Planning Pearls for Your Small Travel Trailer Adventures
Having a small travel trailer means you are now free to travel the world (or maybe at least your continent)! Interesting side note — although North and South America are treated as separate continents in the seven-continent model, they may also be viewed as a single continent known as America. So, for all of us living in America, we have tremendous travel options for exploring with our small travel trailers…if you dare!
The first thing to do once you get your small travel trailer is to figure out what type of travel you want to do. If you’re like me, you’re probably interested in exploring State and National Parks. Starting in your home state is a good strategy because you won’t be too far from home if something happens and you need to regroup. On our first preliminary “shake down” overnight trip to Palm Desert, just a couple hours drive away from our home in San Diego, we discovered we couldn’t get our hot water heater to work! Fortunately, we were close to home and only had booked one night (which we spent without hot water). I called Scamp when we returned home and we discovered a hidden on/off switch at the hot water heater on our Scamp 13’ which the factory was supposed to turn on! In any case, I highly recommend taking your first few trips close to home so you are prepared in case something happens.
To discover which State and National Parks are in your home state, visit your State Parks website and the National Parks website. The National Parks website has a search function for National Parks by state. Google maps is a good tool once you find some parks you are interested in to get an idea of where the parks are and the drive time to each park. It’s also a good idea to check monthly weather for the location to make sure it won’t be too hot or too cold the month you plan on going. This is especially important for popular parks for which it is generally a good idea to reserve months in advance (5 – 6 months out for National Parks). For strategies on how to secure a popular campground, see my article “Winning Yosemite’s Campground Reservations Online Lottery”. On your first visit to a National Park, make sure to purchase the annual “America The Beautiful” National Park Pass. One of the best values in all of camping, this pass costs only $80 and lets you and your family (not to exceed 4 adults) into the National Parks without paying the entrance fees (typically $35 per car). You can also share the pass with family and friends (each pass can be signed by two main pass owners)!!!
Regional parks can also be great places to camp and explore. These are a bit harder to find because they are generally run by cities and counties with a variety of different types of websites and reservations systems, but online searches of different cities can uncover some of these gems. Additionally, apps like iOverlander, RV Parky, and ParkAdvisor may provide good leads on these campgrounds. Be prepared to set up online accounts for these regional parks and expect different types of online experiences. For example, one such park in California is Calico Ghost Town (a genuine old Western ghost town!). I was able to make reservations for it on the San Bernardino County Regional Parks website. This place was home to one of the largest silver strikes in California which happened in 1881. Another interesting regional park in California is Cachuma Lake which can be reserved through the Santa Barbara County Parks website. Like Calico Ghost Town, this campground requires one to sign up on the specific county website. So, you’ll find that if you do decide to visit lots of regional park campgrounds (which you should plan on!), then you will end up having numerous park website accounts (all free). So, it’s a good idea to have a great password manager that can store all these website URLs with your usernames and passwords.
We try to limit driving to no more than 4 hours to reach each campsite so that our trips are enjoyable. Sometimes we are forced to drive a bit longer, but generally never more than 5 hours (unless there is an unusual circumstance). One such circumstance was our trip last summer to Mammoth Lakes from our home in San Diego. We were forced to drive nonstop over 7 hours because stopping halfway in the desert would have meant staying overnight in our trailer (which does not have AC) in unbearably hot conditions. This is a long trip, but for a stay of a week or longer it was bearable. But, overall, we choose to follow our 4 hour rule. Another thing we like to keep in mind when planning our trips is that, for now, we currently need to Dump (main limitation is the Grey water tank) every third day. With this requirement, we try to schedule trips so that we are staying at a location with hookups or a general Dump station every three days. If that’s not possible, then we Dump during our ride to the next campsite at a service station which has a Dump station (these can be found within the apps like RV Parky or by an online search). Note: I’m currently working on a portable Grey water auxiliary storage system solution which should double our time between Dumps. Stay tuned for a future article on this system.
With the 4 hour drive time rule in mind, it’s good to have some expanded options for mid trip stay over locations between your starting point and destination. These options may include family driveways, Harvest Hosts and Boondockers Welcome locations, free BLM public land areas, and private RV campgrounds. Our favorite midway stays when travelling are either family driveways or Boondockers Welcome locations. Our first choice is staying with family because it gives us a chance to reconnect and visit without being a burden since we are self-sufficient in our Scamp 13’. We have stayed in driveways at my cousin’s in Santa Barbara and my sister’s in Oakland many times while in transit from our home in San Diego to destinations in Northern California and Oregon. We have also had great success in overnights at Boondockers Welcome locations. Please see my article “Free Stayovers with Boondockers Welcome and Harvest Hosts”. These services are available via inexpensive annual subscriptions and allow for some unique experiences like overnights at farms and wineries.
In addition to using your small travel trailer for visiting State and National Parks, another idea is to explore other settings or locations in which you have a strong interest. Of course, these can be fantastic outdoor wilderness locations, such as Lake Tahoe or the Oregon Coast (which we have enjoyed greatly). But, such trips can also include other locations which interest you such as for rock hounding, museums, amusement parks, star gazing, city touring, etc. One trip that I would like to do in the future is to stay at Gilbert Ray Campground in Tucson, AZ and visit the Pima Air & Space Museum since I love aviation. And, because I love star gazing, trips to dark skies parks (like Anza Borrego Desert State Park) are always rewarding. Another fun trip we had was a stay at Hearst San Simeon State Park which provided a great rock hounding experience (searching for moonstones on the beach in Cambria) as well as observing the elephant seals!
There are so many different ways and purposes for using your small travel trailer. And, since everyone is different, there will no doubt be a lot of different viewpoints on the best types of trips. But, however you choose to travel, there is one thing for certain –your small travel trailer will offer you a golden ticket to see the world (or at least your continent … if you dare)!
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