Lots of constraints when planning our trip home

We had a large to-do list going into our New England trip, which is why we initially hoped to stay flexible with our timing. We wanted to mainly stay at our 2 home-bases – my parents' driveway in MA and our land in NH – so we wouldn't need to make reservations ahead of time. This would have allowed us to stay as long as we needed in each place, and because of this, we had no set trip duration. When we originally planned to go to New England earlier in the summer, we allotted ourselves just 3 weeks to get everything done, which we knew would be far too tight a squeeze. This time around, we expected to be in the area for at least a month, maybe even 2.

Plans changed quickly when we discovered continued electric issues, which forced us to book campgrounds with electric hookups. As our trip progressed, more issues piled up, and we somehow found ourselves in a strange position: voluntarily sacrificing our electric in favor of better internet. In a surprise twist, our last New England destination ended up being our MA home-base, just as it would have been had we been able to travel New England the way we wanted to originally.

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that we were ready to get a move on. For the first time since launching on the road, we had a home waiting for us, and we couldn't wait to settle back into stillness for a while. Not only did we desperately need a break, Buggy was clearly sharing the same sentiment. Non-functioning electric, the busted Starlink dish, and the leaky roof are only part of a long list of RV problems that have accumulated this year. We have repair appointments on the calendar shortly after we get back to SC. We hope that next time we hit the road, we'll all be in better shape so we can travel with renewed zest for this lifestyle.

But right now, the goal was to blitz back to Myrtle Beach, where we had an RV storage unit waiting. We had booked our Wompatuck State Park stay until Sunday July 26, with plans to leave either the 25th or 26th, depending on how productive we were with our final to-do list items. After we moved to our home-base, we gained more flexibility. There's no check-out time at my parents' house (though I bet they sometimes wish there was one)! And, for the foreseeable future, the temperatures were looking friendly enough that we could operate AC-free.

The weather wasn't the only factor, though. We didn't have a very productive work week, thanks to our internet issues, additional travel day, and loads of cleaning and organizing. We wanted to do a good chunk of our driving on a weekend, particularly our big drive to get out of the Northeast. That drive is always a full-day endeavor. We also didn't want to delay our departure another week; we wanted to get home and my parents had more renovations starting soon. And so, we kept with our plan to leave on July 26, allowing us one extra weekend day where we could finish packing without worrying about work calls.

If all systems were functioning properly, we wouldn't feel much need to plan our stops along the way. Because it's summertime, way more campgrounds are open, and though they sometimes book up, weekdays are often easier to come by, especially because we'd only be looking for short stays. We also would have our fair share of boondocking locations like Harvest Hosts, Cracker Barrel, and Walmart. But as you know, our systems aren't functioning properly, and so I felt compelled to reserve spots ahead of time. Well, as "ahead of time" as I could, given that we didn't even confirm our departure date until a few days before we left.

And so, on July 24, I went into RV Trip Wizard and got to work. I had my 3 main constraints to contend with:

1. We needed electric hookups, ideally 50amp.
2. We needed good cell service because we no longer had Starlink and couldn't rely on campground WIFI to do work.
3. I needed to find availability on very short notice.

I also kept in mind additional factors:

1. Longer drive day on Sunday because we wouldn't have work
2. Extra night in the DC area for 2 reasons:
   1. See Roberto and give him an "unofficial wedding present" that I got out of storage
   2. Possible stormy weather rolling in on Tuesday July 28, prompting us to take a stationary day
3. Full hookups or an accessible dump station at our final stop, ideally fairly close to our storage spot, so we can empty our tanks before parking the trailer

Despite all of this, we'd be traveling a familiar route, and so I already knew the general areas where I'd want to book us sites. RV Trip Wizard has a "trip settings" section, where I can put my rig specifications, preferences for navigation (like avoiding tolls, ferries, or tunnels...hmm...tunnels), and ideal distances. One of my favorite features is the driving radius. I input 3 levels of distance – minimum, moderate, and maximum, and an overlay appears on the map showing me how far I can go within each distance. I can choose from classic or advanced radius. Classic shows equidistant circles extending from my starting point, and advanced shows radii based on my specific route. For a long time, I used the classic, but I eventually switched to advanced because it's a little more accurate. For this part of the trip, accuracy is low anyway, because the route takes us closer to Manhattan and over the George Washington Bridge, but we plan to take the Cuomo a little further north. I could manually add this bridge as a waypoint in RV Trip Wizard using the "Drag route" button, but instead I just make a mental note that, whatever location it says is within our 300-mile radius, will actually be a little further.

You can see that the radius puts our 300-mile maximum just north of Philadelphia. With the added distance over the Cuomo, Philly is actually even more out of range, but we always book in this area anyway because it's worth driving further to get away from Metro-NYC. We have 2 go-to campgrounds in the area, which have treated us wonderfully over the years. I checked availabilities for the Clarksboro/Philly KOA and Lums Pond State Park in DE.

These became our go-to campgrounds because we typically pass through this area in wintertime, and both are year-round. We'd love to check out other campgrounds when we're around in-season, but this time, it was better to stick with what we know. And what we know is, we like these places, we'll have cell service, and we'll have reliable electric hookups.

I first checked availability for Clarksboro, solely because they offer pull-thru sites, which would be great for a quick overnight. The sites are potentially long enough for us to stay hitched. But I hadn't ever seen their summer prices before. Yowza! $95/night for our front-of-the-park pull-thru. Even with our 10% KOA discount, Lums Pond was far less expensive. The trade-off was worth it: pay almost $30 less, drive a little further, and have a back-in site that will likely require unhitching.

