How to Plan Your RV Trip With Our Top 5 Apps

Hello and welcome to Keep Your Daydream. I'm Trish and this is Mark and we are here to talk to you about the top five apps we use in route planning. We are here in gorgeous Bend, Oregon. Amazing. Believe me, I could say gorgeous like 100 times and it wouldn't cover it. Gorgeous Bend, Oregon. And if we seem just a little less enthusiastic than we normally do, it's because we're exhausted. Ben has worn us out. Yesterday we were out at Smith Rock Pike. Yes. Unbelievable. Today we were kayaking down the Deschutes River. My gosh, we toured Zamp, we toured Crux, we had our meetup last night in Bend. Oh my gosh, you guys, everybody that came up to the meetup, thank you so much. So much fun. So what prompted this right now here video is the question that we get all the time, right? And that is, how do you guys plan your trips? And we say the same thing. So we thought, hey, why don't we put it in a video for you? And we found ourselves using five apps. It's been crazy helpful to us. And again, this is not the end-all be-all and we want to hear from you what your favorite apps are in websites and resources because there's a million things out there. These are just the five that we're using right now. All right. So let's kick it off with app number one. Probably the one we use more than anything is Allstays. Allstays is an app that we have on our phone. The pro version is also on a website, but basically we have found most of the campsites, campgrounds, Walmarts. It's an absolute, I mean, it's almost when we're traveling, it's a go-to app. It's the number one thing. I don't think there was a day we've been traveling that we don't have Allstays open. And the cool part is you go right into something. You can see an estimate like with dollar signs, how expensive it is. And then it gives you the phone number, bam, right there. And you're calling. That's right. If you hit Gmap, it'll actually bring up the address in your Google maps and then take you directly there. The other thing I just found out when I was playing around with the app, it'll give you pictures and reviews and a whole bunch of other stuff. Not to mention Elks Lodges, Costco, Moose Lodges. And the Walmarts are color coded. So like if there's a red W, I think it is, you can't spend the night there. That's right. So it's like really kind of fun stuff. With the Walmart reviews. So we'll pull up and we'll be like, God, this Walmart was kind of noisy and we were asked to move or it was kind of sketchy. And so we just move. I'm going to go find a different Walmart. So I couldn't imagine not having that app. Now tied for first with Allstays, and it's really only a season three thing for us, is Harvest Host. Oh my gosh, you guys. Okay. I am not also not exaggerating. I know. I'm sorry. I just got to dive right into this. Okay. Harvest Toast is the coolest thing. And some people with kids say, um, hello, those are wineries. That's no fun for my kids or that's so fun for my dogs. Well, guess what? There's amusement parks, there's museums, there's we're going up to an air museum tomorrow. We're super excited about it. So anyway, but then the vineyards that are part of it are more family owned. They're more relaxed. They're not, they're not, they're not tasting rooms, although there's tasting rooms on it, but they're like, I don't know. It's just like, it's their farming families. They've been getting along great with our kids and giving us all sorts of things to do. And we've bottled wine in Rio Seco. And they know the area, they know the area. So, you know, whenever we're route planning, which that's a really loose term because we don't do very much planning when we're in the car after we've checked Allstays, then we go to our computer and we see, Hey, where's a Harvest Toast. And we kind of navigate our way to see if we can hit as many as possible because it's so much fun. So what is it? 40, $45 for the whole year. $45 for the year. And then that's like one campground, one night. And then you get access into a member site and you just put in a state and all the different Harvest Toast locations come up and you pick one, you give them a call. You say, Hey, are you available tomorrow? They say, sure. And you're like dry camping. You're dry camping. So we've now on season three, we pull up Harvest Toast with Allstays so that we can kind of like find out where the Harvest Toast is on our way so that we can kind of hit as many Harvest Toast as possible. That's kind of the plan. Yes. Okay. Okay. What's number three? That's number two. Well, actually that's kind of, that was kind of a twofer in part one. Okay. So number two is a social media app, but it's how Trish ends up finding all the cool things we do. So take that away. Oh, thank you so much. You're welcome. All right. Pinterest. Okay. You think that maybe this is just the way to find how to make a rainbow birthday cake? No, it's so much more. People have put up great blogs on what to do. 25 free things to do. 10 things you must see, dah, dah, dah, dah. And these great blog posts will lead you down a rabbit hole. But really what I do is I dive in, I visit one of their sites. I pick out the names of like all of our stuff in Malibu was from Pinterest. That's right. We got the Escondido hike. We got the, um, but that was from Pinterest. Yes. The Matador beach. Matador beach. And then where we ate for lunch. All Pinterest. All Pinterest. Super cool. There's some really great people in there that are throwing stuff up for you. So just put it in your town. It'll give you pictures. And I love to have a visual before I get there because you can kind of tell a vibe of a town from some of the pictures. So, and I guess along those lines, number three app that we use is kind of along the lines of Pinterest, but it's a little bit different. And that is Instagram. And the reason we use Instagram is because when people, when many people post a picture on Instagram, they put the location. So when you see a picture that you really like just below their profile name, you can push the location and all the pictures. Well, that to the actual location of the picture, or you can see the hashtags. So hashtags on Instagram is like grouping all of the pictures on a certain hashtag. So for instance, we'll take a Smith rock. Okay. Anyone who was at Smith rock would have hashtag Smith rock. So all of these different pictures come up. You can look through the pictures and be like, wow, that's really cool. But it also helps us like Smith rock has dozens and dozens of trails. Which one do we want to go on? Which one do we want to do? So I'll let Instagram kind of guide us through the various things by these hashtags. So you can look at the picture and be like, I want that picture. So we just go find out how to go get it. So Instagram has been fantastic for like maybe diving a little bit deeper into the exact location and like what you're going to do when you're there. Cause you obviously can't do everything. Yes. Okay. All right. Oh, I'm off to a good start here. I'm feeling good. I'm ready to get my car. I'm ready to go plan a trip. Oh, okay. All right. Okay. Number four, appropriately. Number four, coincidentally, number four, four square. Oh, but did you really plan that? That's awesome. Okay. Four square is the best. We love it. It's not going to work for you so well if you're out in random farm country, but if you're anywhere near a city that's slightly populated, it will give you the best recommendations for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and some events. Now listen, I know if some of you aren't familiar with four square or you used it once or twice in the past and you're like, I'm not going to use four square. Let me tell you something. We don't eat at a restaurant under 8.2, 8.2, 8.5. We just don't do it. So they rate them from 10 to whatever. I've seen like a 9.6, but we're usually in that 8.5 to 9.5 range. 