Become a travel agent in 1 week or less

“… a man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance…”

— Hunter S. Thompson

Holy %@$#. The planning is ridiculous. If you’ve never been an RV full-timer, you have no idea the organizational skills that are required just to find a place to stay. Think travel agent with a 60 day or less window, resorts that have already been booked for over a year, bad weather has closed certain regions, and an impatient, homeless client who is desperate for a place to lay their head or just plug in and have some water. Oh, and tie one arm behind their back and blindfold them in a chair that won’t stay in position. That’s close.

If you weren’t born with a scheduling gene, it’s a rough road…literally. As a newbie, I had no clue what went into making sure we had a place to stay every day of

our on-the-road lives. Coming from a Corporate marketing background, I had learned how to be extremely organized and have things prioritized by deadline. That definitely helped. It just wasn’t enough. Our first few reservations went fairly well. Until an atmospheric river and an impromptu snow and ice storm derailed our route. Re-routing is pretty common when moving in the winter. What isn’t as common are RV parks that won’t refund your money regardless of the circumstance. That happened once before I started delving deeper into the fine print most of us scroll right past before we hit the submit button. Lesson learned.

What was also a tough lesson was learning that certain areas are booked at least a year in advance. That’s impossible to get around and as a rookie, I quickly got up to speed on the most important thing that most seasoned full-timers already know. Make reservations as far in advance as you can. If the park opens on May 1st, be ready to click reserve when the clock strikes 8am. It’s kind of like trying to get tickets to Taylor Swift on Ticketmaster. Sold out if you hesitate to take a sip of coffee. You don’t try to winter in the Keys without reservations a year or more out. Same with lower Arizona and southern California.

Here is how a typical scheduling session goes for me. We sit down and plan where we want to go.

Then we plan a route that is RV safe. Yes, some roads are not safe to take when towing…low bridges, switchbacks, scary narrow passes, tunnels that won’t allow propane, etc. More on that in a later post.

Next, we find parks along the route close to the attractions we want to visit. We subscribe to the 3/3 rule of RVing. We travel no more than 300 miles and stay at least 3 days when we stop. This works for the most part, but if I’ve learned anything, it’s that you have to be able to adapt. I had our first trip planned out and all reservations in place. Then came the crazy snow and ice storm and instead of visiting the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky, we had to route further south into lower Missouri. That’s how I ended up celebrating my birthday in a closed-for-the-season Branson. You can find that horror story in the blog HERE. We also had to find another place to stay in Flagstaff as the Air Force base closed its RV park due to unexpected frozen and burst pipes. Crap happens and you have to bob and weave to make it all work.

Once we find places to stay, we compare rates and discounts. Once we narrow down the parks in our budget, we hit the reviews. The best looking place online may look like a bayou swamp, the Friday the 13th camp, or the Bates Motel in reality. Thank god that RVers are huge reviewers. We love to review parks, attractions, and every pothole we see. We’re helpful that way.

Now on to the never ending phone calls if you can’t reserve online. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If there are no vacancies, we start all over again. This may even require us falling all the way back to the beginning routing step.

Keep in mind that we need to reserve about 350 plus days of the year. We could potentially stop over and boondock (unplugged parking) in a Walmart or Love’s Truck Stop parking lot overnight. Many Rvers love to boondock and do it most of the time. We would love that freedom, however with some health problems and very small holding tanks, we choose not to do it as often as others. That makes scheduling even more important for us.

So to wrap up, we schedule every night of the year for the most part. Basically, imagine having to find hotels and reserve them non-stop in advance for a year or more. It’s the part of being full-time that I don’t like. Maybe once we get off the road, I will have enough experience to become a travel agent. Or not.