How Fast is Too Fast When Traveling in an RV?

So many full-timers will tell you their #1 rookie mistake when they first started RVing. It was trying to travel too fast. Despite reading articles and listening to podcasts with tons of folks making this comment, we did it too.   

This got me thinking, “how fast is too fast?” And how do you ensure you don’t fall into the trap?  

Starting out really, really slow

 

We moved into our RV in late May 2018 and were stationary for about three weeks before setting out on our full-time RV adventure. One reason we elected to do this was to learn what worked for us and, more importantly, what didn’t. 

When you move into a new home, whether it’s a sticks and bricks home or an RV, you have to figure out where all your *stuff* will fit. Downsizing from 2,000 square feet to just over 300 square feet means you probably need to pare down…A LOT.  So we absolutely needed this three-week period to organize things into places where they made sense. 

Plus, being complete RV newbies, we needed to figure out how our stove worked, and the water heater, and the inverter for the batteries, and so on.  

So far so good.  We’re not moving too fast, right?

Actually getting on the road

 

Once we finally set off, we immediately drove 684 miles. In two days! Yes, that sounds a bit insane when I write it now. But, we were eager to get to our first destination in the Great Lakes. We allowed for a super big jumping off, with the knowledge that we would be staying at our first campground for the next five full days.

At the time, staying five days in one place felt like an incredibly long time. When we camped during our previous vacations, we rarely spent more than three or four days in a single location. So, this still didn’t seem too fast for us.

Once we arrived at that first campground, we took a deep sigh of relief. We were FINALLY on the road!  

Now it was time to chart out where we wanted to head next.  

The sum total of our plans was to see the Great Lakes and head east to Quebec to visit Keith’s family. We also knew we wanted to be in Maine in early August because my mom was going to join us for the Maine Lobster Festival. Other than that, we had the freedom to see whatever our hearts desired.

The type-A planner

 

As we tried to figure out a logical route to Maine, we soon realized there were dozens of places we wanted see along the way. There was Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, and Mackinac Island, and Niagara Falls, and Toronto, and Montreal, and… The list just kept growing and growing. North America is full of so many interesting places we wanted to visit.  

With firm plans of where we needed to be in early August, an overwhelming fear started mount. 

Our prior vacations of camping taught us one thing for certain. All the best places would be completely booked up during the peak summer months. Yet we had NO reservations! And it was already summer. What if we had nowhere to stay? What if we never got to see any of these awesome places? What if we had to spend the next two months hopping between Walmart parking lots?

With this anxiety blossoming in my stomach, my type-A planner kicked into high gear. I immediately started looking into campgrounds to reserve for July and August.  

The 200-mile “rule”

 

I’d heard other RVers say that 200 miles is a good rule of thumb for how far to drive in a day. After all, traveling in an RV is much slower than a car.  

First, you have the routine of breaking camp, dumping the tanks, and packing up. All of these things need to be factored in on travel days.  

Then, once you get driving, it’s extremely rare to get through 200 miles in a motorhome in less than four or five hours. Big RVs just don’t go that fast on the road.  Stopping to fill an 80 gallon gas tank is not quick. And if you decide to take the scenic route (aka – small windy rural roads not designed for RVs), you are in for a long, long day. 

Finally, there’s the fatigue of driving such a big vehicle.  It’s just not the same as popping behind the wheel of your normal car. You have cars weaving in and out with no regard to the fact that they just cut off 22,000 pounds of RV bearing down on them.  

All these things make it a very smart choice to limit yourself to reasonable mileage and hours behind the wheel. So, we adopted the 200-mile rule pretty early on.  

Unfortunately, in my frenzied planning and campground booking excitement, that meant we start to move too quickly. Moving in 200-mile increments meant we’d only get three days in each location we wanted to visit on our way to Maine. 

For those new to RV travel, three days in a location really means two days (or maybe even less). You need one “drive day” to get there. Then you only have two days to sightsee, go for a hike, explore your destination, get groceries, do laundry, etc.  That’s just NOT enough time!

After about two weeks of moving like this, we’d had enough. As we crossed into Canada, Keith and I needed a down day. No travel. No sightseeing.   

We decided to completely cut out the next city and just spent a little extra time around our campground relaxing near Niagara Falls. This break also led to a frank conversation about how we didn’t want to just cram everything in along the way.  

So how fast is too fast?

 

After realizing we needed to slow down, we started discussing our upcoming visit to Quebec. We expected to spend a week there. So, we had the option of spending a few days in Montreal followed by a few more in Quebec City. Or, we could just skip Montreal and spend the entire week exploring Quebec City. We both opted for the second choice.

This was absolutely the best thing we could have done. A full week in Quebec allowed us to see so many more things. We didn’t have the pressure to sightsee every day. If we didn’t get to something today, there was always tomorrow. If it was pouring rain for a few days, we still had time to adjust and see the outdoors during our stay.

Slowing down really took the pressure off us and let us enjoy the experience more. It also helped us realize we don’t need to see it all now. We can come back another time, or just extend our stay if we want to see more things.

We may only get to enjoy the RV lifestyle for a few years. And, we want to look back on this experience with fondness, not just remembering it as a whirlwind of cities visited for 48-72 hours apiece.

Looking forward, we plan to spend the next three weeks in Maine. While we will be changing campgrounds a few times to explore different parts of the state better, the goal is to definitely avoid moving too fast.