Travel from Washington Area with RV

[lazarru]

We are consdiering an RV and staying at FW. We live in NJ, but have an event in Washington so what we are consdering is renting in NJ, traveling down to Washington and staying somewhere there for a couple of days, then make thr drive down to FW.

My question is what is the time down from Washington to Disney and what is a good stop off place along the way? I've seen some people say SC, but it seems like that would only be about 6 hrs from Washington so it would seem to be a bit close and too far away from Disney. I would like to get to about 4 hrs outside of Disney for the last drive in, but don't know if I'm expecting too much.

Thanks for the help

 

[tim5055]

Should you decide to do this, make sure you check the mileage fees. Most RV rental companies don't make a lot of money on the daily fee, they make it on the mileage!

Not to answer your question. Driving fast Annapolis to WDW is around 16 hours. Now you can take about 40 minutes off the Annapolis to DC leg so that gives you a ballpark figure.

SC seems to be a good half way point for us, but driving a little further would get you int FW earlier the last driving day.

On our last trip we stopped in SC for a few days, but on the last one I took a nap in the afternoon and drove out of the campground around midnight. Made it nice as we missed the Orlando commute and pulled into FW at around 8AM. Or site was ready so we were set up by 9!

 

[Gunship Guy]

A friend of ours rents a Class C from a local RV dealer every summer. What he ends up paying for his 7-10 day vacation would make the payments on our 35' Dutchmen for the entire year! I've tried to convince him to just buy a trailer and stop pouring his money into something he can't keep.

On his last trip he spent over $1000 just on mileage. Add to that the daily fee and gas. Not sure how he handled the insurance issue.

As for your routing...there are several trip computing programs available free over the internet. Try typing in the keyword "trip routing" or something similar. We've used Map Quest a few times. www.mapquest.com


Good luck.

 

[lazarru]

You've got a good point on the renting, I've got a quote of about $2500 for a 2 week rental but really we don't have much other choice. It's hard to justify actually buying something that's going to sit in the driveway for 50 weeks a year, not to mention the upkeep on it when your doing that.

 

[JCJRSmith]

Why would it have to sit in the driveway for 50 weeks? If you do what other camper owners do, you will be taking it out every weekend you get a chance.

 

[Gunship Guy]

Lazarru, if you don't plan to go camping more than just 2 weeks a year and your heart's not really into it then purchasing probably isn't for you. Although, upkeep when it's sitting in your driveway is next to zero. At least that's been my experience. We don't need to winterize our trailer down here in Florida.

Piggybacking on what JCJRSmith said, we look for opportunities to get away for the weekend. Most people have some sort of campground fairly close to where they live which makes getting away quite simple. Our favorite local campground is just down the street in Destin, FL. Our boys look forward to the weekends because they know we'll most likely go camping. We've been doing this for 9 years now. They were so young when we started that they don't even remember their first time camping at Ft Wilderness.

I never had this opportunity when I was a kid. I know my sons will remember these weekends with fondness. If you have children I'm pretty confident they will talk for years about the time Dad rented the motorhome and drove to Florida. How can it not be fun!