By Russ and Tiña De Maris
Driving through the campground, keep your eyes open. It’s dollars to donuts that you’ll spot at least one rig with one of those U.S. maps with the “stick on decals” stuck to the side of the unit. These things do raise the occasional campfire discussion on two points: truth and resale.
In the neighborhood of the truth – just what constitutes a valid time to put your decal on the map? Do you have to travel with your RV into that state to count the coup? If you just went there some time – even without the rig – can you still stick the sticker? One RVer observed, “If you were in the state long enough to hit the bathroom, you left your mark, so go ahead and stick!”
There are those who take a dim view of the “quick stop and stick it” philosophy. They figure that you’d better at least have driven around in the state a bit, seen some of the more memorable sites and then, sure, put on the sticker. We’ll leave all this to your discretion.
But what about resale? If you put one of these gizmos on the side of your motorhome, you’ll watch the resale value shoot downhill. At least that’s the reckoning of one RV professional. The way he figures it, “personalizing” your RV just tends to diminish its value in the eyes of potential buyers. If that’s true, and yet you still want bragging rights, what can you do? One fellow suggests putting the sticky map up in an obliging window. That way, when you’re ready to sell the RV, you can remove the map with a razor blade scraper and eradicate the thing.
This, of course, all leads to truth and resale. Say you bought a motorhome that some other traveler had installed one of these memorable states map in. Is it truthful to leave the thing up, leaving others with the impression that you have been places that Willy Nelson only dreamed of going to?
Well, that’s all the philosophy we have time for today. By the way, if you really WANT one of those “I’ve been there,” or “My rig’s been there,” or “I wanta go there” or “what-have-you” state sticky maps, here’s a neat one that let’s you fill in the state with a license plate image.
Tell us in the comments below if you have a map on/in your RV of your travels. Has anyone hit the 48 contiguous states in your RV? Let us know.
##RVDT 1351
We put our Map and travel decals onto plastic magnetic sheeting.Easy on Easy off, When not using the RV we store them inside when to prevent sun fading and marks on the RV.
My folks travelled in a Wilderness 5th wheel for years and collected refrigerator magnets from the states and provinces they visited. When they stopped travelling and sold their rv the magnets and memories went into their new home.
Ours is on the inside of the frosted door glass, where being translucent, it doesn't block much light, doesn't fade in the sun, and doesn't brag to others when our door is closed. When we want it gone, a razor will do it easily. That said, we've customized the hell out of our RV, so the effect of stickers on resale is our last concern compared to significant wiring changes!
Our map rule: we must intentionally camp/sleep in the RV in that state to add a sticker. Purely pragmatic rest stops and Wal-Marts while transiting don't count; visiting friends/relatives overnight does.
My theory, the kids will have to deal with it. I worked very hard to get where we are, as did my husband. We are going to enjoy as we see fit.
Our map is proudly placed on the forward wall of the front passenger side slide showing only when the slide is out. All US states are added. We have slept in our RV in all lower 48. In Alaska we rented an RV, and in Hawaii we visited. I think the year, mileage, cleanliness, and condition of your RV are the defining factors of value. The map is a badge of honor.
We have and our requirement is that we have do the time and spend the night in the rig. When we look at the map it brings back fond memories.
Rule that we grew up with is if you spend a night in the state it’s legal to post the sticker…passing through doesn’t count…..
As Ted does, we put our map on the outside forward facing wall of the passenger side slide of our Montana, so it only shows and is only exposed to the sun and weather when the slide is out.
Our self-imposed rule to add a state sticker to the map is that we have to actually camp in our trailer in that state for at least one night. Our map represents travels with three different trailers.
Our rule is, we have to spend the night in the rig before we can add the state to the map. I made a map and adhered to the inside of the screen door. We can see it it from inside the rig as well as when we’re outside with the door propped open. It’s made of adhesive vinyl which I can remove if/when we sell.