Our preferred campsites (35 and 37) were already booked, which is one of the downsides to planning on such short notice, but Site 27 was available and in the same section. We'd still have the hiking path right behind our site, which is one of our favorite perks of this state park. With the additional daylight this time of year, we could probably swing a short hike before sunset after we arrive.

I did see an alert on the website that the park is doing construction this year, and so we made a note that, on Monday morning, we might have some noise while we try to get work done before checkout. This is something we can deal with, but it's always much more tolerable when we're prepared for it. Surprise construction is never fun, which you can read about here...and also here.

Read our dedicated Lums Pond post:

Reader’s Digest called this the best RV park in Delaware

We have a special affinity for the little state of Delaware. In fact, it’s become a road trip tradition to snap a photo every time we go over the Delaware Memorial Bridge. One of these photos was even featured on our home page on this very website back when

Brighter on WheelsNicole Anderson

One campground down, and now it was time to look at the DC area for our 2-night stay. Tuesday's weather called for thunderstorms with possible high wind gusts, which turned me off from booking Lake Fairfax Park, where we stayed earlier this year. We loved that park for many reasons, but the campground loop is situated on a hill, and the winds can get pretty gnarly up there. Because I wanted to plant us on the VA side of DC to be closer to Roberto, I immediately thought of Pohick Bay Regional Park, where we stayed at the beginning of Season 2 and that we absolutely loved. I recalled having 50amp electric there – even full hookups, I believe – but to make sure, I used a filter on RV Trip Wizard to show only campgrounds with 50amp hookup sites. As you can see, sites disappear when I turn on this filter, but not as many as you might expect in the DC area. This is something we love about RVing here. Of all the major cities on the East Coast, we think DC has the best options for RV camping.

With this filter on, Pohick remained, with the quick glance showing full hookups. Trip wizards must use caution, though, that this doesn't mean every site has full hookups. I went onto the website and double checked. Turns out, only a select few have full hookups, while most have water and electric. I also checked to ensure 50amp electric hookups.

I was about ready to dive into site availabilities for our dates, because I also remembered that some sites were more level than others, and we'd want ease of maneuverability. But then...WAIT! I forgot an important step in my research!

You'd think in such a populated area that I wouldn't need to worry about cell coverage, but if my memory served me right, we didn't actually have great cell service during our stay at Pohick. I distinctly remembered this photo, of our Starlink dish happily placed behind our site, because we backed up to the recreation field:

I also remembered carrying my walkie talkie when I went for hikes by myself, in case of an emergency. I pulled up the Verizon coverage map because that's what network our new hotspot uses. Adding the address was a pain because, despite having an automatically generating list, it doesn't use key words. I needed to copy the street address for all the campgrounds I looked up and pasted it into the search bar. I never realized how freeing it was to just book sites with clear views of the sky! It had been years since I needed to worry this much about cell service at my campsites.

Alas, my memory was accurate. 4G LTE only, and our hotspot runs off 5G. I didn't even bother checking for AT&T coverage, even though this is what our phones use. If signal was poor 3 years ago, it was probably still poor now. It does make logical sense; this park is in the middle of several conservation areas, where there are eagles' nests, not cell towers.

I had to shift gears, and so I looked up the weather again near Lake Fairfax. How bad of wind gusts were we talking here, really?

The hourly futurecast on my Weather Radar app was showing the highest winds in the late afternoon, but less than 40mph. Normally, I'd take this as a good sign, but when severe weather is on the table, surprises can happen. Plus, this region of the country has gotten pummeled with storms this year. It started with severe weather that we avoided by staying put in Clarksboro, and it's only gotten worse since then. I needed to proceed cautiously.

At the end of the day, it's a great location and great park. We'd get 50amp electric and good cell service. We'll just need to take our usual severe weather precautions, including keeping a close eye on any changes to the forecast as the date gets closer. I booked a site – again, not one of our favorites in the park because those were taken, but the campsite next to the one we stayed in last time.

Our decision to stay in DC meant that we still had many miles before getting back to Myrtle Beach. The plan was to overnight closer to home, so we could empty our tanks and then not use our bathroom again. The further away we stay, the harder this gets, but we didn't want to have another 300-mile drive day just for this reason. The Carolinas have plenty of great rest stops with good public bathrooms, and so I decided to look within our typical drive day radius, between 250-300 miles.

The squiggles have spoken! We could plant ourselves in the Metro-Raleigh area and be well within our preferred driving range. I dove into the map and scanned along I-95. I had several options right off the highway. This might mean road noise, but for an overnight, we want convenience and don't mind a little traffic ambience to lull us to sleep.

I was first intrigued by this lovely photo that popped up when I clicked North Pointe RV Resort. I did some research and put it on my shortlist.

However, a little further south, I saw a red Good Sam icon. This is RV Life's way of indicating that the campground allows membership discounts. They convert the icon to one of the more prominent affiliations. We're Good Sam members, and so we get 10% off our booking at affiliated campgrounds.

Upon entering the Raleigh Oaks RV Resort website, I found an intriguing accolade:

Best of the best of RV Life, eh? With absolutely no further preference except maybe price, I compared the rates at both RV parks, as well as the site lengths because ideally we'd like to stay hitched, since it's an overnight. All sites long enough, and almost exactly the same price. But Raleigh Oaks gives us a 10% discount. Done deal!

Oh, crap. I did it again. I forgot to check cell coverage! One might think that one needn't worry about this area, being so close to the state capital and all, but when I typed in the campground's address and the map started honing into the location, I got nervous. That was an awful lot of pale red! But thankfully, the specific location was well cloaked in the darker red. That was a close one!

This left us with about a 2.5-hour drive to get back to Myrtle Beach, which typically for us means 1 stop along the way. We can easily find a bathroom on the route to keep our tanks empty after we dump.

And with that, our itinerary was set.

Now, for the love of God, PLEASE