9.2. And we haven't been disappointed. When we see something on four square that's a nine, we leave there saying that was awesome. When we pull up a restaurant that's like under 8.5 or high sevens, it is as bad as, I mean, it's just terrible. And we look at it after we have like a really bad experience and really bad meal, we'll go pull up in four square and be like, it's a 7.6. Why did we come here? We just wasted our money. Yeah. It's a waste of money. It's a waste of time. So on the other hand, we'll go when someone will say, Hey, you got to go eat here. We'll go, Oh, okay. And then we'll look it up and it'd be like, Oh wow. It's a nine. And so it's just, it saved us so much time. It saved us so much money. The other part is you can rate it not only by money, but you can rate it by distance and you can write it by rate it by, so there's the rating, there's the distance and then there's the money. I guess that app really isn't for route planning though. Isn't it? Unless you're planning your route around food. Yes. And you know, we just might do that. Well, it will tell you as you're coming into a city, if your food is in the beginning of the city, the end of the city. So then you kind of know where to go and how to get in. Because if you're like us, you're hauling something or you're very large and you need to be strategic about how you enter a new town. Okay. So let's talk about the last app here is Google maps. And I've done a whole video on how we use Google maps, but the reason that we like it is it gives real time route planning. So when you're on a road, you can see up in advance that the road is getting like orange. The route turns orange or it turns red. This is super helpful. When we were driving out of Santa Cruz into Palo Alto, Trish said, uh, we're going down a hill. She says, slow down because there's a traffic jam up here. I'm like, really? How do you know? I come around the corner and there's traffic jam. So when you're trying to stop, you know, 10,000 pounds, it's kind of nice to know you're coming up against traffic. It's also kind of nice to know that like the traffic is only going to be a five minute delay. And then what I like to do is after I visited Pinterest or even Instagram, and I know these key terms, these things to search like Escondido park or El Matador beach, then I plug them into my Google on my computer and then I can move them around so that I hit the first one correctly. And then the second one. So I'm not backtracking around. So we kind of plan out our day and move it down the path. Now, alternatively, we've gotten a lot of comments from subscribers that ran Mcnow, ran McNally is a really good app specifically for RVing. And it's going to have things like, like RV height and RV route planning. They have all sorts of stuff. We just don't use it because we're like totally content with Google maps and all this stuff we're sharing with you here. But that is something to look into if you're just not a fan of Google maps. Yay. Wow. Did we just pound out five? I think we did. Okay. So, um, you know what time it is? Okay. It is, um, RV signal boost winner award time. Okay. Not only do we have that, we also have a giveaway for all of our subscribers because we love all of you and are so grateful for everybody that's been part of this journey the entire way. So we have something for you too. These are building too. So we are going to find some more awesome things that we can give away to everybody and some other things that are for patron. So we're just excited. You're here. We love your comments. We love your participation and how fun was that meetup? It was a blast. It was a total blast. You guys rock. You put faces to name and people are asking questions and it's awesome. It was great. So it is important that you guys comment and participate because El Senor Rojo over here dove deep into those comments on the last video and he picked out a name and Alaskan gal and her angry Texan. Alaskan girl and her angry Texan. Alaskan gal. Alaskan gal. Alaskan gal. We have this super cool koozie and a little sticker for you. So go ahead and direct message us, send us an email, tell us what your address is and we'll cruise this on over to you. Yeah. Okay. So for the Patreon winner, I've got my little random, my little random app picker. Okay. Hit the little button. It's one through 179. Ready? The button 32. Number 32. I go into the Excel file. Number 32 is Michael Tully. Michael, this is on its way to you. We are so excited. And we have one more of these. So we're going to do a video about working remotely and how we stay connected with self coverage. We thought that'd be the perfect video for this. And these giveaways are just crazy. Okay. We visited Zamp Solar for a tour when we're here in Bend and Morgan, who's their brand manager said when we were there, she says, Oh, by the way, I saw you doing giveaways and I have a couple for you. She goes, we want to be part of that. Yeah. So she gave us some really cool things. Yeah. So anyway, we'll announce that soon, but yeah, there's some really cool stuff. So anyway, we'll get this out to Michael. And if you're interested in becoming a KYD Insider, there's a link up there so you can learn more about it. It's just a great way for us to kind of have a two-way relationship with a lot of our viewers. You guys are so awesome. You comment, but this is a way for us to get to know you even more through your Facebook and what you're up to and taking pictures with Ginger and stuff like that. But really cool. We are really, truly grateful for everybody that has been following us since the first flat tire. And if you're here, we love you. Thank you so much. And I have got to get started on this weekend's video so that we can post because it's possibly Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo. So I gotta go so that it can be posted this weekend for you. Yes. Okay guys. We'll catch you soon. Hasta.