The Magi followed a star. Migrating birds follow their instincts. What do RVers follow? What drives you to travel to the places you go? How do you decide whether to go west or head east? How do you determine whether to travel down south or up north? Interesting questions! Let’s look at a few possibilities.
Weather
Many RVers like to follow pleasant weather. That usually means traveling south for the winter months and heading north in the summer. The weather is the determiner. It is the force that drives some RVers’ decisions.
Of course, the weather can be unpredictable. One winter we traveled more than 1,000 miles to escape the cold, Midwest winter temperatures and bitter snowstorms. What did we experience 1,000 miles south? One solid month of 50-degree temps and rain. The sun finally broke through the incessant clouds on the day we packed up to come home. (At least we escaped the snow!)
Bucket list
Other RVers choose their routes and destinations in order to complete their wish or bucket lists. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to see the ocean, so the ocean becomes your destination. Or maybe “Grand Canyon” is on your bucket list, so you travel in your RV to see it (and of course, cross it off the list). So, a bucket list also helps some RVers determine where they should travel.
Hobbies/special interests
Many RVers have hobbies or a high degree of interest in certain areas. A quilter friend of mine likes to attend quilting retreats. She gets new ideas and gains a refreshed enthusiasm for her hobby at these events. So, quilting museums, retreats, and special displays help determine where she goes in her RV.
We have other friends who just love old cars. Their RV takes them to museums and rallies all over the U.S. So, hobbies/interests can also provide an impetus for an RV trip.
Family and friends
Here’s a category that often inspires my husband and me to travel. We love visiting family and friends who are now scattered throughout the country. Spending time with those we love helps keep those important connections strong. However, I must admit that we also enjoy the ability to unwind in our RV during these same trips. Still, many RV destinations are determined by the location of friends and family.
Employment
More and more people are hitting the road for work. Their RVs not only help them arrive at employment destinations, the RV also serves as their full-time home—for months or even years at a time. Traveling for work is the reason some RVers decide on a destination.
How about you?
Why do you point your RV in one direction over another? What helps you determine your destination(s)? Let us know in the poll below and use the comments to further explain, please.
We typically travel twice a year to see friends and former colleagues. The balance of our trips (7-10/annually) are determined by distance and availability of campsites. I don’t have a bucket list and weather is not much of a factor, given that we have a sticks-and-bricks and several acres to look after.
bucket list has been trimmed down tho. with out of state residents being tacked with extra fees, i decided i didnt need the bucket list and there are plenty of places to camp in Cali
The last few years travel choices have revolved around health issues, treatments and doctor visits. Having our home in FL, everywhere is somewhere north. Hope to try for the Southwest states this fall.
We are Retired we go whenever to wherever we want. No particular reason. Nothing and no one holds us back.
Family comes to us in our sticks-n-bricks home.
My wife and I don’t “bucket list” anything. We just like to go to interesting places that have things to do and see in the area. This would include many areas in New England, down South such as Nashville, the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, any place in Florida, and especially Key West and the Keys. We talk in the Fall about the next camping season and where to visit and basically just start making reservations for stop-offs along the determined route and area.
Nice! We’ve done those trips a few times over the past 23 years. Most likely going again!
A combination of weather, bucket list, family/friends and best roads to destination.
Determining factors for me include distance (price of fuel) and people ( how far away from people can I get into the woods).
Our determining factors these days seems to be dominated by cost of fuel, distance and discomfort, and available easy to get to campgrounds. Age seems to have changed things for us at 80+. Fortunately, we live near the Ozarks and so much is available nearby or within 125 miles or less.
Likelihood of finding boondocking spots determines where we go in our camper.
Our over 300,000 travel miles in 2 motorhomes, the current one having 240,000 of those, were attending auto racing events, then touring the country. We’ve been to all states except 3, all of Canada bordering US, Baja, Mexico. One year we went to the Indy 500 in May, then up to Canada back to the US ending back at Indianapolis for an F1 race in September, before heading home. Sometimes stop to visit family in Denver. Now we go to Florida for the Daytona 500 in Feb, but arrive end of January stay for 6 to 8 wks, because we enjoy Florida. Not sure if we could cover our 10 days camping at the track at an RV park & we still enjoy the atmosphere at the race. We also visit different places on trip back home to CA. Now we are in Indianapolis for the Month of May for Indy500. We will go home a different route & visit places we haven’t been.
I guess it starts with family / friends. But after that day is over, it’s “now where do we want to go from here?”
116 degrees in Summer time San Antonio TX vs 72 degrees in Dorchester Wisconsin.
What determines where I travel in my RV?
Where I want to go!
Seems like a dumb subject to me!
Living in Florida, everything is North from here, so we go North.
Answers are a mixed bag. Midwest weather in the winter; sites to see along the way; family visits in the months we return home; bucket list destinations. All of the above!!
We plan most of our travels around family, friends, and events. We have family and friends all around the US and love to use each of their general locations as a base to work from. We then look for things that we might like to see between each location. As an example, we spent few days in De Smet, South Dakota visiting the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum and prairie homestead when traveling from Nebraska to North Dakota. I will add we’re mindful of weather as well. We don’t visit family in Phoenix in the middle of summer.
There are different factors that come into play when we travel. We spent 8 weeks one summer, after my husband retired, traveling out west because we had never been there. We have traveled with our son and his family, who also own an rv, to SC, GA, FL, for spring break. We have made several trips to Michigan, where we are originally from, for family, friends and to show the grandkids where their mom grew up. We have traveled to Massachusetts and Kentucky for reunions with former military friends who also rv. So many reasons to travel with the rv; just need the time.
Definitely all of the above !!!
Us too!
Our journeys are mostly defined with a specific destination in mind, with occasional side trips along the way that weren’t planned on. So, some planned destinations and some spontaneity work well for us.
I said other because we’re still trying to go to places we’ve never been to before, or a least haven’t seen since we were kids. And also crisscrossing places we’ve enjoyed so much in the past.
Weather is always a consideration though