Wife run that department and her rules go. I think that it is competing that keeps falling off of the frig. Spell checker want to make the frig a frog. Happy Trails.
The spell checker is doing that because the word is ‘fridge’
We’ve camped in 37 of the lower 48 so far. Our rule is we must camp there.
I add nothing to our TT. Don’t object to others tho. I have seen funny things on other units traveling on the open road
Ours is different. We have a larger, laminated map inside our 5th wheel and place colored dots on each place we stay more than 1 night. I do not add dots for overnight rest areas/walmarts, but it is cool to look at it and see the routes we have taken. A little disappointed this year, we had a great trip planned which would have given us a lot of dots. Well, maybe next year.
One day while at sea an fellow “Old Salt” and I were talking about all the places we had been and the things we had seen. The young guns were listening and were duly impressed by our saltiness and wondered how many places we had been. So we pulled out a yellow legal pad and started listing countries we had been to. My buddy had me beat because he spent a number of years in Europe. But that got us wondering about how many states we had been to. We decided to set some parameters, you must have been there for at least two days and done “something”. Simply driving through, getting gas, stopping to “make your mark” wouldn’t qualify. At the time it turned out that, at the time, I had seen more of the world than I had seen of my own country! So, when my wife and I got our first travel trailer we decided to use that same criteria in order to put a state sticker on the map. We did go ahead and count Hawaii because, even though we didn’t have a trailer there, we had done quite a bit of tent camping while stationed there.
While in Nappanee, Ind. one year, we bought a tablecloth of the US and would use Sharpies to mark our whereabouts. After a few years in the Sun, it started to fade. We had our Grandson over one day and his project was to use Sharpies to outline all the States. He didn’t know it, but it was a great Geography lesson for him.
We have visited in all contiguous 48 states and keep a pushpin map (from GeoJango) of our travels at home. The Explore America map locates all national parks, national monuments, and many other places. Just because we drove through a state or may have stayed overnight didn’t count as a visit for us. It’s all about the exploring!
The map I have is on a board that is hung outside our RV when we set up for an extended stay. We only put a map on it if we have spent some time in the state camping.
In our last rig we had a map that included North and Central America. We would mark a spot if we had camped there. By the time we traded in the RV we had covered 46 lower states (driven through Rhode Island and missed Delaware), Alaska, much of Canada, and all of Central America. So, on the new RV no map as would be rather pointless for us.
I was looking at buying a used truck camper that seemed to be in very good condition and reasonably priced. Then I saw ALL of the stickers that covered the outside of the back of the camper. The only areas with no stickers were the windows. I’m still looking.
You could take them off…..
Or you could keep looking…..
I find it both curious and hilarious what some people spend their time doing to impress themselves and others.
“That you have been places that Willy Nelson only dreamed of going to”? I don’t think there is a whole lot of places left on Willies bucket list.
We had one of the nice solid-color state maps on the spare tire cover of our first Class C and I kept that cover when we sold it. Now we have one with the full-color photo states on the rear compartment door of our current MH. Of course, it is badly faded already after only two years. I just started over with the new map and MH though collectively we’ve been to 48 states. Only missing Vermont and Hawaii in that total and, though we were planing to go to Hawaii early this year, I don’t think we’d care to rent an RV or go camping while there, so 49 will be our max.
We are travelers and sightseers rather than campers so driving through a state with at least a stop somewhere counts for us. I’m also a big map and travel ephemera collector. That goes back to a fifth grade assignment to talk about our hobbies. I didn’t think I had any so when making our regular Saturday stop at the local Skelly station I went in and took one of each from their free map rack. I still have those and probably a 500 more.
your map, your rules. simple.
Agreed, there’s enough legitimate controversy in the world that we don’t need trivial ones.
I RV and I ride motorcycles, I have a different philosophy on what constitutes “I’ve been there” for each. In the RV we have to at least spend a night in a state before we can claim the sticker. On the other hand, riding the bikes, if I ride in that state then I’ve been there.
