Looking for recommendations on finding camp grounds

KrazyK

New Member
Joined
Nov 5, 2024
Messages
1
Location
Memphis, Tennessee
New to RVing and wife and i planning a trip from Memphis Tn. to Riverside Ca. along I-40. want to plan the trip and wondering where or who is the best place to find campgrounds along I-40 for nightly stops, thinking to go slow about 5 to 6 days to get to Cali.
 
RV Life, that runs this site, also has Rv Trip Wizard, that does route mapping and will show virtually any campground in the country. Each one plotted on their map has pop-up links to their associated site from Campground Reviews, as well as links to the CG's own site. Trip wizard also plots driving ranges on the route map, so you can decide how far to push before you want to stop each day, and look for CG's in that area. It is a little light on "other things to do" categories for a given area, but otherwise is a fantastic resource for trip planning. RV LIFE Trip Wizard - RV Trip Planner & RV Safe Routes
I find it well worth the yearly subscription to their combined "RV Life Pro" membership for just Trip Wizard, but it also gives me direct access to Campground Reviews in more depth, and a cool red flag on my user name here!
 
Another vote for RV Life and their RV Trip Wizard as well as their campground review site (campgrounds.rvlife.com) which interlinks with RV Trip Wizard.

Plan your trips with RVTW then use a GPS for the daily drives.
 
And...although I use a separate GPS, they have an RV Trip Wizard GPS app for daily driving, if desired.
 
New to RVing and wife and i planning a trip from Memphis Tn. to Riverside Ca. along I-40. want to plan the trip and wondering where or who is the best place to find campgrounds along I-40 for nightly stops, thinking to go slow about 5 to 6 days to get to Cali.
We use our Good Sam app, RV Trip Wizard, and KOA website. We also just look at our route and research ones that are located where we'd like them.
 
I use RV Trip wizard for its routing assistance and help in planning fuel stops.

I have found there are a LOT of campgrounds that are not shown in their app, in fact most apps have a lot of campgrounds that don’t show so I will check on Google maps by searching for “Campground near” and I use Garmin basecamp and downloaded from POI factory a list that contains a lot of campgrounds and will use them as needed if RV Trip Wizard does not show a campground near where I want to stay.
 
I have found some good for my needs and wants stops by taking the distance of my destination. Like just a week ago, going from the top of MN to the mid Gulf coast of Texas, about 1,560 miles. I do secondary roads, best i can, clicking avoid highways, no toll roads on the gps and phone mapping.
Dividing the trip into 4 days and 3 nights stops, got me hear. So around 350-400+, miles a day one fuel stop at mid point and just before camping for the night.
Taking google maps on the computer, i find about 200 miles in the trip and look for fuel best/easy to get in and out, most places now have pics of it. About 200 miles gives me a safety net for fuel, if its a heavy headwind. Then another about 200 miles to a chosen campground, with a fuel stop just before and or as close as i can to said campground, to leave in the morning full of fuel ready to go.
Going to an area on the map and putting in search for campgrounds/camping as well as just zooming in closer to see what pops up on the map for camping.

I have found some really simple, safe, nice small town campgrounds, some self checking and pay, not very often, but some free up to X amount of days but usually there is a donation box i donate to. I just look for plugging in, not hooking anything else up, i use my camper for everything, except if a good place to eat out is near, ill walk there.

I have tried the truck stop and walmart thing, and its not my thing.

My destinations are usually monthly or seasonal, so i tend to go back to the same summer place but go to an area on the map for the winter area, and find campgrounds look at the pics, look for reviews and hope for the best. If not, just move to another place after finding one.
 
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We use RVParky, RV Trip Wizard and Google. Also, Harvest Host has some really cool hosts, quite a few with AC power and maybe water.
 
On this site there is a category of campgrounds, destinations and trip planning . There are good tips there
 
Another user of RV Trip Wizard. We have been on the road for 18 months and have used it to find campgrounds with ratings of 4 or 5 stars and to help plan the route we take. Has worked well for us.
 
I use Compendium the most. I also use The Dyrt to start my cross country trips because it will plan a route and give you suggested places to stay based on your criteria of either driving time or miles and price. It will usually only give suggestions of 4+ rated campgrounds. I then review the stops and if there are any I don't like, I'll use Harvest Hosts/Boondockers Welcome and Compendium to look for other places to stay. I use Compendium and iOverlander when looking for Boondocking places or if we need to dump or get water.
 
Yep, RV Life Pro. We mostly stay at state and national parks and forests and find that all those CG's are in the trip wizard.
 
i don't like to stay in campgrounds when traveling, except in extreme weather conditions, super hot or cold. Just doesn't make sense to me to spend money for just parking for a couple of hours.

We use RV parky and google maps for finding overnight parking spots. I don't like campground being able to buy higher placement in search results. I don't like the fact that the reviews I contributed for years and years were sold for a profit on multiple "previously free" campground review sites.
 
We use RV parky and google maps for finding overnight parking spots. I don't like campground being able to buy higher placement in search results. I don't like the fact that the reviews I contributed for years and years were sold for a profit on multiple "previously free" campground review sites.

Are you saying that happens here and on RV Parky and Google Maps? Or are you referring to other sites?
 
Campendium is one of them that really chaps my behind. I posted hundreds of reviews only for them to be sold for a profit by the site owner. this website was sold in the last year after many folks have contributed knowledge for years.

just sits wrong with me.
 
Campendium is one of them that really chaps my behind. I posted hundreds of reviews only for them to be sold for a profit by the site owner. this website was sold in the last year after many folks have contributed knowledge for years.

just sits wrong with me.

I understand; thanks for the information. I also agree that the freely given knowledge of participants shouldn't be sold. What other camping websites do you know of that operate commercially? Does this one?
 
I supported this forum in its previous form and purchased a 3 year sponsorship, it was sold last fall maybe? now it is part of the rv life family in cyber land. They also purchased one of the campground review sites I contributed too.....The name eludes me now.

Looks like roadtrippers bought campendium, now everything is behind a pay wall.
 
I understand; thanks for the information. I also agree that the freely given knowledge of participants shouldn't be sold. What other camping websites do you know of that operate commercially? Does this one?
This forum started as an independently owned forum , started by a GD owner. They sold the forum in either late 2018 or early 2019 ( if I recall correctly) to RV Life who owns several popular forums. I'm sure there is some profit involved it is a business after all.

We try our best to keep the same vibe as it always was here, having many great members has made it pretty easy.
 

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