Any road-trippers out there?

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For road-trippers: Do you typically find accommodations on the fly? Or pre-plan your stops?

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Pre plan for us.

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and how was it- the one state i’ve yet to visit

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Thanks all. I found a website where you can punch in different stops and it calculates the trip out. I’ll have to play with that more this weekend and see what is feasible.

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Always preplan.

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Always, always, always preplan. I can’t stand the thought of rolling into a town at night and just crossing fingers that there isn’t some convention/ballgame/concert/festival/whatever that has booked every room within 80 miles. Plus, my family of five needs a room with a sleeper sofa, and there aren’t that many of those around at midpriced hotels. (Shout out to Holiday Inn Express for having several in every newer location.)

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Can you share the website???

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Sure - I’m playing with https://roadtrippers.com/

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Always pre-plan. I think you always get better rates that way than just showing up. I think when you show up, they give you the “rack rate”, which is usually higher than when you pre-book.

Some of the websites like Hotwire have mystery hotels, where you might get a better rate for a stay that day. I’ve never been daring enough (from a financial perspective) to do that.

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We pre-plan hotels…. but I prefer the deals (getting less common) where you can cancel by 6pm without penalty. Personally I like a trip that allows at least on place with 2 nights (3 even better) in same location even if it means longer driving days in between.

TIP - Conider making a shared Google doc with day by day itinerary. My husband usually does a nice job with that, with one table row for each day. It includes all confirmation# etc (which we also have in emails and usually printouts for backup) and notes.

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The prepay we do also includes state parks, national parks and KOA and private campsites. They usually has a deal on line and a cancellation policy that is pretty liberal. I was amazed when we traveled to Seattle via California how the camp sites were packed in January and February. There are some places that are pay at the site in the winter only and that is usually fine as they are not busy. The problem with not reserving is, that you are tired, hungry, etc. by the time you get there and don’t want any surprises.

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