San Francisco - New York via Niagra Falls

[Bobbiemarks]

Hi
I'm travelling next July from San Francisco to New York via Niagra Falls. We will be in an rv any tips you can give me would be very helpful. We will be staying mostly in KOA campgrounds, but we would really like to stay in a National park along the route so if anyone knows of any that we can stay in, please let me know. Any suggestions what to see or do would also be very helpful.
Many thanks
Bobbie

[DonnaR57]

Hi, welcome to RTA!

I'd love to direct you to our forum that is called Camping Road Trips. In this forum, you can find public campgrounds listed -- state and national forests, state and national parks, and even a few city and county parks.

We have no clue, from your post, what route you plan to take, so it would be difficult to recommend national park campgrounds to you. Bear in mind that most national park campgrounds have no hookups, or maybe they have one campground that does (Yellowstone has Fishing Bridge RV, Grand Teton has Colter Bay RV, Grand Canyon South Rim has the Grand Canyon Village RV, to name a few).

I'm the daughter of an ex-KOA owner, and can tell you that they aren't the cheapest RV parks around. In many places, they're the most expensive. If you want to stay in commercial spots because they have hookups and showers, you might want to take a look at a directory called the Woodall's. It has listings of many of the privately-owned parks. My husband and I used a similar directory when we traveled with our RV, a few years back. We used to laugh when we'd drive into an RV park and see the familiar A-frame office building, and knew we were in a former KOA! That happened to us in several places.


Donna

[Bobbiemarks]

HI Donna
Many thanks for your reply, we will be travelling along the I80 from San Francisco to New york but detouring to Niagra Falls. I really appreciate your advice and will look into your suggestions.

[DonnaR57]

Try this post for I-80 camping spots.

I-80 doesn't have national parks along its route, at least none with camping. Cuyahoga Valley NP is close to 80 in Ohio, but has no camping. About the closest, really, is Yellowstone, still a couple of hundred miles off. National forests, yes. State parks, yes.

Realize that I-80 has a couple of drawbacks for the RV'er: toll roads in Ohio, Indiana and into Illinois, and CHICAGO traffic. You could drop down to I-70 using I-71 in Ohio, take that across OH, IN, IL, and MO, and then go up I-29 to catch I-80 again in IA/NE. You'd have STL and KC traffic, but at STL you can use I-270 to go around, and then I-435 to go around KC on the north side, which will take you right to I-29. (I've used both of those beltways.)

Donna

[glc]

Donna, I believe this is a west to east trip.

Less out of the way to avoid tolls and Chicago is stay on I-80 to Davenport IA, take I-74 to Indy, I-70 to Columbus, then I-71 to Cleveland. You will have to take I-90 from there to Niagara Falls, which is toll in NY.

From Niagara to NYC, take I-90 (toll) to Rochester, I-390 to I-86/NY-17 to Binghamton, I-81 to Scranton, then I-380 to I-80.

[Midwest Michael]

There's so many questions here that really need to be answered for people to provide much more in the way of significant advice.

The most important is what is the purpose of the trip? i.e. What do you hope to get out of this trip, why are you traveling by RV, etc? Why have you chosen I-80 as your route?

Secondarily, how much time do you have? And is this a one way trip or will you be returning to SF at the end of the trip?

I-80 is the most direct route, and if all you're trying to do is get from point a to point b as quickly as possible, then that makes sense (although traveling via RV probably doesn't at that point). If your goal is to see landmarks and national parks, then you should figure out which ones you want to see first, and worry about which highways will get there second.

[Bobbiemarks]

Many thanks for your reply.
What might help to know is that we are from the UK so are a little bit alien to the roads. Last year we travelled on route 66 in an RV and loved it so much that we wanted to do this again.
We have the RV for 16 days and picking it up from San Francisco and dropping it off in New York. Any hints and tips, best route, roads to use would be most grateful.
There is 4 of us travelling with 2 teenage daughters.
I chose the I80 as I can see that it goes from west to east and there is lots to see on the route.

[Southwest Dave]

Hi Bobbie.

On a cross country route there are thousands of options and many, many route combinations you could explore so as Michael said previously, choose destinations that interest you and then see how you can join the dots to create the route. You still don't say how much time you have and that will make a huge difference to what you can achieve. I would sit down as a family with a good map of the USA and see what appeals to you all while letting your daughters get involved and have a say. As a keen RV traveller from the UK myself I wouldn't be basing my trip around a Highway number and I like to travel along the scenic highways and Byways while visiting National and State parks, small towns and forests and lakes. Others may prefer City life (not a good choice with an RV) and easy driving so that's the reason we ask questions, as the more you can tell us the more help we can be, but just throwing a lot of suggestions at you without knowing about the time you have and your other plans would just make it overwhelming for you. Choosing I-80 as it goes from west to east is something you should research more as thousands of combinations of roads will get you west to east. Personally I would be looking at starting out heading to Yosemite and maybe across Death valley into Southern Utah or it's amazing scenery, red rocks and National parks before heading into Colorado on I-70 through the Rockies(often regarded as the most scenic of all Interstates) and explore many more wonderful options.

I would suggest doing the research as a family, ask qustions as they crop up and keep doing so as you make progress and then you will have the start of an itinerary which we will be happy to help 'tweak' and offer suggestions.

[glc]

Dave: post says 16 days.

[Southwest Dave]

Thanks George I missed that, my bad ! So that's a nice amount of time to do a bit of 'wandering' if you did want to get off Interstate and explore a bit deeper.