RV’ers gathered in a parking lot for a meetup in Phoenix, AZ.
The summer of 2013 I was contracting in the West Virginia / Ohio area. It was the closest I’d been to New England since 2007. So, knowing that the company I was working with would have a skeleton crew over the 4th of July holiday I took some time off to go “home” to see my family. And when I headed out I brought the Airstream with me.
One of the great benefits of being a full time RV’er is having your home with you no matter where you go. And I’ve enjoyed traveling the country with my Airstream since 2006.
The decision was made early on not to push through to New England in one day. I had gotten a late start, and decided to split the drive up into two days just to make it a relaxing trip. There wasn’t a definite plan, I decided to find a park for overnight later in the day.
Driving along I-84 in PA I popped off at a rest stop to start looking for parks ahead of me. My Garmin GPS offered very little in the way of parks listed. And when I searched for RV Parks along my route with my IPhone I was sorely disappointed.
Parks weren’t popping up. Those that did pop up were unreadable on the IPhone. Quickly I became frustrated and made the decision to push on and watch for the blue highway information signs. Finally at the PA / NY border I saw a sign and pulled into my overnight park for the evening. Lucky they didn’t have a website, as the park looked pretty shabby even though it cost me $35 for the night.
Tech travels in RV’s
Today’s RV owner is traveling with a lot of high tech gadgetry. Don’t tell me they don’t, I know they do. I camp with them every day, full time. I meet and greet my neighbors at every park, and I ask them what’s in their rig. Laptops, tablets, smartphones. It is very rare to meet someone on the road today without these devices.
And today most RV’ers are finding parks and resorts using their tech. They are not traveling with the thick RV Directory guidebooks any more. They depend on web searches, Google, AllStays, RVParkReviews.com, and many other services.
If your park depends on overnight travelers finding you, then your website should be able to reach the modern traveler. Your web presence needs to reach mobile devices, and it needs to be readable on those devices. If it doesn’t, you can bet you are missing out on potential customers.