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Date:   Tue, 30 Oct 2012 11:12:17 -0400
Reply-To:   Ken Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Sender:   Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:   Ken Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Subject:   Notes on traveling, internet access and rv parks
Content-Type:   text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Some people like to "rough it" when they travel and take things down to the bare minimum. That is their idea of camping and it has it's allure (no cell phones, no texting, no Facebook, etc). Then there are those that travel in a massive coach that has a satellite dish on the roof, slide outs, ceramic tiles on the floor, and it's own zip code. I tend to land in the middle. My idea of camping is to spend the least amount of money, see the most, and get the most of modern conveniences as I can with the least hassle. I like to be flexible, and because of my business being on line, I pretty much need to stay connected. So I wanted to drop the list a note on staying connected on the road. We just took a trip from New Jersey across the top of the US to Washington state mostly on I 80, down the coast to California (101 and 1), across the desert to Colorado and back across 70. When hurricane Sandy reared it's ugly head we decided to head down from New Jersey via I 81 to family in Georgia.

Northern US. When you are in the North East on the coast, getting connected is pretty easy. We have Sprint and around major cities and even on the back roads in the North East, you have at least 3G coverage. If you are sitting in an airport or in a major city you have 4G which rivals high speed internet. However as you start to go west across the top of the US you will quickly find that cell phone internet is spotty at best. We went from Niagara Falls across Canada to Michigan. I refused to use my cell data because it kept coming up telling me I was in roaming mode. I had heard horror stories of people getting $5000 cell bills due to international roaming charges. It was a pain because we were using my Samsung Galaxy Tab and also my Motorola Photon phone for our GPS. When you go through a data roaming area a full screen notice will come up asking if you want to do data roaming. You have to dismiss it before the GPS will come back. If you get off of the route you planned before leaving your coverage area the GPS becomes worthless as it can't redo your route without connecting back to the internet and checking with Google maps. Because Sprint coverage was so spotty and also non-existent in most places across the Northern US, these roaming screens came up constantly. Not only was it a source of irritation, it was also dangerous to have to swipe on the screen while driving down the road. Then the tab or phone can just conk out on you because the GPS and internet connection it needs is pulling more power than the electrical plug can supply. Or I also had several instances of the tab freezing up. You wouldn't notice until you had been driving for about a half an hour and the time to your destination would stay the same. Then you would have to do a reboot and probably mess up everything because you had no signal to get a GPS routing.

My lesson, bring a dedicated GPS and also bring a full complement of paper maps as a back up. If you travel across the Northern US you will see that there are many, many times when you are driving on a long stretch of road which is literally in the middle of nowhere. There are no houses for miles in every direction, and you can look ahead and behind you for miles and see no other vehicles on the road. You don't want to be stuck without some type of map to use as a reference. Cell phone GPS just isn't reliable enough to leave the paper maps at home unless you are traveling short distances between major cities.

At campgrounds: We stayed at many, many camp grounds across the US. If you have kids, do yourself a favor and look up Jellystone Park before you leave on your trip and try to stop at these if you can. They are only a little more than a standard KOA, but have really nice playgrounds, indoor pools, and many activities for the kids. They also usually have great internet access via Wi-Fi. We used our Wi-Fi to plan the next day of our trip, find stores that we needed to buy supplies, plan where to buy gas (gasbuddy.com) and to watch Netflix in the evenings. For kids having a pool to play in during the day and Netflix so they can watch cartoons at night, is what makes them the most content. If they are happy, then the wife is happy, and you get to be happy.

However Jellystone Parks only really exist in the Eastern US. Once your are past Sioux Falls, SD you are on your own. The best thing that I found to do was to join KOAs discount club and I also joined Good Sam. Both of these give you discounts of 10% per night on your stay. KOA gives you a book where you can look up info about each campground before you go and Good Sam has a website where you can plan your route and it shows you Good Sam campgrounds along the way. I would try to narrow down where I wanted to go the next day, the night before, then check the campgrounds out with a website called http://www.rvparkreviews.com/ This site was great because usually there was a recent review that told you what the park was currently like. I found these to be accurate. They would usually mention how good the internet connection was at the park, which I have found to be a very good indication of how much the owners actually cared about the park itself. If the internet was crappy and spotty, usually the rv park itself wasn't that nice. Rates are around $50 a night for a family of 6 at any of these places. So finding out which ones had the most for that price was getting the best bang for the buck. I even stumbled across a couple of super deluxe rv parks by just searching with Google Maps for the term rv park in an area. In Tacoma Washington for example, everyone was warning away from the RV parks that were right off of I80 because of road noise and train noise at night. I found a small rv park a little north of Tacoma in a place called Deer Park that was awesome for around $35 a night! It had cement pads with cement patios, a pool, a clubhouse, screaming fast internet, etc. While these types of park would probably turn people off because they are so antiseptic, I enjoyed them as they were few and far between. It is nice to just pull in somewhere after a long day on the road, not have to spend a bunch of time leveling up your rig in the dirt and stones. Then go for a jump in the pool, or sit in the club house and relax and watch TV in a large living room area.

KOAs were the most visited RV parks by our family. We tried to pick the ones that had a good reputation on line. Occasionally we would try one that had a bad review because of where it was located. One of these times was in Seattle, WA. This KOA was the worst as far as location goes. It was right next to a very busy road that ran large trucks all day and all night. There was a bridge at the corner of the property where we were parked and it must have had a bump in the road right there because every time a big rig would go by it would hit that bump and it would sound like it just had a wreck! This would happen every 30 to 60 seconds all day and all night. I hated this KOA so bad that I got up very early, unhooked and then just drove away while everyone was still in the bed. I couldn't wait to get out of that place.

Most of the KOA were fine to great. The one at Mt. Rushmore was our all time favorite. It is super huge, and has tons of things for the kids to do along with good internet as well. The internet you are going to get at KOA ranges from super fast open networks, to free codes that are good for a day, to super slow satellite internet that you had to actually pay by the hour.

On the East Coast. If you are traveling up and down the East Coast of the US, you should have no problem with your cell internet whatsoever. Sprint and the other carriers have been upgrading their service here over the last several years and you can tell. Virtually no dead spots, great connection, and fast speeds. The only problem I have with the East Coast is that there seems to be less rv parks, probably due to higher property taxes, etc.

You notice that on my ramblings is no info on State Parks or National Parks. We never stayed at either of those because most have no internet and I didn't know what to expect as far as cleanliness of the showers, general up keep, etc. We had a 34ft rig too so it wasn't always convenient to stop at one of these parks since many of them were made for either smaller rvs or tents.

So that is my take on internet while traveling, it is getting better, but you need to check the reviews before you stop for the night, and also bring paper maps as a back up when on long trips.

Hope this helps,

Ken Wilford John 3:16 www.vanagain.com Phone: 856-327-4936 Fax: 856-327-2242


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