The Ultimate Guide on How to Plan a Trip (Campground and Hotel Stays)

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Our family has been very fortunate in our lives to take some great vacations. We usually pull our camper when making long road trips, but we have stayed in many hotels as well. We have learned how to plan all of our trips based on a few mistakes and by taking cross-country trips. I will frame this article on the tips and lessons we have learned by traveling cross-country, although this advice is pertinent for trips of all lengths.

The two main trips that we have made cross-country were a 52-day round trip from Atlanta to California and a 34-day round trip from Atlanta to Canada. We feel strongly that your family can take vacations regardless of socio-economic status. The exposure to different regions of the United States is remarkable and some of the best education we can give to our children. I hope to show you that you can plan a fantastic trip for your family, no matter your budget.

If you are interested in planning a trip, we have a few tips that we use every time. I will adapt the recommendations for both camping and hotel stays.

Tips on How to Plan a Trip

1. Print a Blank Calendar

A few months before your trip (a year to six months before longer trips), print a blank calendar (check out our collection HERE). Have some pencils handy. It is possible, and even very probable, that you will erase this calendar quite a few times. You will want somewhere to write all of your thoughts, so house the calendar in an accessible place where you can jot ideas down when you have them. By planning, you will save money, as I will explain in the budgeting section below.

2. Plan How Many Days that You Want to Take on Your Trip

How many days are you allotting for your trip? Often, people will have a timeframe that they will need for their vacation. If so, go ahead and pencil in the days on your blank calendar. If you don’t have a set timeframe, go ahead and pencil in the month(s) that you will be gone.

When determining the length of your trip, regardless of destination, you must plan for days of rest if you will be busy. We had to cancel some amazing plans on our first cross-country trip to Canada because we were tired and worn out. Vacationing takes a lot of energy, and you don’t want to bypass fabulous festivities because you didn’t get enough rest.

In reflecting on our cross-country trips, I have to give props to the cruise industry. They build in days of rest. In the Caribbean, I always wondered why the itineraries didn’t include island hopping. I know from experience now that the cruise industry learned long before I did that for people to end their trips completely satisfied, days of rest or “days at sea” are vital.

3. Where Do You Want to Travel?

Plan Your Trip Route

When learning how to plan a trip, pencil in the beginning and ending destinations on your calendar. Also, where is the primary location that you want to visit? For example, we knew that we wanted to visit California on our last trip. So, we penciled in San Diego midway on our trip calendar, and then we adjusted based on the other locations that we wanted to visit.

When road-tripping, I would strongly suggest (no matter if you are camping or staying in hotels) to plan a different route back than you planned on your way. For instance, in heading out west, we went from Atlanta to New Orleans, South Texas, Southern New Mexico, Arizona, and California. On the way home, we ventured through the northern regions of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Louisiana before we made it home. Planning two routes means that the vacation continues after reaching your primary destination.

Take a few weeks and research where you want to go. Once you decide on a location you may want to visit, pencil it in. Next, figure out how many nights you would ideally like to stay at each stop (nothing in stone) and note those on the calendar.

Where to Lodge?

I recommend against finding campgrounds or hotels by rolling in each night, hoping for vacancies. Most campgrounds and hotels should be planned and reserved well before you arrive. Making reservations helps with budgetary costs as well as peace of mind. Upon returning from our New England road trip, the only campground we did not have reserved was in Kentucky. When we got to the campground, there was no room for us, and it left us truly without a safe place to stay for the night. We ended up at a great campground in Indiana, but it caused unneeded stress and a few hours of our time.

Another important aspect, especially when camping, is to know the safest way to your location. I can’t tell you how many times WAZE or other navigation programs will tell you the quickest or most efficient way to get to your destination. However, when you begin the journey, you are on the side of a mountain with no guard rails. If you are staying at a campground or cabin in a town, call where you are lodging and ask if there are recommended ways to come in from your direction or anything that you may need to know to arrive safely.

There have been roads that, if we had not checked with the campground first, we would never have made it to our destination. These roads may accommodate locals or people in cars, but we could have never made it with a camper.

How Many Miles to Drive Each Day?

