Travel Options

Why RVs Are Better Than Cars

You could drive a car and stay in hotels, or you can rent a comfortable home on wheels and see the National Parks up close and personal. We think renting an RV is the ultimate road trip. Compare your options and decide for yourself:

Learn more with our RV Travel FAQ

Factors	Driving a Car	Driving an RV
Comfort	Roll over the factors at the left to compare your travel options.
Cost
Flexibility
Maneuverability
Convenience
Proximity to Nature
Neighbors

In a car or SUV, you'll probably have the usual overcrowding and backseat squabbles. At the end of the day, carefully chosen hotel rooms are usually comfortable with good beds and decent bathrooms. Kitchens are nice but they're hard to find for every night of your trip. If you're tent camping, just pray for perfect weather and no bugs!

On the road, your RV has lots of room to spread out, so you won't hear "Are we there yet?" quite as often. Once parked for the night, your home on wheels is surprisingly spacious and comfortable. After a day or two, you're settled in and it really feels like home. The stocked kitchen and clean bathroom are available 24/7.

Comfortable hotel accommodations in remote areas come at a price. The better hotels near the National Parks cost from $120 to $220 a night. Venture into a major city like San Francisco and the sky's the limit on room rates! Pitching a tent is obviously the least expensive option, but you'll pay a price in comfort!

Traveling by RV is especially economical for groups of four or more. You'll save on the cost of a renting a second hotel room and since you have your own kitchen, you won’t have to eat out 3 meals out every day. Best of all, going out is always an option! In your Adventure Kit we'll tell you about the restaurants that are worth a short trip into town.

Hotels need to be booked well in advance of your trip, which locks you in to a rigid itinerary with no room for last minute course changes due to weather, unforeseen delays or an irresistible temptation to spend just one more day in a newfound paradise.

Popular RV-friendly campgrounds can fill up during the summer high season (Yosemite comes to mind), but availability is more flexible than with hotels and last minute alternatives are almost always available. We know which campground reservations are critical and we’ll make them for you.

Cars are easy to drive and easy to park. You can go faster and cover more ground.

Most RVs are built on a heavy-duty van chassis (like an ambulance or delivery van) which offers a familiar-feeling driving position and predictable handling. Quickly pulling off the road to watch an animal grazing can be tricky. However, most of the places you will visit routinely accommodate RVs and have separate RV parking.

In hotels you don't have to make beds or do dishes, but packing and unpacking your suitcase gets old after awhile. Since you will depend on often-crowded restaurants for your meals, you may waste a significant amount of time foraging (and waiting) for your food. If you're camping, just setting up and tearing down your campsite can take 2-3 hours out of your day.

An RV is the ultimate in traveling convenience. Your clothes are always accessible in drawers and closets. Beverages and snacks are as close as the refrigerator. Have lunch wherever you find a pretty spot. An afternoon nap in air-conditioned comfort is always a most enjoyable option.

Some hotels can isolate you from your surroundings. Parking lots, other buildings and traffic noise can obscure the very sights and sounds of nature you're here to see. When it comes to being close to nature, tenting offers the biggest rewards -- if you're willing to sleep on the ground.

We look for campgrounds that are situated away from traffic in scenic areas with trees, rocks, and plenty of open space for an evening stroll. While sitting by the campfire or through the open windows of the RV, we have heard howling wolves, bugling elk, gurgling streams and crashing waves. We have seen spectacular desert sunrises, moose wading in still marshes, and – just once – a bear demolishing a Subaru!

The closest you come to getting to know your fellow guests at a hotel is sitting at adjacent tables slurping Fruit Loops™ in the breakfast room before you check out. If you are camping in a tent, you'd probably like to be alone. But National Park campgrounds can be busy places, and you have little security if you leave your tent for a hike.

Every time you pull in to a campground, you join a small, temporary community to interact with as much or as little as you desire. You (and your children if you have them) will meet all sorts of interesting folks from all over the world with all sorts of stories to tell. It beats the heck out of sitting on a hotel bed watching sitcoms.