When planning your trip, you'll find it can get overwhelming depending on different
components like, how many people, what activties will you be doing, drive time, food,
etc. However, once you get started with the basics, the rest easily follows.
The Basics:
Who
How many people will be going?
How many cars will you have (campsites have limits/charge extra for more than one
vehcle per site)?
What
What activties do you want to do (Hiking, swimming, fishing, biking, hunting, skiing,
etc.)
What do you want to do for food?
You can have a meal plan laid out for every day, example:
Meals | Days
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Breakfast
Muffins and fruit
French Toast
bagels & cream cheese
Lunch
On the road
Turkey wraps and hummus
Salami & Crackers
Dinner
Chicken, Veggies & rice
Spaghetti and meatballs
On the road
What type of equipment (or clothing) will you need? Examples:
Tire Chains for snow
Bring your own water
Fire wood vs. Burn ban
GPS - are you going of the grid
Climbing equipment
Wetsuits
Stoves
4x4 capabilities required?
REI has a great, comprehensive camping pack list that is also printable so you can
check off items as you go. Click here for the link.
When
Do you want to plan a quick get-a-way or do you want to go to a bucket-list location?
Last minute trips will require a little more research and luck as most places require
reservations and some spots can be pretty popular.
If you want to go cooler whether or snow camping, you're probably looking for dates
between October - April where as warm whether for swimming and boating you'd be searching
for dates between Late March - Mid October (best times of the year depend on your
location & desired activties)
Where
While national parks are beautiful and iconic places, they can also be pretty crowded.
Again, for those more popular destinations you'll have to plan far in advanced most
likely or plan for early mornings/late nights to grab first-come-first-serve spots
A great tool to help get you started is RoadTrippers ! You can type in your start point, destination, and end point and find loads of things
to do and see in between!