From experience, we try to stay at each place on our cross-country trips for several days at a time. Driving gets old and will put a downer on a trip real quick. Instead, we found that a heavy day of travel to get us to a destination and then short day trips are the best. For instance, in California, we stayed in Temecula, between San Diego and Los Angeles. We used Temecula as our central location to make our day trips. We visited San Diego, Los Angeles, Disneyland, and Joshua Tree from this one central location. Mentally, this was so much better for us than packing up and traveling to a new place every two days.

Another aspect of mileage planning is the weather. If you know that bad weather is coming in on the day of departure, plan accordingly. Is it going to be windy or snowy? Should we hook up our camper the night before or call the hotel to see if we can come in a day early? Weather is a powerful force that can never be underestimated when traveling.

4. Plan Your Trip Budget

Sometimes money will determine the length of your trip or what you will do at particular destinations. The further in advance you plan and begin paying for your festivities will soften the blow on your bank account. When activities are paid in full before leaving your house, you will have better peace of mind when traveling.

Determining your budget will be done in two phases. Planning a total budget has never seemed to work for us because, ultimately, we blow that budget. Something always happens. Here is how we break our trip budgeting down.

How Many Nights Are You Staying at Each Location?

We knew on our 52-day trip that as soon as we arrived back home, in less than a week, we were leaving again for Dollywood in the Smoky Mountains. The Dollywood vacation budget was factored into our big road trip. We knew that we wanted to pay no more than $35 per night for a campground for most of our days on the road. We looked into campground reward programs and anything we could find to rack up points and earn free nights. For hotels, join a program like Marriott or Hilton Rewards so that you can maximize your perks as well.

How Much Gas Will You Use Round Trip?

Although our lodging was cheap while pulling the camper, the PULLING of the camper used some gas. We have a Ford F-250 with a 48-gallon gas tank. Each fill-up seemed devastating on our trip (it still does, haha). However, the summer that we went to California, there was a drastic difference between filling up in Georgia for $2.78 per gallon and filling up in California for $4.59 per gallon.

Use a gas app and forecast your fuel costs. When camping, Sean ALWAYS plans on using Flying J Gas stations when possible because of the RV fuel lanes. The fuel lanes make it easy to get in and out of gas stations with campers. Another perk is that if you use their gas card, it cuts another seven cents off each gallon while filling up. Although seven cents doesn’t seem like a lot, every little bit helps.

For those of you traveling in cars, gas calculation is still important. We passed quite a few signs in Texas and other regions out west that told us that the last gas station for 50 miles was coming up. At this point, you are at the mercy of that last gas station on the price that you will pay. So plan ahead and never give someone (or something, even a gas station) that control over you.

Our other vehicle is actually electric, so we also pre-plan our charging stops on the road. Electric car range can vary significantly by the weather. For example, the car’s range is far different in the winter than in the summer. Know where to charge along the way, and be aware of conditions that decrease your range, such as wind and cold temperatures.

Note– Our long road trips were 7,000 and 9,000 miles. We had to calculate oil changes into our gas costs as well.

Airfare Tips

Although we mostly travel by car, there are times when flying is best. My cousin, Ashley, has worked for a major US airline carrier for over a decade. Here is Ashley’s top advice on traveling by plane.

As someone who has worked in the airline industry for the past decade, with most of that time on the front line, I have a few insider tips to make your air travel amazing!

