The good news is that every bit of information contained in those old foldout gas station relics is now available with just a click of the mouse.
A good place to start is with what you’d like to see -- I personally prefer to pick my destinations first and then plot my route based on those stops. Frommer’s, National Geographic Travel, and Fodors all offer free websites based on their popular print guides -- where you can hunt up trip suggestions by location or type of activity, read other users’ reviews of local hotspots, and find those sightseeing attractions that best suit your family’s tastes. Or if you have a general idea of a place you’d like to visit (like “I’m going to be in Boston to visit my sister for her birthday in the fall”), a Google search will pull up millions (and MILLIONS) of web pages offering travel advice -- everything from official visitor/convention bureaus, to individual attraction sites, to personal travel blogs. If that’s too much for your brain to process, try sticking with just the first screen of results -- you should still be able to find plenty of options without going into information overload mode.
The nice thing about the Internet is that it also allows you to move beyond typical tourist attractions. I’ve got nothing against theme parks and beach resorts, but I usually prefer to escape the crowds by taking the road less traveled. Websites like Lonely Planet can point you toward some amazing places that most of the rest of the world ignores -- cool little towns that have managed to keep out the chain stores and corporate corruption, beautiful natural areas where you won’t see another two-legged soul for miles, artist colonies filled with funky galleries and hip cafes.
I also recommend checking out some of the festival listing sites for interesting seasonal entertainment -- nothing makes you feel “local” like a regional festival! And there’s something out there for everyone in this great land of ours -- whether you like food/wine, live music, ethnic celebrations, Renaissance Fairs, sporting events, or something a little more weird (like the Mike The Headless Chicken festival in Colorado, a road kill cook-off in West Virginia, Cow-Chip Throwing contests in Wisconsin, or a celebration of Tarantual Awareness in California). Roadside America and Atlas Obscura are my go-to travel resources for odd, unusual, off-the-beaten-path attractions -- I’m talking about things like the Spam Museum or the world’s smallest post office or a giant sculpture of a pink elephant with glasses. Humongous metal dinosaurs and plastic hot dogs, amusingly-converted Muffler Men and places where your car seems to roll uphill backward, building-sized rocking chairs and the world’s largest ball of twine -- my idea of heaven!
We hope Ramona’s trip-planning tips and tricks will help you as your plan your next Live Riveted adventure! Be sure to share with us highlights from your road trips on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!
