Back roads, bi-ways (no hiways) kinda trip

[Koja]

So being a west coast guy I can give all sorts of trip advice of where to go what to see great single lane trips to take in your RV, however I'm looking for places east of the rockys. Any one use any specific trip planner software? lot of places I know I'm not going to get a 40footer into, but that doesn't mean I cant set up base camp in Podunk KY or small town USA and do road trips on the Bike.

[BobC]

It sounds like you have a book in the making. An RV GPS sounds indispensable.

[MrMarog]

I just returned from a trip from Florida to California and back. The trip westward was by secondary (most single lane) roads. Arkansas, Oklahoma, north Texas, Nebraska, Alabama, Georgia, and Missouri all have terrific non interstate roads.

Some of the states have speeds of 75mph on these roads! What I enjoyed most was going through many dozens of small towns without a single stop light.

[corjaguar]

I have had my share of small town and back roads.....I have had so many instances where suddenly you see a yellow sign "bridge height 8'.......now your in a pickle.....have to pull over, make sure you can make the u turn or you just have to do your best to turn around. Unhook the toad and the fun begins....this has happened many times....whether it be 8 feet of 11'8"....no matter gots to unhook and turn around.
How about you go down a country road and it turns into a gravel road.....you creep slowly forward only to find your on someones driveway.....again unhook and back up......

In Alaska, we were on a gravel road headed to Chicken and I missed the turn......had to drive almost 40 miles in order to find enough room to make a u turn.
This is not to mention the many times the GPS led me astray on those back roads......yes I can almost remember those situations, (a lot of them) and I am a wiser man for those decisions.


Don't get me wrong......you will see a lot of things on those back roads, but way back than it was an adventurer and it sure was.

[Teamfoxy]

This summer we spent 10 weeks on the road driving mostly non-interstate roads. Our GPS has a function that allows you to choose routes that "avoid interstates".

I used Allstays Pro to pick out campgrounds we wanted to stay at, for the most part not more than 200 miles apart. Then the GPS did the rest. We wound up on some very interesting and scenic roads for the most part and a few roads with 15% grades through the White Mountains and also in northern Georgia. I was happy that we have a 25 foot RV and not a longer one. I was also happy that we put on new calipers, pads, and rotors all around.
In many places we had the road to ourselves with only an occasional car. It is so much more pleasant than Interstates. Allstays also has an option to show bridge heights on all roads. That will keep you out much of the trouble that Corjaguar mentions.

[AJMike]

Originally Posted by corjaguar

This is not to mention the many times the GPS led me astray on those back roads......

I use my gps all the time, even when I am thoroughly familiar with the route as it gives me all kinds of valuable information, but I have been led into some really sticky situations by listening to it rather than just paying attention to the maps we carry in the RV.

I have been led into people's driveways, I was once led down a narrow road to what turned out to be a rickety wooden bridge that looked like it would not hold a car, let alone a Class A RV with a toad, I have been told to exit Interstates only to then be told the machine was "recalculating" and routing me back onto the same Interstate it just told me to get off of, and taken on very busy roads through cities when there were perfectly good high speed routes around the city.

I called Rand McNally (the maker of the gps) to ask why it makes some of these decisions and was told that there are gaps and bad data in the mapping database which I was told came from the US government. When the machine finds bad data it makes bad decisions. Garbage in, garbage out.

I really like the gps (I guess I am a gadget guy) but I have learned to ignore it a fair amount of the time.

[Teamfoxy]

It would be great to find up to date (at least relatively) program or app that does not rely on an internet connection and/or cell phone coverage to function. We loose coverage in the mountains and other back roads. Our ideal method of navigation would be to follow along with a map to know where the GPS is potentially sending us in the next half hour and make some corrections to our route when necessary. Also to know where it is re-routing us to.
Perhaps some GPS's will let you plan a route in Gmaps and import that route to the GPS to follow. Ours unfortunately does not. Fortunately it is usually possible to turn our small class C around. That is one reason why we ditched our TT.

[AJMike]

Originally Posted by Teamfoxy

It would be great to find up to date (at least relatively) program or app that does not rely on an internet connection and/or cell phone coverage to function. We loose coverage in the mountains and other back roads. Our ideal method of navigation would be to follow along with a map to know where the GPS is potentially sending us in the next half hour and make some corrections to our route when necessary. Also to know where it is re-routing us to.
Perhaps some GPS's will let you plan a route in Gmaps and import that route to the GPS to follow. Ours unfortunately does not. Fortunately it is usually possible to turn our small class C around. That is one reason why we ditched our TT.

None of our gps units have had to have internet connections and as long as I keep the maps reasonably up to date I do not worry about connections to satellites. While I usually have issues like those I mentioned in my previous post my basic assumption is that roads to not change all that often and even if my gps maps are one or two years old they are probably still more than accurate enough.

I just need to watch out for obvious wrong information.