Headed to Factory from Prescott Valley, AZ.

[valandsheri]

Looking for trip recommendations- RV Parks, Good routes, etc. Thank you!

[Second Chance]

Stay as far south as you can (I-10/I-20) as far as you can before turning north. Even I-40 can get iffy this time of year. As for parks, I just finished planning a 3,360 mile trip with 30 stops using RV Trip Wizard - I'm loving it! You can set all kinds of parameters (your rig, driving distances, etc.) and then find parks along the route. The app provides you with information to contact each park and book and then a place to record your reservation information and track expenses. The only issue I have right now is that several of the parks in the midwest are closed for the winter and I can't contact them until 1 March to make reservations.

Rob

[Gpo1958]

Stay as far south as you can (I-10/I-20) as far as you can before turning north. Even I-40 can get iffy this time of year. As for parks, I just finished planning a 3,360 mile trip with 30 stops using RV Trip Wizard - I'm loving it! You can set all kinds of parameters (your rig, driving distances, etc.) and then find parks along the route. The app provides you with information to contact each park and book and then a place to record your reservation information and track expenses. The only issue I have right now is that several of the parks in the midwest are closed for the winter and I can't contact them until 1 March to make reservations.

Rob

Ditto what Rob says in regard to RV Trip Wizard. I did a 4000 mile trip planned with that software last summer and it made it very easy. I will say that RV Trip Wizard tends to overvalue "RV Parking Lots" and undervalue more wooded/rustic sites. Many of the reviewers significantly weight ammenities over quite and seclusion. I guess that's why there's chocolate and vanilla.

Depending on where you plan to turn to the north, there are two parks that I'd recommend in Illinois. Nothing spectuaclar but great places for an overnight "enroute" type stay. Easy-on/easy-off and easy to manuever around both campgrounds with a new rig. The first is Shawnee Forest Campground in Vienna, IL (southern tip of the state). The second is Paul Wolff Camprgound in Elgin, IL. The factory is about 2-1/2 hours due east of the second campground.

[valandsheri]

Thank you!

[Steven@147]

Traveling up to Northern Indiana this time of year, to use Rob's words, iffy. This time of year you do not want to get too far off the beaten path. We just came down to Texas from Richmond Indiana East of Indy, took us 3 driving days from Richmond IN to Livingston TX (just north of Houston). Got out of IN before bad weather hit. From AZ you have a much longer trip ahead of you. If you can, try to look at long range weather forecast, you don't want to drive in snow/ice or really cold weather. The farther North you get the more problems with finding RV parks open. South Bend/Elkhart / Middlebury can get lots of lake effect snow.

FYI our route- From TX we use I30 to Little Rock then catch I40 East with stop over in Hazon AK (RV Park open year round) then to Memphis and North on I55 to I57 North up through southern IL and stop over in Marion IL park open year round, then North to I70 and East to Indianapolis, then North on US Highway 31 to Kokomo IN to visit family. From there you could use US 31 (4 lane divided) to South Bend then east toward Elkhart and Middlebury. In Jan / Feb this whole route can be very cold and snowy. You will not find many if any ,RV parks open in Central /Northern Indiana this time of year. all of them close down Oct/ Nov. We stayed up to Dec 27 at an RV park in Richmond that was actually closed for the winter, but they let us stay. We only had power and sewer, for water we made other arraignments.

Good luck with your trip

[valandsheri]

Hi Steve,
I should have been more specific - we are going in June. Yay!!! Sounds tricky going in the winter. But, thank you for your travel route. Very much appreciated!!!

[Steven@147]

Hi Steve,
I should have been more specific - we are going in June. Yay!!! Sounds tricky going in the winter. But, thank you for your travel route. Very much appreciated!!!

Oh, good! June will be a great time to travel and see the country!

As a suggestion, as Rob said he uses RV Trip Wizard, we also use it, and have for the last few years traveling especially up to Indiana to visit family. I highly recommend it if you travel a lot. Trip Wizard utilizes the rig specifics you put into it, to route you around low over passes or even avoids toll roads if you choose. It also takes into account your tow vehicle specifics like miles per gallon, your fuel tank size and reserve tank size and such, then shows you a low fuel warning icon along your route. If you don't like the route it chooses you can change it, for example for some big cities it may route you though the center of the city, you can change it and choose a bypass or loop around the city. We have found that the route Trip Wizard chooses is the same 90-95% of the time our RV Garmin 660 chooses.
It will show you fuel stations, campgrounds, shopping and dining locations it knows about along your route though a collection of data bases it uses, or if you know of one it doesn't know about, you can enter the name and address and it will place it on your route. From fuel station and campground icons you can go directly to those web sites. Once you have your route set you can print out the turn by turn directions for the navigator of your team. It will keep tract of your travel expenses if you want to.

[Scott'n'Wendy]

I'll have to take a look at this RV Trip Wizard. I've so fr, always planned out routes etc manually.
One question that somewhat pertains to the op's question,

@Second Chance
I have seen a few people post about I10 being, let's say, less than flat. Louisiana in particular. Is it not too bad to drag a trailer along?

[Steven@147]

I'll have to take a look at this RV Trip Wizard. I've so fr, always planned out routes etc manually.
One question that somewhat pertains to the op's question,

@Second Chance
I have seen a few people post about I10 being, let's say, less than flat. Louisiana in particular. Is it not too bad to drag a trailer along?

You tagged Second Chance asking about I10 going east from TX but I can give you our impression of I10. Last year (June) we went from Texas to Disney Florida using I10 -I12 - I10 - I75. It wasn't that bad, no worse than some other interstates we have been on. There was some construction going on in Louisiana but not the horror story we thought we would run into. It was OK.

[Second Chance]

I'll have to take a look at this RV Trip Wizard. I've so fr, always planned out routes etc manually.
One question that somewhat pertains to the op's question,

@Second Chance
I have seen a few people post about I10 being, let's say, less than flat. Louisiana in particular. Is it not too bad to drag a trailer along?

Louisiana is not known for great roads. On I-10, it's mostly the long bridges across the bayous (like in the Lake Charles area, etc.). Those tend to rise up at every expansion joint. The absolute worst, though, is I-20 through Shreveport. I've driven better roads in Somalia. I hope they've been working on that stretch in the couple of years since I've driven it.

Rob