We have one of those maps on our TT. We only put a sticker on it if we have at least stayed over night. We don’t care too much about the resale, by the time we sell it , it will be well used but well taken care of.
We had one of those maps on one of the slide outs of our 2015 Phaeton. When we traded it in for a new coach the beginning of 2020, that didn’t factor in to the trade-in value.
In the new rig, we framed a map and hung it on the wall. That way we can remove it if need be, plus we can take it with us if we again change RVs.
My late wife and I used the philosophy that 1: We had to stay overnight in that state in our RV, and 2: We had gone to that state to see something in the state and we did see it. Driving through without stopping or without seeing something [besides a bathroom] didn’t count. In 37 years we were able to say that, yes, we’ve been in all 49 states with our RV and seen something in all 49 states on the continent. We”cheated” and flew to Hawaii for our 50th anniversary, staying in hotel rooms on Oahu, Maui, and Hawaii. Now it’s time to catch up on the things we wanted to see but didn’t have time the time to see as we had to get back home to work.
Then you have had an enviable life! Travel on!
We collect magnets from all the places we stay in the RV, and stick them to a convenient metal surface – the top of the range hood in our TT, and now a panel on the wall of our new (to us) MH. If we get a magnet from someplace we’ve traveled without the RV, we put that on the fridge at home.
Did anyone click on the link to see that map Amazon sells? The cost of shipping is almost the same as the map. And if you ship to Canada you’re slapped with an Import Fee. I see this Import Fee lots on ebay and when I contact the seller they almost always waive that. It’s another gouge to your pocket book as shipping from the U.S. to Canada doesn’t need an Import Fee applied. My experience is Canada Customs doesn’t even look at an item that’s under $50 in price. And even if you need to pay a Customs Fee it’s added on when the item crosses the border.
I think that one should at least stay overnight and have one bowel movement to earn sticking a new state on the map.
My dilemma is that I visited most of the states in my previous RV but counted them all when I mounted the map to my new RV!
We’ve been to all 50 and don’t want a stick-on map. However, when walking around an RV park or campground, seeing someone’s map is a good conversation starter. Pick a state they have covered and ask what they liked most about it. If they can’t remember anything about that state, they either just stopped for fuel or were watching their cell phone instead of the scenery and it made no impression.
My wife and I participate in dog agility. Our goal is to trial in all 50 states. We only add a state to our map after we have run the dogs at a trial. To date we have 42 states up. We had literally begun a 3 month trip to complete the lower 48 when the virus caused the shut down. Over the same 5 years we have visited and camped overnight in all of the lower 48 but only the 42 are up.
I mounted mine on a board so that i wouldn’t lose it when i buy another rig. I find geocaches in every state. So my rule is if i found a cache there while using my rv, i get the sticker. I think i have 28 states so far. Unfortunately i was planning a trip to Florida in March, but because of the pandemic, i didn’t go. I was going to get 8 more states. Oh well, the states are not going anywhere. I will take that trip next March.
We too have geocached in most of the states we ‘claim’. Like you we had planned to add several new states and a province to the map this year. Better luck in the future.
Our RV map rule is we must sleep in the RV in that state. No drivethroughs, no visit without RV.
We add a state sticker if we have spent at least three days camping in that state.
Our map is not in the Travel Trailer. It resides in the bedroom at home next to our desk. Memories are in the planning of the coming adventure and comparing the past memorable sites and camps to those upcoming.
Met a guy last year that said his map was finished even though not all states were pinned. It was his late wife’s job to do that and she said if they didn’t have sex in the state it didn’t count.
For me…I bought a metal map and magnets for all 50 states and plan to put it up in the S&B. It was expensive but I can also use it as a teaching tool for my grandkids. The only place I have seen this is 50,000 Silver $s in western Montana. I purchased a few of the states when passing through the first time in the RV (staying in their free parking area) and put them on a cookie sheet on the wall. Last trip through I bought the board and the rest of the states.
