RV LiFE

Travel Tips

There’s a lot that goes into traveling full time. Fuel is super expensive and gas stations are tough to get into with a big rig. You can’t fit into many rest stops and U-turns are practically impossible. Not all RV campgrounds can accommodate RVs and tow vehicles, especially national and state parks. And, sometimes it’s hard to find a place to camp when you are in remote areas. However, we’ve got you covered with the tools we use and why they can be useful to you:

Fuel

Loves and Pilot Flying J’s are our go to gas stations when traveling with our trailer. Both are plentiful and near most decent sized towns and both have truck (and even sometimes RV) lanes that make it easier to fill up while on the road. Note that sometimes pumps are limited to commercial trucking, though going into the store and paying by pump number can work. Many Flying J’s in particular have RV gas lanes as well as propane and dump stations. Love’s can also offer propane and dump stations. It may also be worth staying at one of their travel stops for an overnight if you have trouble finding a place to stay. Both gas stations have rewards programs that are worth signing up for to save some money on each fill up. Another good app to use to save on gas is Upside. Using this app gives you a kickback when purchasing from preferred gas stations. We mainly use it when detached from our RV as many of the gas stations are more difficult to get to and not as spacious for our rig.

Campgrounds

RV Parky is our to to when starting to map out our next stop. It’s not as refined as the other campground apps but it offers great information even using the free version. You can search for nearby gas stations, campgrounds, rest stops, and more. The reviews have helped us out so many times in our planning. Many times the reviews mention users’ rig sizes and accessibility of gas stations, campgrounds, and rest stops. After getting a good idea of an area using RV Parky we use a few other apps to see if we can find more options or to reinforce what we’ve found already. Campendium, RV Life, and The Dyrt are great for this. We signed up for Harvest Host which typically allows overnight stays at restaurants, museums, farms, etc. however they do not have hookups so you will be boondocking at them. It isn’t a bad option for a quick overnight though, especially if you have a generator. Another great and obvious tool we use is Google Maps. You can find some lesser known parks and gas stations using this tool. Be careful using Google Maps for directions though. It doesn’t take into account your size and it is easy to get stuck in some scary situations using it. We have a Garmin RV GPS that we use and have trucker app TruckMap to supplement it.