Monday, June 10, 2019

Hitting the Open Road

Weaver Vacation Planning is a process.

Where are we going this year?  What do we want to do?  What do we want to see?

We have friends and family who vacation in the same spot year after year.  And while there are definitely some places we've been that I would love to visit again and again, we are all about seeing new places and having new adventures.

I mentioned in a previous post that we have a goal to visit all 50 states.  Because of work travel Andrew has always been ahead of me in this little adventure.  Last year and this year our trips have been planned to help me catch up to him.

Now the only difference in our lists is Hawaii.

Guess where I want to vacation next?

(HUGE DUMB GIDDY GRIN ON MY FACE!  I CANNOT WAIT FOR HAWAII!)


Sorry.

Back to this trip.

Every year as we start discussing vacation ideas it seems to take us several weeks to make a decision.  It's seriously this huge big process for us.  Or at least it is for me.  There's nothing like planning a vacation to illuminate our different personalities.  I get on board with the first idea we have.  My decision is made.  But for Andrew it's just an idea.  He's going to need to discuss and research several more options before making a decision.  Our different personalities can drive each other crazy with this.

Sorry.  There I go getting side tracked again.  Back to the topic at hand.

There are always a few things that creep into the discussion every year.

This year we started the discussion and made a decision in two days.

TWO DAYS!

Pretty sure that's a record for us.

Would we go to Vegas with friends and family or we would we take a big road trip just the two of us?

Road Trip won.

Next decision...Where we road tripping?  Should we go west or east?

Easy decision.  Let's hit the northeast and knock some states of my list.

BOOM.

Decision made.

Andrew booked our RV and started making reservations at camp grounds.

The 2019 Vacation Spread Sheet was born!!


I tease Andrew about these spreadsheets all the time, but in all fairness he is an amazing travel agent.  I always have people tell me they want me to plan their vacation.  Maybe I should start hiring Andrew out for vacation planning.  It's all him y'all.  I throw in an idea or two from my Pinterest Research (hey it's a reliable source), but for the most part I sit back and let him do his thing.  

I never knew renting an RV for a 10 day trip could be so affordable.  I also never really thought about it before, but I was shocked by the affordability.  

Huge shout out to our friends Andrew & Heather for telling us how to do an RV rental.

Andrew (my Andrew, not our friend) has laughed at me a few times because I tell everyone I meet about how we rented an RV for only $19 a night.

Yes.  You read that correctly.

$19 per night!

We went rented our RV from Cruise America.  They have what is basically a relocation deal.  We picked up a brand new RV in Hastings, Minnesota and "delivered it" to Boston, MA.  It helps them get their RVs in place before peak season.  They include a certain number of miles (I'm sure Andrew knows all the exact numbers) but then charge you for going over that.  We drove from Minnesota to Maine with lots of sight seeing along the way and our overage charge for miles was only $70.  Y'all they give you plenty of miles.  




They offer some packages that will provide supplies such as bedding and kitchen utensils.  We felt their packages were a bit pricey so we planned to stop at Wal-Mart after picking up the RV and buying supplies.  We were able to buy what we needed cheaper than renting it with the  RV.  We felt a little bad throwing this stuff away at the end of the trip, but it was such a better deal than renting it from them.  I guess if we start doing trips like this on a regular basis, we could buy that stuff (AGAIN) and pack it and just have an extra checked bag.  We did pack a few of those supplies to help out.

There was obviously some expense in campgrounds.  This is one of those things you can spend as little or as much as you want.  You can go boondocking (I just learned what that is!) or stay at some nice campgrounds.  We chose the latter so that we would have full hookups for most of the trip. Andrew was able to make us reservations at campgrounds the first three nights and the last 4 nights.  Those two nights in the middle we were traveling through New York where you cannot make single night reservations.  Stinkin' New York! We weren't planning on staying more than one night so we just had to take a chance on finding a spot.  This actually worked out well for us because even though we had an idea of where we wanted to stay, we ended up driving longer than planned a couple of days and getting ahead of schedule.  This afforded us more time at the end of the trip to see everything we wanted to see.  We were originally afraid we'd be short on time towards the end.  Because it was in the middle of the week and early on in the summer we didn't have any trouble finding spots for those two nights.  I would just hop on Google and look at campgrounds along our route while Andrew drove.  We've learned that if we can find a state park, it's probably going to be a decent place to stay.  I can't speak for Andrew, but for me one of those spontaneous spots we found was my favorite spot of the trip.  We camped on the banks of Lake Ontario in Fair Haven, NY. 

When we started this trip I was a little against RV camping.  Believe it or not I thought I preferred a tent.  That's how I grew  up camping and in my mind it wasn't camping if a tent wasn't involved.  And I still love me some tent camping.  That is its own adventure, but I also really liked RV camping.  At one point Andrew said it was like we had a hotel room on wheels.  I'm not sure I'd go that far.  Hotel beds are more comfortable.  But it was nice to be able to get up and have a snack or go to the bathroom anytime I wanted while on the road. 

Tent camping is great for a weekend.
RV Camping is the only way to do a road trip like this one.
Hotels are great if you're staying in one spot for an extended period of time.

I can say one is the best over the others.  I love them all in their own right. It depends on what kind of adventure you're looking for. 

I can say f you have been considering doing a RV trip like this the Weavers definitely recommend it.  Two thumps up from us!

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