RV Trip Wizard Review
I’ve been using the RV trip planning tool “RV Trip Wizard” for over a year now. I had originally attempted to review it last year but life got in the way, and then we left on a 29-day cross country trip. I’m actually glad I held off, because now I can give the tool a more thorough and 2-part review.
RV Trip Wizard is a trip planning app and GPS from RVLife.com. You get access to the Trip Wizard with your annual RVLife subscription. As RV’ers you should be prepared to belong to a few subscription services that provide you with discounts, RV park locators, newsletters and email updates, loyalty programs, and other RV related stuff. We think that RVLife is worth the $59/year as it includes lots of good articles with campground reviews and pro tips, and the added bonus of the RV Trip Wizard tool.
As mentioned above, for $59 a year you get all the features of the Trip Wizard tool and app, plus detailed information on RV membership clubs, state road laws, information on RV manufactures, blogs, books and magazines. The planning tool is best suited for a laptop/desktop computer and a web browser (we use Chrome). You can use a tablet like an iPad with Safari, but I prefer to sit at my desk with keyboard, mouse and an large split screen monitor. With this environment I can explore the Trip Wizard tool on one window and have another window for campground websites, Good Sam and KOA sites, and Harvest Host (we’ve subscribe to those).
Before you plan your first trip, it’s best to complete the “settings” under the Trip Tools on the left of the screen, marked by a wrench icon. This will pull up a menu of various settings and utilities to help you set defaults for your RV, budget your trip, and print, share, or email trip details. Clicking on the “Trip Settings” menu item will open a tool to set defaults for your RV; Height, Length, Weight, Fuel info. A second tab has Routing & Driving defaults. Here you set drive time estimates, average speed, which roads to avoid (tolls, ferries, tunnels, etc.), driving distance (by hour or mileage), and your driving radius. The driving radius setting is really helpful in planning where you’ll stop for the night. There is also an Expenses tab which will help you budget based on four variables; Camping, Meals, Misc Expense, and Fuel. You can set these defaults once and leave them, or modify them for each individual trip.
To find a campground to plot on your route, you simply start typing the campground name in the search bar. We have had great luck finding what we want, including some Harvest Host locations. The initial bubble that pops up gives you some basic info like ratings, amenity icons, and general cost.
You can add it to your trip directly from this bubble, or click park details for much more information. The details page will give you phone number, website, season dates, features, reviews and a bunch of other important info. These details are a great help in planning because you can check out the pictures, and reviews, then go directly to the website and book.
Another awesome feature of the Trip Wizard is the ability to select Points of Interest to display on your route on the map. You can select dozens of POI’s and then plot them on your route as scheduled stops. You can litteraly detail every stop that you want to make, and the Trip Wizard GPS will take you to each stop. Our list of POI’s include; Rest Areas, Pilot/Flying J, Bass Pro Shops, Camping World, Crackle Barrel,
Walmart, Golf Courses, and others. We have planned daily drives to stop at specific rest stops, truck stops, historic battlefields, national parks and monuments, even the Field of Dreams Movie Site, in Dyersville, IA.
In conclusion of part 1, the RVLife subscription and RV Trip Wizard are well worth the subscription price of $59/year. We are now planning all of our trips using Trip Wizard. We looked at both Roadtrippers and Campendium, but settled on RVLife and RV Trip Wizard in the end, based on the breadth of capabilities and services. While completing this blog, I discovered RV Live Campgrounds. This is something I will have explore deeper, as it includes a wealth of information on campgrounds across the country. I could be a better source than Good Sam.
You download the RV Life app from the App Store or Google Play and have access to your trips and the RV GPS. I’ll review the GPS in part 2 of this blog.
Happy camping!
