Summer is a great season for family vacations, individual adventures, and the good old fashioned American road trip. While images immediately jump into your mind about long winding highways, beautiful natural views, and maybe some type of adventure you remember fondly from a past trip, the success of a great road trip starts well before any actual traveling. Preparation is an absolute necessity to avoid potential pitfalls, set yourself up to be ready for any adventure by doing your research on inexpensive rvrentals, packing intelligently, and being prepared for whatever you may run into!

Plan a Basic Route

While many of us love having as open a travel route as possible, especially when thinking about an adventurous road trip. That being said, not having a route is a great way to not enjoy your trip and really miss out. While you never want to over-plan, taking a little bit of time to think about major spots you want to visit or special events you want to experience will help you to make a plan that you will enjoy while still giving you the flexibility to spend one more time at one site or go on through to the next if you're a little disappointed.

Having a basic route will help you stay focused and really make sure you get the most out of your road trip experience!

Multi-Use Is Your Friend

Don't pack your entire house – there's no reason for it! While an RV can provide many benefits that tent camping doesn't, you will still need to pack and plan to make sure you have everything you need while traveling. Remember that multi-use materials are always a good idea. A sweatshirt that can roll up into a pillow if you find a great spot to nap or just relax while hiking, a spool of fishing line that can be used for fishing or a wide variety of crafting or little uses around a campsite, good towels, or a day backpack.

Even if you aren't doing some serious wilderness camping, you will still want to think about a few items that can be really useful for a variety of reasons while you're going out and about during the day or even relaxing with some downtime at night in your RV. If one item can do two, three, or four things then that saves on room. The last thing you want on a road trip is stress-inducing clutter.

Use the 20% Rule for Budgeting

No matter how good you are at predicting expenses, trying to budget for unexpected purchases or little cheats, the best road trips are going to mess with your budget. While many times people talk about a 10% rule of thumb, in practical terms that's not nearly enough. While having a budget set up is important, you want to write it up maximizing potential expenses and then add 20% to that end number just to be on the safe side.

If that ends up being overkill then you have extra money when you get home, or are already part way to saving for your next big road trip. That's a good "problem" to have. It should be noted, this needs to be done separate from the emergency fund or emergency credit card, which you should always have as a worst case scenario. The 20% rule is in addition to that, not replacing it.

Pick Up Your RV a Day Ahead of Time

You do have to pay for an extra day, but this gives you a chance to pack up early, get used to driving it in a familiar setting, and make sure there's nothing egregiously wrong or concerning before you get out on the open road or in the middle of nowhere and have disaster strikes. This is definitely worth the cost and might save your road trip before it even starts.