The Wendlands share the rules by which they roll.
By Mike Wendland, F426141
February 2017
Rules. Nobody likes rules. There’s just something about the word that stirs a bit of rebellion in us. And, yet, we all tend to adopt certain rules in our lives. But we don’t call them rules. We say it’s “the way we do things.” Or our “persona style.” Or “guidelines.”
Whatever we call it, we all develop certain procedures and preferences regarding just about every single aspect of life. This is especially true when it comes to our motorhome travel style.
Jennifer and I receive lots of questions from readers and podcast listeners about how we travel and where we stay while heading from place to place in our RV — the “rules” we follow on the road.
So, in no particular order, let me share our Rules for the Road. If you still don’t like the word “rules,” let me call this our Top 10 Traveling Tips.
1. Stay off the interstates
This is often easier said than done. But always, driving two-lane or divided state highways is more interesting and yields more fun places to explore. Unfortunately, though, we find that we cannot avoid interstates completely. They provide the fastest and most direct ways to get somewhere, and often our schedule is such that we have to be somewhere at a certain time and don’t have the luxury of indulging our curiosity for the serendipity of relaxed travel. Fortunately, we have found ways to minimize the stress of traveling the interstates. Keep reading …
2. Follow our 330 Plan
When we’re just meandering, our preferred style is simple: Stop for the day when you either have traveled 330 miles or the time reaches 3:30 p.m. Notice I said “preferred” style. Generally, this is best, as it will prevent you from becoming exhausted from too much driving, and when you do stop, you still have time to explore the local area.
It’s a good policy to follow, but it doesn’t cover every trip. Sometimes things happen. You stay longer somewhere than you planned, or something has come up and you have to be somewhere faster than you expected. So the 330 Plan can be supplanted anytime by any of the following guidelines.
3. Stop and see
Rarely do we travel long distances without finding somewhere to stop and see something interesting or bizarre. Examples include the OZ Museum in Wamego, Kansas; the Historic Museum of Torture Devices in Alton, Illinois; and the Cathedral of Junk in Austin, Texas. We use the RoadsideAmerica.com website and app to help us find such places, but often it’s just a roadside sign that leads us off the highway. The latter was true of our visit to the Jell-O Gallery Museum in LeRoy, New York. None of these surprise attractions take long to see. Usually an hour or so will do it. But we invariably discover something we didn’t know before that stretches our minds as we stretch our legs.
4. Change drivers
When traveling a long way in a day, we start out by changing drivers every two hours. Then every 90 minutes. Then, if we still have more ground to cover, we switch off every hour. We try to find a park or rest area where we can make the swap so we also can walk our dog, Bo. A typical driver change takes five or 10 minutes. It is amazing how refreshing even a short break can be.
5. Time your travels around big-city rush hours
Trust me, you don’t want to be on Interstate 75 in Atlanta during rush hour. Or on Interstate 65 in Nashville or Louisville. Or on the interstates leading through any other major city. We have found the best days to travel are Sundays and holidays.
When a big city is on our route, we always try to spend the night on the far side, so when we start off the next morning, we are going against the rush. If we’re heading north, we’ll stay on the north side of the city. Heading west, stay west. You get the picture.
If you’re driving in midafternoon and your current pace will have you traveling through a major metropolitan area at rush hour, stop short and find an attraction to tour, take a nap, find a dog park to exercise your pet, eat your evening meal a little earlier — anything that delays your drive through the city until after rush hour. In big cities, evening rush hour pretty much runs from 4:00 p.m. through 7:30 p.m.
6. Explore big cities
Although you do want to avoid big-city traffic, big cities DO have a lot to offer. We have friends who regularly boondock in New York City. They find a spot to park on a street and overnight there. Granted, they don’t set out lawn chairs and the grill, but they love these adventures and have never had an issue.
We prefer finding nearby campgrounds. A great many of them offer bus tours of the metropolis. These tours provide an awesome and very efficient way to sample big-city offerings. You’re free to look around, because someone else is driving. You can scout out places you’d like to return to for a longer look, and perhaps locate nearby parking spots for your RV. That’s another reason we love traveling in a Type B motorhome, by the way. We usually are able to find parking, even in urban areas. The exception tends to be parking garages with low overhead clearance.
7. Overnight where you can sleep well
We are not fans of overnighting in Walmart parking lots. They are too bright and too noisy. Even interstate rest stops are quieter, in our experience. We prefer to stay overnight in Cracker Barrel parking lots. Generally, they are much less busy. We also like KOA campgrounds. They are always clean, and many of them have fenced-in areas where dogs can enjoy off-leash exercise. I’d rather pay to get a good night’s sleep than end up tossing and turning in a noisy parking lot.
We recently joined Harvest Hosts (www.harvesthosts.com), a membership service that offers overnight camping at wineries, on farms, and at unique attractions. They ask that you buy a bottle of wine or some produce from the place before leaving, but otherwise your stay is free, covered in the $44-a-year membership dues.
We also like to boondock in quiet, uncrowded state and national forests, where overnight camping often is free or ridiculously inexpensive.
8. Listen to audiobooks and podcasts
To break the monotony of the drive, we listen to audiobooks. Check out the free offerings from your local library. Cracker Barrel restaurants also offer an audiobook library. You buy the book at the full retail price, but when you have finished, you can return it to any Cracker Barrel restaurant anywhere in the country and receive a refund, minus a $3 rental fee.
Our preferred method is to download audiobooks through Audible, which is owned by Amazon. Audible has a great introductory offer of a free audiobook download and a 30-day free trial to check out the service. After that, it costs $14.95 a month, about half the price of buying an audiobook at retail. We have been using the service since early last year. You can cancel anytime, and the downloaded books are yours to keep. If you are on the road a lot, this may be worth it to you.
We also listen to podcasts. We use the podcast app on our iPhone and then play it back through the entertainment system on our motorhome via Bluetooth. On iOS devices, the podcast app comes standard. On Android and other smartphones, download a podcast app through your app store. Be sure to subscribe to and listen to our Roadtreking RV Podcast while you’re at it!
9. Be prepared for emergencies and bad weather
Don’t travel in a bubble. Know what’s happening along your route. I try to find local TV websites along the route and quickly scan them to see whether roads are closed or local emergencies will affect our travel. One time, we diverted around a big city that was experiencing urban unrest. If I hadn’t read the news, I wouldn’t have known about a potentially unpleasant if not dangerous situation.
Similarly, weather can vary a great deal as you travel. Any time potential exists for an ice storm, for example, you’ll want to be off the road or in a different region. In case you do become stranded, always make sure you have water, a good first-aid kit, and enough food for a couple of meals. That’s easy to do in an RV.
10. Finally, don’t be afraid to splurge from time to time
Sometimes, on long road trips, we give ourselves a fun change of pace and spend a night in a hotel or motel. We spread out with all that room; take long, hot showers; sleep in; swim in the pool; soak in the hot tub; and enjoy the free hot breakfasts offered by most chains. We may also use the break to do the laundry in the hotel’s coin-operated machines.
We don’t motel it a lot, but when we do, it’s guilt free. Usually, we’ll also find a nice restaurant to go along with the motel. Sometimes we look for a movie theater or a concert venue. It’s nice to change things up and splurge from time to time. Variety truly is the spice of life.
Vetern journalist Mike Wendland, FMCA’s official on-the-road reporter, travels the country with his wife, Jennifer, aboard the couple’s Roadtrek Type B motorhome.