A National Park RV Trip in Pictures

We love it when our clients share their family vacation experiences with us through photos, blogs, video and survey responses. The Brot family just completed their second Tracks & Trails driving adventure -- this time to the Grand Canyon area. Ilene Brot posted her family's photos at Shutterfly and invited us to share them with the rest of the Tracks & Trails community. (Thanks, Ilene!) Just click the title above. Adn while you're there, be sure to have a peek at pictures from their 2008 trip to Yellowstone, too.

So if you want to picture your family taking an RV vacation in one of our fabulous National parks, the Brot's photo albums will show you just what to expect.

Our clients are out there traveling!

With all the new technology these days, we have a unique ability to follow along with our client's adventures. And now that the summer is here and our client's are hitting the road, many will be keeping journals, updating family blogs and taking tons of pictures and video. We will be posting most everything that comes to us in the coming months, both here and on our Facebook page (if you are on Facebook, just search for "Tracks & Trails" and become a fan!).

In the links section on the left side of our blog, we've just added a link to the Justices' personal travel journal. They are using www.mytripjournal.com to chronicle their adventure this month. They will be heading out this Friday for Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.

Keep checking back here to see what our clients see and do on a Tracks & Trails National park driving vacation! And we are still talking to folks about trips later this summer and fall as well as in 2010. So if you want to have as much fun as our clients after you see examples of what a great time they have, check out our website and pick a trip that's great for you!

What we do for you!

We get this question (or some version of it) all the time - especially during these tough economic times - how much are you charging us for your time and what do I get for it?

Sometimes folks think that all we do is reserve campgrounds. We do so much more than that!

We have been planning RV road trips for over 10 years and know the best places to stay at the right time of year and customized to your family's wants and desires. We work with over a dozen different RV rental companies, over 400 campgrounds and over 300 outfitters so that we can create an amazing once-in-a-lifetime vacation for you and your family.

Above all, we listen. In the planning phase we take into account who you are and what are your interests. Behind the scenes we discuss what would be the best route and what will be the fun experiences you will want along the route. All that information ends up in your Adventure Kit. You'll get tips about traveling by RV, a detailed day-by-day custom itinerary, vouchers for all the components of your trip, hand-traced maps of your route with highlights of things to see and do, and folders of each major destination with our proprietary More Abouts (detailed mini-travel guides) including brochures and magazines of the area (we have tested and researched this extra material so that it is not only informative but relavant to your trip).

Many of our clients have told us that their Adventure Kit is their "bible" on their trip. That's a great compliment and tells us that between the planning efforts and the Adventure Kit, that we more than earn our extra charge. A Tracks & Trails road trip adventure is self-guided and we do our best to provide you with all that you'll need to have a great trip to a National park, state beach or other amazing destination.

If you have any questions, don't give it a second thought and call 1-800-247-0970 and talk to one of our trip consultants to find out if a Tracks & Trails custom road trip is for you!

Happy June! Summer is here!

As Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer, we're knee deep in the summer vacation season. May was another great month for Tracks & Trails and now we get to the time when most of our clients are hitting the road! Over the next three months we'll be shipping out our client's Adventure Kits, checking road conditions, looking at weather reports and providing assistance to our clients as they embark on their self-guided driving adventures.

We have a number of websites that we check regularly for road closures, construction delays and wildfire updates. While they are too numerous to list here, it's safe to say that we can get the latest information at short notice for our clients while they are in the midst of their trips. Also, each and every RV rental company that we work with provides 24-hour road assistance. So that way, someone is there to help with any problems with the RV along the road.

We also provide assistance with re-routing when necessary. Many of the destinations have remote roadways that can be impacted by weather, rockfalls, flooding and other natural impacts. We can help with changing routes, checking availability with campgrounds or help with notifying excursion outfitters with new information. One thing that is difficult once trips have started is to cancel stuff mid-trip. Cancellation policies kick into effect. This is why we strongly recommend trip insurance for all of our clients. We just had one client who had a child break an arm and this caused a major restructuring of their trip. If it wasn't for trip insurance, they would have lost much of the cost of their trip.

So, as we say to many of our clients (and to those on the road this summer!), "Happy Trails" and we hope to be able to help out if you run into troubles while on a Tracks & Trails road trip adventure this summer!