Traveling to a new place can be so much fun! New sights, smells, sounds, terrain, campground neighbors…
When you first arrive to a new place, what do you like to do first? Do you hop on your bike and go explore local biking trails? Do you head straight to the town museum? Do you go see the most popular tourist attractions or go eat at the most popular restaurant in town? Or do you set up your camp chair, bring over a good book and relax for a while?
You can select up to two answers in today’s poll. If you select “Other” please leave a comment below. Heck, leave a comment anyway and tell us your favorite thing(s) to do first.
We enjoy driving around the community and checking out what it has to offer. Having worked in City Government for almost 40 years, and my husband was with our local telephone company for 44 years we enjoy checking out what a community has to offer along those lines. You can typically tell how involved the citizens and the City Fathers are by what has taken place; or what is in the works within a community. We also Google interesting things near us, often things not listed about the community. Last year we ran across a wonderful lake located up a winding road that was amazing. We almost always find something interesting to see or do.
I prefer to walk the campground.
We like to walk or drive the downtown business area. Not because we’re shoppers, but because it tells a lot about the town. Is it a lot of boutique-type shops, to attract tourism? Day-to-day, realtors, law office, barbershop just for local needs? A lot of empty storefronts? We also look at the homes in the oldest parts of town, especially if it’s a river city. The old architecture can be amazing.
Even before I go, I look at the area on Google Earth to see where the parking lots are in relation to where I want to go, where the noisy areas are in relation to the campground and where the scruffier parts of town may be just to stay safe.
Set up, take the dogs for a walk, then sit in my rocking camp chair and enjoy the area. Not a shopper or eating outer. If in a city or town area take a day to check out the local dog park and drive around to see if anything worth visiting.
Morning fellow RV ers, I’ve read most of comments and we pretty much do the same as everyone else. We set up,make sure everything works, no leaks, talk to the manager/owners (if it is a new destination) get information, check out nearby towns, places of interest, etc. So we basically do what everyone else does. Yours in travel, Ray and Joy in the still frozen tundra.
We set up and then relax after getting the trailer set up. Then sit at the outside table and decide what to do first. Most times if depending on when we get in we might go out to the town and see whats what. Otherwise we start off at first light. So ready to get out of dodge.
my wife searches for places to dance and off we go.
Settle in and not move for at least two days, then explore. 🙂
The quick bathroom visit. Set up then a nice cold drink (lemon aide, iced tea). A walk to the check-in office and review the brochures. Say hi to the neighbors if out. Make the evening meal, discuss the next day adventures around the good ole campfire. Off to bed and start adventure.
After setting up and seeing that everything is working, I just want to relax. That way I can get a fresh start the next morning.
Set up the trailer!
After set up & some R&R, we hunt up a visitor’s information center to pick up brochures on things to see & do.
We usually do our homework before arriving for things to do. You can never find everything out with books and on line searches so if we arrive early enough we try to talk to other people in the campground about what to see and do.
A lot depends on the time of arrival at the campground. Later in the day, beyond 4 PM we’ll set up camp, take a break and have a beer, and then maybe walk around the campground and discuss what we are going to do for dinner. If we get into our site early, 1 or before I’ll have a beer during set up, but when we are done we’ll head into the closest town to check out what’s available.
We look first for the visitor center. One example is in Roswell, NM. They offer clean restrooms, a dish of water for your dog, and even take a free photo of you with a couple of aliens from outer space!
If the area offers a guided tour we usually take that.
Then we decide what we want to take a close look at.
I usually like to walk the camp ground, see other camping rigs, and say hello to my neighbors only after my campsite set up has been completed.
The first “touristy” thing we do is go downtown and walk around. We try our best to experience the same things the locals do and we feel that walking downtown streets allows us to do this. Then we consider going to tourist attractions . . . or not. But downtowns to us are the most interesting (although we never miss a truly historical monument).
Use the toad on day trips to explore the region.