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Camping in America

© Thomas Stephens Sr.

To say that I and my wife Pam enjoy-even love camping--well, we even name our trips! There was "The Great American Waldo Romp", The Polly-wog", "The Grand Canadian Beagle Boogie" and "The Maiden Voyage of 88" to name a few. We plan our treks down to the smallest detail. Because Pam or I have had jobs to plan around, we have planned our camping trips using a daily agenda for listing daily destinations, miles to travel, estimated time of arrival, campgrounds and driving directions to find them once we are in the area, a daily budget and ad nauseum. Many people don't do this. For those who do like planning, your computer has lots of answers.

Recently we decided to buy a program to help with all this planning. Most often, we know what area of this beautiful country we want to see, but our first question is where will we camp when we get there. Be it a State or National Park or a private resort, we want to know our choices. Microsoft's Trip Planner 98 has been a lot of help and boy, is it fun to use. You can order this CD on-line at Microsofts Trip Planner 98 or purchase it through a local vendor. It offers 75 terrain level maps of National Parks, Woodall's listing of 12,000 campgrounds, and fantastic routing software. You can set your own driving preferences and plan your stops along the way. Woodall's campground directory is not very comprehensive however. There are much better sources of information to locate State Parks and beaches as well as specific campgrounds within a National Park. If you're like us, and you want to hit the road early in the morning after an overnight camp, Zagat restaurant listings provides 17,000 possible choices for a quick breakie. We prefer a golden arches quick stop and to eat on the road.

The Official Campground Directory of the Good Sam Club is still the most comprehensive source of campgrounds in North America. Trailer Life Directory 1998 is the BIBLE, and it is a thicker book every year. Trailer Life's web site is at Trailer Life Directory. The directory can be ordered there plus they offer a free search site to find campgrounds on-line. We found the site a little confusing. If you do not know the name of the campground or park you are looking for, you can't find it. For example, we know that we want to camp for a few nights just north of San Francisco so we want to know the campgrounds in that area. But without knowing the name, the web search is futile. Trailer Life is now developing a CD software program theat is equivalent to their directory. If so, we will buy it.

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