Half the Fun of Travel is the Research

"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page." -- St. Augustine

 

The title is true.  Isn’t it?  In our heavy travel days I would research, research and research some more where I thought we might want to go.  I loved the research …. but, after doing so much research sometimes I felt we had already been to the place we thought we would like to go. Before long another destination was under consideration and the first was history.  Ever done that?

It really works the same way with RV travel.  We discover some of the places that fit our interests many times by another blogger’s post.  That starts the research.  Even if we've already been we may discover that we missed things we'd really like to see just by the way it was described on the blog.   It's not the details that peaks our interest because we can find those ourselves.  It's the blogger's opinion, photos and description that entices us to make that return trip. Well, that and we just might know a few friends heading in the same direction.

I'm a big researcher and a big user of Google maps when I'm curious about roads, RV parks or anything else that might be a little questionable.  It's a great travel tool as it gives a bird's eye view of just about anyplace one might want to go.  Sometimes my research stops after checking out the aerial snapshot and other times the intended destination becomes even more exciting.  I don't use Google for mapping but know others who do.  What works for some doesn't always work the best for others.


If still interested in the intended destination, our route is charted on Microsoft Streets and Trips.  When we eventually hit the road we usually discover that our route isn't perfect.  How do we know?  It's because our GPS usually has a different idea of what roads we should take.  The battle begins.  The GPS wants to go one way but the old mapping system says we should go another.  Hmm.





One of the reasons I use the Streets and Trips software is so that I can download gobs of POIs (points of interest) onto it. The POIs show places we might want to stop along the way. Some are also downloaded to the Garmin. There are hundreds of POIs available.  The main ones I keep are  the Elks RV parks, Thousand Trails, COEs, Famcamps, RPI and Wal-Mart.  Once the data markers are loaded on the map it's easy to see the options.  You can load truck stops, restaurants, attractions or whatever else you might be interested in. 

Checking out the campgrounds is a big part of the research so it's off to reading opinions of other using RVPark Reviews.  Why is it that some campgrounds are almost as expensive as a hotel room?  We furnish our own bed and never request maid service, bed turn-downs  or mints on our pillows and they rarely keep the light on for us.

Like I said half the fun of travel is the research.  I also have discovered no matter where I think we might want to stop for the night, we probably won't.   Some folks set an approximate mileage for their day's travel or even a good stop time.  We don't do that.  We should I suppose but we don't.  Most of the time we just go until we figure it's time to stop or until we reach our destination.  When we do make plans where to stop for the night we usually don't stop.  It's either too early or we've already stopped.

Winter destinations are a big topic with RV folks. Winter destinations also require a good bit of research. We've heard about the great places and we've heard about the not so great places.  Just enough is posted to entice the interest and start the research.    In the past we've spent our share of time around the Palm Springs area and on into several different parts of Arizona.  We were ready for something different last year but then came the ATVs.  We hung around the southwest deserts.

We're thinking Florida this year ... just thinking.  Sure we’ve been there but not to spend months on a nice beach.  We’re so very tempted and only time will tell what we will end up doing.  Our routing would look something like this..... maybe.

One year we thought we were going to spend the winter in sunny Florida but only traveled to the panhandle area.  The panhandle of Florida is not necessarily a warm, dry winter destination.  We were surprised to learn that since many folks snowbird around the Gulf Shores area of Alabama which borders the Florida panhandle.  We loved the area and the beautiful white powder beaches. We didn't like the weather so much.

Let the research begin.

‘Tis life on the road.