Camping Destinations, Events, Recipes and Adventures!
You have the logistics worked out and your RV maintenance is done – it’s time to have some fun! That means different things for different people, but here’s some ideas! Take your RV to some unique events, great destinations and on some fun road trips. If you need help with route planning and finding campgrounds near your destination, see our plan-your-trip page.
Festivals & Fairs
Search for any type of festival at festivals.com. Their great search tool includes a search by zip code or search by festival type. They have included every type of festival here, like music, food/wine/beer, art, auto, comedy, wellness, outdoor/recreation, and a whole bunch more I don’t even have room to list! The home page also shows the most popular festivals, just in case you need some ideas. I searched one of my favorites here – Milwaukee – to see what popped up. Milwaukee’s world-famous Summerfest is listed, of course; but some lesser-known fests are also listed here, and some I didn’t even know about, like the Water Lantern Festival. What a great website!
Markets
Flea Markets
For flea market fans, find your favorite at the fleamarketzone website. This site has a great database search for finding flea markets and swap meets, new and used merchandise or antiques. Search by keyword or merchandise type, zip code or state. You can also find the hours of operation, maps, information about food and entertainment all without leaving the website! Links to individual markets’ websites are listed as well.
Farmers Markets
The USDA website has a local farmers market search. Enter a zip code and distance for a list or a map view of nearby markets.
Craft Fairs
If your thing is arts & crafts, check craftsfaironline. It’s a place to start when searching for events near you. Search by U.S. region, or even Canada and the UK. The information available isn’t much – just a name, city & state and date – but it’s enough to find an event, and then you can try using a search engine to find the event by name and location. Search at the bottom of the page for crafts by type, and you’re directed to a list of vendors.
Camping Recipes
For full-time RVers, it can take a little time to get used to cooking in a small space. But there’s the advantage of being at a campsite where you most likely will have a fire pit and you’ll also have a grill at the ready. If you have electrical hookups, there are also some great pressure cooker recipes. You can also cook outdoors easily using a sun oven (we haven’t used ours yet, but found a link to some good recipes) or pie irons (pudgy pies). With some food prep before traveling, camp cooking can be pretty easy. Link to some of our favorites below:
Pudgy Pie Recipes
Stovetop Recipes
Campfire Recipes
Grill Recipes
Sun Oven Recipes
This link will take you to the Sun Oven website.
Instant Pot Recipes
The Instant Pot website includes over 1,000 pressure cooker recipes.
National Parks
There are 423 national parks in the U.S. Everyone knows about the biggest and most popular parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite, but there are so many others that are beautiful and unique, and will also have smaller crowds. That, in my opinion, makes those parks more desirable. If you are age 62 or older, get an America the Beautiful pass. The pass is $80 and is good for your lifetime, allowing free entry into national parks for you and up to 3 other adults traveling with you, and all children under age 16. You can get a pass at any federal recreation area, like a park, or online at https://store.usgs.gov/senior-pass.
Find a park at the national park service website. Search by state, or by activity such as boating, camping, hiking, scuba diving, tubing, etc.; also search by topic such as caves, dunes, fossils or waterfalls.
Road Trips
One of the things I love the most about full-time RVing is that we’re not on a schedule. Road trips are much more enjoyable when you have time to stop and enjoy all of the points of interest along the way, and even discover some new places you’ve never heard of. For help planning your route, try RV Trip Wizard. This is a great tool for route planning that includes points of interest, campground listings, driving times and even routes to avoid in your RV due to low clearances or steep inclines. There is a free trial or sign up for $49/year.
We also use Roadside America. This site guides you to fun and weird roadside attractions. Maps are available by state and you can save attractions to your route. Use the website or the iPhone app.
Some of our bucket list RV road trips:
Route 66
From Chicago to Santa Monica, this historic route is a must. A good guide to this cross-country trip is at route66roadtrip.com
Pacific Coast – Seattle to San Diego
Everything you need – National parks, sand dunes, redwoods, beaches. See a great trip guide at Road Trip USA.
Lake Superior
This trip will take you from upper Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota into Canada. Make sure you plan this one for summer months! We have done portions of this trip, and recommend stops at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Munising, MI, and the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin. A great trip planning resource is at the Lake Superior Circle Tour site.
Florida Keys
It is 100 miles from Key Largo to Key West. See state parks, bridges, Everglades, take boat tours, go snorkeling, dine on seafood. Get a guide from the National Geographic website.
Acadia National Park
Take U. S. Route 1 from Portland, Maine, to Bar Harbor, Maine. Stop for hiking or kayaking; see a lighthouse, maybe some harbor seals, puffins or even whales. The weather will be best between late spring and early fall, but this is also the busiest time to visit. In early to mid-September weather is still pleasant and Acadia is less busy. A great guide is available at the travel midcoast website.
Wine Tasting
Who doesn’t love wine tasting? Even before I appreciated wine as much as I do now, I still loved the idea of sampling several different wines while relaxing in a (typically) beautiful setting. We have toured Napa Valley, Sonoma County, and Livermore Valley and tasted some of California’s best wines. We have tasted wine at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. The best experiences we have had are at the small, unknown places scattered around the country. We love Door County, WI, for the wine tasting experience. The scenery is beautiful and the wine stewards are generous.
We found a website that helps you plan a wine tour vacation by suggesting vineyards & wineries by region, and also lists events and provides itineraries. Cellar Pass also offers wine passports for events.
This blog article from 2018 also lists the best wine tasting in all 50 states.
Since I can’t find a really good complete list, we’re going to start putting together our own! So far, the favorites are:
CALIFORNIA
Leisure Street Winery – Livermore
A great place to sit on the patio and listen to music while sipping some of the best wine in the area.
IOWA
Eagles Landing Winery
Watch bald eagles early in the morning, and then head over to the winery for an afternoon tasting.
MICHIGAN
Upper Peninsula Inspired Winery
This is a small place near the shore of Lake Superior. They have some wonderful cheeses and jams for sale also. The tasting here was very reasonable, and they were very generous!
NEBRASKA
Three Brothers Vineyard – Farnam, NE
Some of our best wine tasting on our journey to California. We enjoyed the Frontenac Gris.
NORTH CAROLINA
Biltmore Estate – Asheville
What’s better than wine tasting on these lovely grounds with fantastic views of the estate?
WISCONSIN
Door County
There are so many wineries to choose from in Door County, and they are all great. The theme is light, fruity wines, especially cranberry and cherry options.
There will be more to this list very soon!