What's the route? This is the easy part. First, get a good atlas. We always start planning looking at the big picture since we usually have an end destination in mind. The Road Atlas allows you to see most of what you need. Second, supplement the Atlas by picking up state maps at welcome stations on the highways. They have good information on state parks, etc.

Where will we stay? This is where the cheese gets binding. There are MANY travel directories, campground guides, camping clubs, and freeway guides available. We belong to the Escapees Club, Good Sam Club, and Passport America. Each of these has some form of campground directory. The problem is, let's say you are traveling from Livingston, TX to Austin, TX on red roads. You will be driving through, Huntsville, Madisonville, Bryan, Franklin, etc. The issue we found with directories is that you end up with a pile of them on your lap, thumbing through them all, trying to find a free or low cost stopover location. What a bother!

Our solution was to purchase DeLorme Street Atlas 2006 with the GPS attachmant that fits in a USB slot on the laptop. Now we can see and plan routes on the PC (although the atlas is still great for the big picture). The GPS shows us where we are all the time. NOW FOR THE BEST PART!

There are map overlays available for the DeLorme software that you can apply to a route file which show you the location of hundreds of places to stay - Corps of Engineers Parks, TA's, WalMarts, Cracker Barrels, Escapees Days End Locations, Passport America Parks, Elks, Flying J's, etc. You can selectively display these locations to see what's available ahead of you on your route map! These overlays are available for free on the Discovery Owners RV Site. Thank you! Thank you! Click here for a screen shot.

If you would like to investigate using this approach to travel planning, you can click the link on the left of the page. If you buy from amazon we also make a buck or two, which helps support our web site. Thanks!