Thrifty Travel in Your RV

Road Ventures: Your RV can make for thrifty travel, too Special to The Oregonian 06/16/2012 6:30 AM Traveling and living in an RV can be an expensive proposition, so my wife and I are always looking for ways to cuts costs. Our premise is that the less we spend, the more time we can be on the road. That means we look for low-cost RV sites, cheap fuel and eat as many of our meals as practical out of the motor home's pantry. June and I began planning our latest winter trip about last July. Once we figured out where we wanted to go, we started looking at the options on how to get there. Using the Internet and some of the trip planners available on it, we plotted a variety of routes, so we would have multiple choices in case we hit bad weather or decided to skip a stop or two to speed the journey. We are modest in our planning, and figure that about 300 miles on secondary roads (more if we stick to the interstate) is the absolute most we want to drive in a day. As the guy behind the wheel, I prefer shorter drives and more rest between road stints. Then we began an Internet research of RV parks and campgrounds in the areas where we figured we might overnight or spend an extra day. We don't lock ourselves in with reservations, so if we decide to spend some extra time in one area, we don't have to be concerned about forfeiting a deposit at the next stop. Instead, June calls the next RV park from the road to be sure there is room for us at the end of the day.