Part-time skooliers that work full-time, how do you plan out your trips?

[dbsoundman]

I get a good bit of PTO in a year, but just planning one two week trip eats up a lot of that PTO time. Trying to figure out how I can balance enjoying the journey TO the destination, as well as the destination itself, while also maybe getting some work done so I can save on the PTO. Any tips or general suggestions?

[Walters Workshop]

Planning takes time, but can really make for a great trip. I like to put up a big (old) paper map on the wall and start from my destination and work backwards adding stops and subtracting that time from what we have for the trip. We try to have everyday planned, even if it is just a day stop with "nothing" planned or work as the case may be. Something fun always seems to pop up however.
Should something like a repair need to be made, cancel a stop that would use up about that much time and just keep moving on. This type of planning for us works really well for 1-3 week trips.

[Dbacks2k4]

I used to plan 2-week road trips in my pop-up earlier in my career when I only had 3 weeks of vacation. If you plan around 3-day weekends you can squeeze a pretty good trip into only 10 days of PTO.
My favorite was my trip to Washington, DC. Start at the end and work backwards. Plan out a realistic drive-time for each leg with stops and what time you want to see certain attractions and where.
I made a chart that looks like this as my "itinerary":

[BarnYardCamp]

My advise: don't over plan. If you have too many things planned then you have time limits which creates stress. Plan a few "must sees". Then, if you find one stop to be extremely interesting you'll have the luxury of spending more time there. Have other options planned in case you have extra time. You can always go back to see things you missed.

[MikeJames]

Originally Posted by Dbacks2k4

I used to plan 2-week road trips in my pop-up earlier in my career when I only had 3 weeks of vacation. If you plan around 3-day weekends you can squeeze a pretty good trip into only 10 days of PTO.
My favorite was my trip to Washington, DC. Start at the end and work backwards. Plan out a realistic drive-time for each leg with stops and what time you want to see certain attractions and where.
I made a chart that looks like this as my "itinerary":

Wow, it looks impressive. A very serious approach to planning.
Do you it every time?

[turf]

back in the day, my mom had AAA and we regularly used their trip planning.

their trip planning was first class. pre google times, pre computer times, back inthe 70's - but they'd give you a map route book, an itinery, restuarants near your stop, points of interest along the way. it was a nice package.

i wonder if they still do it.

i just looked - they do -
its called - Triptik

https://triptik.aaa.com/

[Oldyeller]

Well, 'vive la difference', it's great that different folks do things differently but if I planned a trip like that I think I'd look at the completed itinerary and likely say, "screw it, that's too much effort". On the other hand if you have a family, aka kids, having a plan like that might be just what the doctor ordered to preserve sanity.

[fo4imtippin]

I just started playing around with roadtrippers.com. there's a coupon code for $18 annual subscription. With the price of fuel being so high, and most places I want to go being over 1500 miles away, I plan monthlong trips.


The plan is to have long driving days on weekends when the attractions are crowded and take half the weekdays off work for a month. I'm a remote tech worker with flexible east coast hours, so on Mountain Time, even on a full workday, there's plenty of light left for activities before dark.


So you enter parameters for your vehicle and avg MPG. It will estimate each leg of the trip at the current cost of diesel when viewing.


On workdays, my family can go out hiking, biking or do activities while I work from the bus or my wife can drive while I'm working. So for my example trip, I picked a bunch of stuff all around Colorado that I would like to do. Then I just added waypoints to get the best route with minimal backtracking. Once I have a rough idea, then my family will start looking for things to do/good hikes/ OHV trails etc that we want to do.


After the route is refined, then I'll bounce it against IOverlander and boondocking lookups and get some ideas of sites we can stay without reservations. There's also some idea road trips in there and lots of ideas for things to do.

[Dbacks2k4]

Originally Posted by BarnYardCamp

My advise: don't over plan. If you have too many things planned then you have time limits which creates stress. Plan a few "must sees". Then, if you find one stop to be extremely interesting you'll have the luxury of spending more time there. Have other options planned in case you have extra time. You can always go back to see things you missed.

That is good advice. My detailed plans back in the day had a pretty strict travel time schedule but once there was just a prioritized list of things to see. That particular trip to DC had me there for 4 days I think but no schedule for what to do and see when. On the pass-through or single-day stops I usually just wanted to do one thing and if I found something else interesting then I had time.

Originally Posted by MikeJames

Wow, it looks impressive. A very serious approach to planning.
Do you it every time?

Not really anymore. I'm self-employed now so don't have to work around pto days like I did earlier in my career.

I still make an outline of the sites I want to see, and plan a rough route to make sure drive time lines line up with places that require tickets or advance reservations; but overall now I much more wing it.

[cadillackid]

I remember trip-tiks from triple A as an older teen, my dad would get one for me when I would go on solo road trips.. dad knew I hated to travel his way (haul ass and dont stop for nothin).. so he got the trip tik for me so i could go on my own road trips and find cool places to stop along the way..


whil I dont use trip tiks anymore, I also still dont dig the haul-ass road trips.. there are times im on some kind of schedule but I try to make it as loose as possible.. like make what would normally be a 1 day drive into 2.. or at least allow for 2 so i can stop wherever i want.. if my route ends up boring and I reach my destination early then cool.. ill explore more of the destination...



I use GPS as a guide.. my Co-pilot trucker GPS allows me to set a "governor" speed.. setting it at 55 will often result in my route being a mix of freeways and back roads.. setting my vehicle profile to be the size of the bus ensures it wont route me on small roads where theres a 8 foot bridge or such...



I will still use google maps to help my find POI's as i travel.. as its more up to date on whats open and whats closed.. esp since coffee-shops are my thing...



and yes i carry a Big monster sized rand mcnally motor-carrier edition.. it is laminated and big.. and dry erase markers can be written on the pages and then erased... there are times i love to look at a map and seek out a trip.



apps like gasBuddy, loves, pilot, and QT help me find good fueling stations along the way...



google maps just fails in so many ways with trying to find cool places to stop along a route... ie if I search coffee shop or museum.. it will find places that I already passed or that are way out of the way even for me...

[AstroBus]

I'm thinking about being a part-time bus-lifer, but I don't work full-time. I work part-time on the weekends, and might take trips in 3 or 4 days during the week, be back and not miss a day of work. (Depending on where I want to go)