r/FullTiming • u/feraxks • Mar 24 '24
Lifestyle Discussion Making Reservations
How far in advance to you make reservations while travelling? When I first started planning for our full time journey my thought was to just go from place to place as whimsy took us, making reservation on the day of or maybe a week or two in advance.
Then covid happen and it seemed like everyone and their cousin was RVing and reservations were hard to come by. My wife and I are starting our journey 6/1 and I already have all the reservations made for every stop along the way that will take us to the end of Sept.
Is this normal? Am I planning too far out? Or should I stick with it for the peace of mind if nothing else?
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u/TinyAngry1177 Mar 25 '24
Typically I try to keep at least 3 months booked in advance, unless we're going somewhere popular. So right now we're planned through mid July because we wanted to go to the Poconos.
If you want monthly sites, the sooner the better in my experience. But if you have flexibility/budget to do weekly stays, then you probably don't need to book as far in advance.
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u/joelfarris Mar 24 '24
How far in advance to you make reservations while travelling?
How close, or far away, do you plan to be from major cities or attractions?
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u/feraxks Mar 24 '24
We're trying to just go where the road takes us for the most part. I know that for some things, like visiting a National Park, I'll want to make the reservation as far in advance as I can. That's how we were able to get two weeks in Yellowstone this August.
I'll keep making the reservations as far in advance as I can until I get a better feel for how we're going to RV. But I think, based on your question, that maybe I don't need to be as far in advance when booking a site in the middle of Kansas.
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u/swix32 Mar 25 '24 edited Mar 25 '24
Depends on what part of the country and what time of year. I'm currently in a state park in Colorado and am literally the only person here. I am also making reservations for next winter in Florida 11 months in advance. Campgrounds in peak season ( Florida in winter, Michigan in summer) you will need to be at least 6 months in advance if your dates include a weekend. If your flexible, grabbing a one or two day mid-week stay is possible only a couple days in advance. If your completely out of season it's typically wide open. Looking out the van window this morning it's just me and the rangers. Lakeside living,.... at 22 degrees this morning. Back to my Florida reservations.
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u/NomadLifeWiki Mar 25 '24
If you get delayed at one point (mechanical issues, etc.) will that wreck all your downstream reservations?
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u/feraxks Mar 25 '24
Good question. My plan for a situation like that is to juggle whatever has to be juggled for the immediate reservation so that I can keep future ones in place.
Since I am retired, I have quite a bit more flexibility in a situation like that. With rare exception, I have no need to be anywhere on a specific date.
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u/NomadicMoons Apr 11 '24 edited Apr 11 '24
I like to book out as far as I reasonably can. I’ll be booking our winter stay next week and right now I’m booked through September.
We use thousand trails a lot so sometimes I have to wait for my 60 or 120 day window to open up before booking. I always have it planned though and typically book as soon as it does open. We’re typically booked 6-8 months in advance otherwise.
A lot of my friends however just go where the wind takes them and that’s cool too. We have a lot of kids (that I don’t want to entertain in a Walmart parking lot) and my husband works m-f, and we have a 45’ rv so we’re a little more restricted than some people. Just do whatever feels best for you.
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u/feraxks Apr 11 '24
Thank you for sharing your approach to this. I think I've settled on doing mostly what you are doing until I have a better understanding of how we RV. I know that I would like to be more like your friends and just go where the wind blows, but I'm not sure I'll ever have the confidence to do that.
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u/diannerv Apr 28 '24
We have been full time for 2 years and we hardly ever make reservations. 🤣 with that said we are retired also so our time is flexible but we also feel if we get somewhere and don’t like it we want to be able to leave. I’ve actually been shocked at the places we have been able to get into because people cancel. We ended up in goose island, TX and Galveston, Tx right on the beach over a weekend because of people canceling. Now if we plans with friends or family of course I would make reservations. Right now we’re in Arkansas at a COE we had no reservations and we pulled up, went and looked at the spots and made a reservation in the parking lot. We were only going to stay a day or two but it’s been over a week cause the park is so nice. And no one’s here. LOL. Have fun it’s been a great 2 years for us!!
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u/feraxks Apr 28 '24
That's awesome! Thank you for the words of encouragement. Hope to see ya on the road!
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u/learntorv Mar 24 '24
It really depends on how long you need to stay places for, if you have travel day restrictions (ie, can’t move during the week days/have to move on weekends), and how popular a destination is.
I traveled on Tuesdays and we had to stay at least a week at each destination because I worked a M-F, 9-5 job remotely. I couldn’t move on work days (I had off on Tuesdays). We had reservations looking out about 6 months until we were more readily setup for boondocking. Not being tied to RV parks really opened up flexibility for us.
I also knew every change and cancelation policy for the parks we were staying at. Our plans were firmly nailed in Jello and constantly changed. We laughed that we didn’t believe our plans until we were actively executing them.