Yes! We have one on the front wall of our slide. We only “claim” a state when we spend the night. When we start planning for future travels we always look at our map for inspiration. Also it is a topic of conversation as friendly people walk through the campground.
We have one and it’s about 3/4 filled in. Our rule is if we stop and explore some part of the state for a few days the sticker goes on. The map has generated countless conversations with other campers around the US. It’s on the side of our patio side slide and I love to see it every time we extend the slide. As far as affecting resale… we bought the RV for fun and adventures not as an investment.
Our rule for adding a state to the map is that we have to actually camp there.
That’s our criteria as well. So far, we’re up to 44 states.
That’s our rule too. We got our “new” coach a year ago and probably have about 10 states now. We have it on a board that we haven’t yet put anywhere.
Now if we were to change the rule to any state where I have been all I would have to do is just move all the states over. I got states 49 and 50 in 1987. My family took 3 week vacations every year and just racked them up.
When we first started RV’ing, I told my wife there were two rules that I would not compromise. 1) I would never own or wear a Good Sam vest that usually has all sorts of patches and pins attached and 2) That we would never have one of those “been there” U.S. Maps on our RV. Neither rule has been broken or even bent in all the years since!
We have been on the road 19 years. Early on, we decided we didn’t want stickers on our coach, but we liked the US map for stickers. Roy measured the sticker map, cut a piece of plexiglass and that’s where our stickers are. Our Canadian stickers are on the reverse side. We put the map up in whatever window we want.
We have a map on our front passenger slide out so that it only shows when the coach is parked and slides are out. It is a “cling” attachment so is not sticky. Our requirement to apply a sticker is to sleep at least one night in the state or province (we got the Canada map add on). We have been full time for 4 years and now have stickers on 11Canadian provinces and all but 6 states. Those states are HI and 5 tornado alley states. We plan to finish all but HI this year. Someday we will go to HI and rent an RV. We also travelled by RV in South Africa but have yet to see a map for that😆.
Oh yay – I have been looking for a Cling map. Do you remember where you got it?
Touched on 48 contiguous states and 10 provinces by RV, stayed in most. My full US map is on plexiglass screwed to inside of cargo door, visible only when cargo door open. Yet to find a matching in size Canada map. Sadly Alaska trip this summer deferred due to Covid-19.
I like the idea of the cargo door. I think a map on plexiglass, with a magnetic type attachment might be a fun way to go.
We have one of those maps for both the US and Canada. Our rule is to spend some money in that State or Providence. Spend the night, $$$ for RV site, or buy gas, or the very least a meal or grocery store.
We consider the map part of our adventure, not so much the vehicle. So if we spent the night there, in one of our RVs, then we apply the sticker. Passing through or napping in a rest area don’t count but when we take delivery of our next 5th wheel this summer, we’ll get a new map and populate it with the places we’ve camped. (Our last map burned up along with our last 5th wheel in a Camping World maintenance lot in April of this year)
Sorry about the loss of your previous RV. Best of luck with your new one.
Even though we toured the Hawaiian islands by cruise ship, I put Hawaii on my RV map because I drove the road to Hana in a Dodge Caravan. A RV overseas is called a caravan, so it counts.
We have a USA map on our Big Country, and had one on a bumper pull before. To us, (our sticker- our rules) it is an indication of where we have camped. To qualify, we have to spend at least one night in the RV, in the campground or park. Then the sticker goes on. It is a record of where WE have camped, not that particular RV. When we sold the bumper pull unit, I carefully peeled off the sticker and used Goo Gone and WD-40 to remove the residue. No damage, and nice and clean. We enjoy seeing other RVers stickers, and it is a conversation starter in the campground.
I read thru the earlier comments and learned that there may be a cling map available. That would be acceptable, since I would want to take it with us if we upgrade. My map my rules, but that would be that we had to have at least spent the night, and hopefully found at least one Geocache that wasn’t at a road side rest area. Like many others, this map area would have expanded this year, but . . .