1. Know your airline. When choosing an airline, familiarize yourself with the schedule for luggage fees, changing your flight, rebooking a flight, or reinstating a ticket if you miss the flight. These fees can often make the discount carriers simply not worth it. You may have a much better experience by choosing a carrier with more frequent flights to your destination (which means more options should something go awry). You also may have fewer fees overall, even if it means paying a little bit more for your ticket.
2. Know your ticket. Even premium carriers offer deeply discounted tickets in exchange for less flexibility. These tickets, called Basic Economy, are non-refundable and inflexible. Essentially, if you purchase these tickets, you will not select your seat, and you are locked into a specific flight. If you miss your flight, you’ll be stuck buying a new pass. Recently, several airlines have stopped allowing passengers with Basic Economy tickets to board with carry-on bags. The carriers that allow the carry-on bags still have the customers who purchased basic fares board the plane last. Since the plane is likely to be full, you will likely have to gate-check your bag anyway.
3. Look at your connection time. If you are taking more than one flight, look at the connection time. The short connections are meant for experienced travelers. If you are traveling with children in a large group, or if you are new to flying, book connections with at least an hour and a half between flights. Larger airports may mean that your connection isn’t near your arrival gate. When traveling internationally, allot 2-3 hours between flights.
4. Think about the type of person you are before you book your flight. Are you someone who will party in the wee hours in Las Vegas the night before your flight home? Perhaps the 5 a.m. flight isn’t a wise choice. More people miss the first flight of the day than any other timeframe. People oversleep, over-participate in festivities, and sometimes Ubers aren’t as active in the early hours as well. Later flights are often more expensive but may be worth it in the long run.
5.  Pack light. I can’t stress this enough. The biggest violators of this cardinal rule are new parents. They pack the car seats, the strollers, the bassinet (yes, I see this frequently), the diaper bag, a year’s worth of diapers, and a carry-on bag for the whole family. Don’t do this. Pack as little as needed for the trip, yet enough to feed and diaper your baby should there be any delays on your travel. I highly recommend the Gb Pockit+ Travel Stroller and the Baby Trend Snap-N-Go for infants. For larger toddlers, get the cheapest stroller from Walmart that you can find. Don’t pack a diaper bag; wear a backpack instead. That Picklebottom bag is nice until you’re 5 hours into your trip and struggling to manage.
6. Be early. Get to the airport early and monitor your gate assignment. You don’t want a long TSA line to keep you from your first excursion day in Japan. At a small airport, arrive at least 90 min before your departure time, and for larger airports, give yourself at least 3 hours. Especially in the days of COVID, if a TSA agent comes down with a positive test, lanes in TSA will close until it can all be disinfected, which will drastically increase your wait in line.
7. Download the app. If your carrier has an app, download it. Depending on your airline, the app will often give you gate change, delay, and boarding alerts. However, regardless of the app, be at the gate no less than 30 minutes before your flight departure time. This way, you won’t miss any updates that might not be coming through the system. From the app, you can also rebook your flight in the event of a delay or upgrade your seats!
8. Know what documents you need before you travel and contact the immigration office of your destination to verify. COVID restrictions are frequently changing, so if you travel outside of the country, ensure you have all the documents needed and verify, not with the airline, but with the destination the day before you fly.
9. Never lose a bag. Make copies of your itinerary and contact information. Place these copies in at least two pockets of every bag you are flying with, including your carry-on. I have been able to save a few trips when people used this method. If a carry-on is left behind, it often has nothing on it that indicates who the bag belongs to. This leaves us holding the bag and hoping the owner comes back. However, on a handful of instances, I have found a tag on the front or a note in the front pocket that provided a cell phone number. I was able to alert the passenger before they left on their next flight.
10. Are the expedited lines in TSA worth it? For some, it is cheaper and much less stressful to simply arrive early.
11. Be kind. Historically, around 72% of flights operate on time. This means that you have around a one in four chance that your flight might be delayed by 20 minutes or more. Depending on the airline you are flying with, that rate may increase or decrease. Understand that travel doesn’t always go according to plan. When it doesn’t, be calm, be kind, and be understanding when possible. The phrase that you catch more flies with honey is true when speaking with anyone in customer service. There are certainly passengers we’d go to the ends of the world for and often do.
12. Lastly, enjoy your flight. Travel is the most stressful part of any journey, but you can change that stress into a pleasant experience with a little bit of forethought.

What activities are your “must-dos” for each town?

Maximizing Memberships

Once you know your locations and how much it will cost for lodging and gas, decide what activities you want to do in each town. I LOVE getting my national park passport stamps. If there are national parks close by, we will be visiting on all of our trips.

However, living in the southeast, most of our national parks do not have an entry cost. Out west and in New England, many parks do have costs. We calculate the parks’ entry fees that we want to visit and compare them to the national park’s annual membership price. The membership usually wins every time. We can see all the national parks we want while traveling for under a hundred dollars. The membership is good for an entire year, and we can use it on other trips.

