Once upon a time we traveled with paper maps, campground directory books, and tour guides. We were constantly shuffling papers and flipping pages. Smart Phone technology has made the kind of rambling travel style we love so much easier and has added richness to the discoveries that we can make along the journey. We use iPhones but nearly all these apps are available on the Android platform also.
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Navigation
It’s always helpful to know how we will get from here to there and what services are available along the way.
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Although there are other good options out there we have used Apple Maps, the native map app on iPhone, since it’s introduction. The route overview, satellite mode, and traffic are especially useful features. Here’s a great video on the newest features and also an article discussing the advantages/disadvantages of Apple vs Google Maps not to mention Apple’s commitment to privacy. Oh, yeah, and now we can use Apple Maps with our new Apple CarPlay. Available for iPhone.
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When our route is taking us through sparsely populated areas, we really appreciate being able to plan our fuel stops. Although it’s not fail safe, sometimes stations close for the season or go out of business, Gas Buddy is crowd sourced. Hence if you see a recently updated gas price, you can feel pretty confident you will get fuel there. Also it works with Maps giving you ability to check the satellite view so you get an idea ease of access with your trailer in tow. Available for iPhone and Android.
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Campgrounds
Where to stay, where to stay? Our trips are often long rambling affairs with little advance planning but we can do that with these amazing apps and websites available for on the fly or even for well ahead of time planning. (Yes, we are doing much more planning ahead as we travel in 2021.)
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This is our go-to app for finding a place to stay along our route. Everything from RV resorts to National Forest sites to Walmarts. We will say that once we find a promising sounding place we’ll check with the RV Life app for campground reviews and more information. It’s a paid app but worth every penny. Available for iPhone. Android users can get the same content from the website.
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This app requires a free membership but offers a comprehensive, easy to use, list of campgrounds. It doesn’t show Walmarts, Cracker Barrels, or other free overnight options though. It’s the app versions of campground reviews.com and offers reviews of each campground as well as connectivity information. With a paid membership you get RV Wizard trip planning but we have not opted for that.
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This one is a free app but it only works with a paid membership to Harvest Hosts. We’ve had some amazing adventures and lovely stays at HH locations throughout the country over the last few years. Available for iPhone and Android.
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The two of us have been staying at KOA campgrounds for decades and have been VKR members since 2008. We appreciate a lot of aspects of KOA stays especially for overnight stays when we need to do laundry. One big advantage for the last few years has been to make same day reservations via the KOA App while we’re rolling down the road. Available for iPhone and Android.
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Adventures
Travel is all about adventure and we find these apps invaluable for helping us find those adventures.
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Since 2010 this has been our primary source for information about places to eat, things to do, and services we need. Some of our favorite searches are Museums, Diners, Factory Tours, Landmarks & Historical Buildings, Coffee, Oil Change Stations, and more. We created an account long ago and when we’ve had a great experience especially at an independent business we’ll leave a good review. Available for iPhone and Android.
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Oh, the places we’ve gone thanks to Roadside America! This is a great guide to the out of the ordinary sites in the US and Canada. The app costs $2.99 for one region. All Access is an additional $6.99 but is an incredible bargain considering the fun of discovering these offbeat places. They also have a Roadside Presidents app that we like. Available for iPhone but cuurently not for Android. However they do have a cool website.
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Hidden in plain sight. Geocaching is a worldwide treasure hunt game that involves searching for a hidden container using GPS coordinates and information posted online. Here’s an introductory video and basic information. If you’re interested, spend some time with the beginner’s guide learn the etiquette and if possible, spend some time with someone familiar with the game. It has taken us to amazing places! The app is free and basic membership is free. We did upgrade to Premium for a richer experience. Available for iPhone and Android.
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Internet Connection
One of the challenges of life on the road is staying connected. Internet service varies widely from place to place. Although sometimes we’re glad to be away from the net for a while, often we want decent connectivity in order to post our latest blog and do research on the next adventure or campsite as well as talk with family and friends.
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Mobile Connectivity
As we ramble the country we do our best to stay connected with family, friends, and the world in general with blog posts, phone conversations, video chats, and just surfing the web.
Recently we’ve heard a lot of chatter in the RV community about cell boosters. It seems that in limited situations they are the best choice for improving connectivity, but at a pretty significant price. Most of us are likely to find a $30 Mimo more than adequate to improve our signal with it’s dual antennas rather than spending $500 for booster that has just one antenna and in fact degrades the cell signal in many instances. This is our understanding, and concurs with Chris & Cherie in an excellent video on their Mobile Internet Resource Center channel titled Mimo vs Boosters. There they detail the pros and cons of both technologies as well as the cost benefit ratio in very understandable terms.
They also discuss the fact that the number of bars on your cell phone is all but meaningless. To better understand how to get a good idea of your internet speed, read their article Understanding Your Internet Speeds. We use the Ookla Speedtest app on our phones to get a much better gauge of the strength of our connection. We’ve found it easy to convert our thinking from “how many bars” to “download and upload speeds in mbps”. Another useful app in determining coverage is the CoverageMap app. Besides giving you a data speed reading at your current location, you can check the map to see the mobile internet strength in your current neighborhood or at the campground you are thinking about staying at.
Personally our connectivity needs are intermediate. We’re bloggers so we want frequent robust internet for keeping our readers abreast of our adventures and we need to be able to connect our laptops to the internet easily from wherever we are. Also we want to video chat with family as well as stream video news and entertainment.
Some of you may have simpler needs than ours, perhaps just a cell phone for calls and internet access is plenty. And there are folks that need a bullet proof solid reliable connection for business and for uploads of video blogs. We’ll address the intermediate range, where we operate and offer resources for more advanced systems.
Currently we have two of the iPhone 12 Mini and a Verizon MiFi 7730L (newer models are available) coupled with the Netgear 6000450 MIMO Antenna. The Mimo needs to pointed at the closest cell tower so we have the iPhone app, Find Tower, to aid us in determining in which direction to point the Mimo. We have the Verizon Get More Unlimited Plan. Although it allows for throttling after reaching 30GB of data on our phones, we’ve not yet experienced that. The Get More is a definite improvement over our older Verizon Unlimited Plan especially since our new phones are 5G capable.
With that we have to think about how we use our devices. Our laptops and Wifi-iPad rely on the phones or Jetpack for a hotspot internet connection and we have a limit of 75GB/month among those three devices so we have some little rules:
- Use only the phones for any video chats or streaming. We use Apple’s Lightning Digital AV Adapter and an HDMI cable to connect one of the phones to view streamed video on our T@B’s Jensen TV.
- Use the Jetpack hotspot only for laptop connectivity, and sparingly.
- Save any major uploads or downloads until we have a reliable and secure WiFi connection.
A word about WiFi. Yes, some campgrounds offer free WiFi but rarely have we found any that offer a robust, truly high speed connection. Basically to provide excellent internet to the large number of potential users is a costly and highly technical proposition. Thus the reality is that at best, most campground WiFi is adequate only for for checking email and basic web searches. And it goes without saying that any public WiFi is a potential security risk. We usually save the aforementioned major uploads and downloads until we are visiting family or friends and can utilize their private secure WiFi connections.
Thus cellular mobile broadband is our go-to both for speed and security. The Verizon network has for the most part has served us well, it has broad coverage throughout the country. Because we do sometimes find ourselves in spots when others have signal but we don’t, we are considering adding another carrier for backup coverage since our new phones have dual sim card capability but in all we are pleased with the balance we have struck between data connectivity, simplicity of use, and cost.