First Excursions Planned
I guess the easy part is buying the camper, but once it’s in your possession, now what? It’s easy to dream about all those places you want to see or when you read about others seeing you want to see them too, but planning it yourself isn’t so easy. You only have so much vacation time to plan with. Will you really be in the mood for “that” place 6 months from now or another 4 months from now? And the most crucial is, will “that” place be available when you want it? I’m discovering all these issues and more while trying to plan my first excursions.
The last time I traveled I had a travel agent plan the whole thing for me. Making sure I could get from point A to point D and at the end be back at the right airport to get back home overwhelmed me as it was my first solo trip to Europe. For most of my travels I’ve always tagged along with others and I didn’t really need to plan anything; I have really great friends that way. I know it’s a wall I need to break through.
Below are the excursions I’ve have planned so far. I did want something longer for camping, but with the Zurich trip and a friends trip out to visit me, I couldn’t see taking a long trip so that trip will be planned for next year.
These trips aren’t in date order, they are in the order I booked them. I know weird, but you have to be in my head to understand…
Hamilton Bonaduz - June 2-11
It all started when my boss mentioning that they wanted me to go to our Swiss office to meet the team there.
Secretly I was hoping it wouldn’t be approved, but once it was, I decided to stay a few extra days. Bonaduz is two hours by train outside of Zurich, which is where we fly into. After much deliberation, I decided to stay four extra nights in Zurich, hey why not I’m already over there.
I have no hard plans as of yet except a hotel booked, half the battle is solved…I’ll be staying in Old Town and over the next few week I’ll figure it out the rest.
I wanted to try to get a quick camper trip in before I left for Switzerland, but time was marching forward fast and I’m a procrastinator, but I did manage to get three long weekend trips planned. Everyone said when you get your first camper, take it somewhere close to home to work out the kinks and to make sure everything works properly in the camper.
Olde LYFE Alpacas - June 21-23
I came across an article about this Alpaca ranch where they let campers come and hangout for a few days. I was thinking this would be a great first excursion. Not far from Reno and not too expensive.
What I am discovering is how expensive some of these camping options have become. There are a lot of apps to help you find places to stay see Planning Your Trip. I used Hicamp which is Airbnb for campers. It definitely is a great resource, but some of the nightly fees are ridiculous, this place was not.
Luckily, living out here there are a lot of great places to visit not too far from home. This will be an easy excursion and had planned to be my first, but it’s not.
I just hope I don’t come home with one of these Alpacas. Everyone says I should get a pet!
Bordertown RV Resort - April 26-28
I can’t believe I’m staying here, but I wanted to get a quick trip before Switzerland to work out the kinks of the camper and felt this was a good solution.
I think this will be a good experience. It’s an RV park with full hookups unlike the other excursions planned which won’t have any hookups. What are hookups"? Well it’s water and power located at your camp site.
My camper is equipped with 400 amp hours of batteries and 600 amp solar panels so if there is sun I should be able to produce enough power for me. I can unplug the camper and just run on batteries to get use to how that works.
I hope I don’t meet some old grandma who wants to hook me up with her grand daughter…oh dam I guess at my age, the grandma would have to be really old.
Butte Lake, Lassen Volcanic National Park — Sept 6 - 8
I’ve had this trip on my list of todos before I got the camper. I know some of the park was destroyed by the fires a couple years ago and are still closed. It looks like a great camping spot for a couple days and an easy ride north and over the border into California.
OH RIDGE, Inyo National Forest — Sept 19 - 21
I initially thought of Yosemite as a place to see. The last time I was there was in the early 90s and can’t believe I’ve been out here all these years and have not been back.
I went to the website and as you would expect there were no availability. So I followed the links to other parks close by and landed here. I’ve been using recreation.gov as a resource and it’s been pretty helpful. The image above is of my camp spot so at least the views will be nice, lets just hope fires won’t have ravaged it by the time I get there.
The one limitation I find using recreation.com is you can only make a reservation for 2 nights at a time. I think you can go back in and make a second reservation for additional 2 nights; I suspect this is to keep people from booking everything up.
Well, this is all for now. For someone who likes to fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants, planning this far ahead is difficult, but I do feel good I have a few places on my agenda…and that’s a good thing.