If you are traveling with children, don’t forget about them. Although Legoland may not be on your schedule, it may be an excellent activity for your kids, save a lot of crankiness, and eliminate the “are we there yets” down the road. We often forget that traveling can be hard on everyone, especially those munchkins in the back seat.

Our family knew that we wanted to visit the Six Flags Parks and Seaworlds along the way on our trip out west. We have been members of Six Flags for years. It was incredible planning and visiting three Six Flags Theme Parks on this trip. We knew that there would be no entry cost since we were already members.

For Seaworld’s, we planned the same way. We knew well in advance that we wanted to visit the Seaworlds in San Antonio and San Diego. This pass was a little pricy for our family of four, so we purchased a season’s pass in April in forecasting our trip out west. Busch Gardens owns SeaWorld.

We visited Williamsburg and Jamestown on our spring break and used our Busch Gardens season pass to visit Busch Garden’s Williamsburg. Buying the pass early gave us an extra trip on our season’s pass, and we were able to visit Bush Gardens, both Seaworlds and both Seaworld waterparks. The pass made it much more economical on our visit. Plus, the Seaworld season pass was paid for in April and was one less expense to worry about on our trip out west. Speaking of pre-paying…

Pay For Big Ticket Items Up Front

Pay for all of your big items upfront. Since we planned this trip well in advance, we staggered our big-ticket items to all be paid a few months before we left on our trip. We had some significant purchases, such as the Busch Garden’s season pass, entry into Disneyland, a Los Angeles tour, shows in Las Vegas, and a Colorado River tour in Nevada. If you can pre-pay any of your hotel or campground nights in advance, we recommend doing this too.

We also were able to pay for some less expensive festivities upfront. For example, our family wanted to tour a few towns that we visited, such as a riverboat cruise in San Antonio, and I wanted to attend a cooking class in New Orleans. We listed these activities out by priority of want, and then as the year progressed, we paid for them, one by one.

Make sure when booking activities ahead of time to check the dates. For example, my cooking class booked fast, and so did the Colorado River cruise. Prioritize those festivities that book quickly to ensure that you get a chance to do them while you are in town.

After the Big Ticket Items, Set a Budget For Each Day

Budgeting per day will make or break a trip. No one wants to be stressed on vacation because of money. We took this last trip when my kids transitioned from kids’ meals to adult meals. I knew that I wanted to eat at a fabulous local restaurant one time per day. What used to cost us $50 at a mom-and-pop joint suddenly cost us $75-100. So I began my $100-a-day philosophy that I have been using for years since. It goes like this…

Brandi’s $100 Per Day Philosophy

Although I don’t always stick to this 100% (probably more like 80%), it is a good rule of thumb. If our activities are paid for in advance, we will vacation on $100 per day, including meals. Knowing that a restaurant is expensive or a highlighted piece of a trip, it does not count for the $100 rule.

During the day, we have $100 to eat and “play” on. If we want to go to a less expensive burger joint for dinner, we may also have the funds to enjoy breakfast. Or, we may plan an activity with the rest of our money. My method works amazingly great on the days when our activities are pre-paid.

For instance, when going to White Sands National Park, we were able to visit a pistachio farm, grab an ice cream, visit nicer restaurants, etc., in the afternoon and evening because White Sands was paid for with the National Park Pass. When we didn’t have a lot going on, we rationed our hundred dollars a little differently because we knew that it had to last through all of our fun and food that day.

It is crucial to stay within the confines of your daily budget on longer trips. For example, you don’t want to be a heavy spender at the beginning of your trip and then have to frequent fast food or grocery stores for the rest of your dining.

Vehicle Emergencies

I have always been one of those people who believes that when visiting restaurants, if I don’t have the money to tip the waiter or waitress well, then I can’t afford to dine there. I believe this strongly and have made it something that I live by. However, the same mindset needs to come with preparing for emergencies on the road.

First, ensure that you have a great roadside assistance program, whether you are in a car or an RV. Then, check the parameters of the program. For example, will they tow your vehicle? Give you a replacement vehicle? Pay for hospitalizations or evacuations, etc.?

