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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