Did I ever tell you all about the time that we were on the way to Pigeon Forge and blew a tire? On the way home, our wheel bearings blew, and we damaged an axle (check out our 15 RV Mistakes). We left our camper with someone in Cleveland, Tennessee, because it was not towable. To say that I was nervous leaving my camper with someone and not knowing how much the repairs would cost is an understatement. I was throwing around ideas in my head like, “Maybe they will take the title of the camper as payment if I can’t afford the repairs.” I was preparing myself for a goodbye camper.

Traveling in a car is no different. But what happens if your vehicle blows an engine or tires, or incurs major repairs? Are you prepared? It may not be comfortable to think about, but it matters when it happens to you.

I am not saying to stay home if you can’t afford a camper tow from California to Georgia. I am saying that sometimes shorter trips are better if you can’t cover the potential costs.

People Emergencies

What happens if you have to shell money out for an emergency? Do you have enough to pay emergency room co-pays? How about lodging for others if someone has to go to the hospital? My mother-in-law had a health issue when she was on a trip to Memphis. She ended up staying in a Memphis hospital for a month.

I am not trying to scare anyone; just be prepared. Or be prepared to come home if needed. I always laugh at people who say they are not financially prepared to have children. Guess what? Very few ever are. But that shouldn’t prevent you from having kids…. and emergencies shouldn’t stop you from taking trips. Just don’t ignore the possibilities.

The Power of Trip Advisor

Trip Advisor is a powerful, free app that I rely on heavily when planning our trips. It is my number-one go-to for finding local dining and festivities in the area. Unfortunately, I have often gone against reviews, and I have regretted it each time. We had a lodging nightmare in Panama City Beach, Florida, where I learned my lesson. We stayed in a “too good to be true” condo. Trip Advisor made no qualms that it was not where I wanted to take my family. I ended up spending $299 per night on another condo and cutting the trip short because the beach was packed. If I had only listened to Trip Advisor. If you stay in hotels on your trip, download the app and check them out!

5. What to Pack on Your Trip

Packing Apparel

I have screwed up packing so many times that you wouldn’t believe me. Like, pack your family’s clothes and leave yours at home, type packing mistakes. I now use a simple packing app. Over the years, if I did not think of something and I realized it on my trip, it automatically goes on my packing app to never forget it again. My very favorite app is Packing Pro. It is simple and easy to add and delete items fast.

Be sure to research the weather in the area you are traveling. We had to purchase sweatshirts in Maine on the 4th of July. Who would have known when it was 100 degrees at home? I would if I had researched. You don’t want to waste $80 on sweatshirts on long trips. That is almost a day of festivities.

Don’t forget your shoes. Remember the amusement parks that I was speaking of? Many will not let you ride particular rides without sneakers. I also had an issue while hiking in Albuquerque because I could not imagine when I would need sneakers on the trip. I was hiking up rocks in flip-flops, scared that I would get bit by a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake the entire hike.

Check out our camping and road trip packing list with over 150 essentials to pack for your vacations.

Trip Journals

My last suggestion on how to plan a trip is to pack a journal. In the summer of 2016, we were on one of our cross-country trips, and my grandma was at home with pancreatic cancer. However, she wanted us to enjoy the trip, so I wrote to her each night. Before she passed away, my grandma told me how much she looked forward to our travel adventures.

When reading our accounts, it was as if she was traveling with us. Little did I know that those notes to her each night would be some of the best for vivid accounts of our journey. It was a fantastic way to preserve our vacation and the memory of my grandma during that time. My very favorite journals are the Write it Down series.

We have a few packing essentials that we love. Click HERE to check them out.

Plan So That You May Enjoy the Journey Ahead

I cannot begin to tell you how amazing our family travels have been. With proper planning and lessons learned from past mistakes, we have made memories that will last a lifetime. Be sure to trip plan appropriately. Don’t skimp on planning time. Be diligent and prepared. Have a blast! We will see you on the road!

Want to learn more about travel apps? Click HERE. Also, we wrote about our account of traveling from Atlanta to New England.

More Interested in trip planning advice? Check out Plan an RV Trip and Learning to Vacation by Mistake!