Looking to take a RV trip down the east coast from Maine to Florida with our 4 kids. Looking for tips from anyone who has done this trip. Best places to stop? What did you travel in? How long did you take?

With an RV you will have a lot of problems seeing the city centers. There really aren't nay places to park one within easy reach of the major cities - you will need to stay at elast an hour or more away and then take public transit to or fro - wasting a lot of time and money.

If you want to stick to the countryside - then it's doable - but I beleive many campgrounds are very crowded and you need to reserve far in advance.

But I would check an RV site for people who have done this is lot - something not a lot of people on this board do.

You can find lots of info on RV site - especially the forum.
www.rv.net
This type of travel is a very different--really need to plan ahead for places to camp. In most states camping in "rest stops" is not allowed.
Most average 8-9-10 miles per gallon so you have to allow for that expense.

With gas now at +/- $3.50 per gallon and likely to be +/- $4.50 this summer, this could be an expensive trip,even if you own your RV. I also think that you will have to reserve camping spots well in advance which takes away a lot of the freedom that you hope to have by using an RV. You can stop for the night in a lot of Walmart parking lots, but some local authorities are cracking down, and it certainly isn't scenic.

I have never done this, but if I were I would try to stay at Race Point in Provincetown. The RV's sit right on the edge of the ocean, though my guess is that those spots are all reserved already for this summer.

We have a 40-foot motorhome that we hope to travel in full time when we retire at the end of the year. The RV net forum is good for research. As are blogs written by RVers -- there are a lot of them ... HitchItch (http://www.hitchitch.com/) has a selection to get you started. (Mine is here: http://2totravelphaeton.blogspot.com/, but as we're new to this, we don't have any extended trips. (Spent a week in the Outer Banks in April 2011; and have done some weekend stints at state parks in the northern Virginia area.)

You don't say how long you have for the trip ... Maine to Florida is a long drive even in a car; and it will take longer in an RV so factor that in. If I were in your shoes, I'd probably pick a couple of places to focus on based on your interests and not try to do the entire length of the coast. Campgrounds will be crowded during the summer, so you might need advance reservations. The East Coast campgrounds are expensive, so factor that in to your planning as well as the cost of gas.

Have a terrific time.

You really need to focus on what you want to see. Seeing major cities from an RV park an hour or more away won't be easy - and getting into thoe parks will reqauire advance reservations and be expensive - I beleive the closest one to Manhattan - in New Jersey - costs more than $80 per night to park and is often booked up.

As for parking in store or mall parking lots - that may be allowed in the west - but in much of the east this is not legal - stores don't want people living in their parking lots and police simply won;t allow that - or stopping by the side of the road or in rest stops overnight. Also - in the NE there are a lot of "parkways" which allow only passenger vehicles - no trucks, buses or RVs - since the roads are too narrow and bridges too low. (I once saw a misplaced RV on the road leading off the Verazzano Narros bridge. It was taking 2 lanes - since it was wider than one - and shortly a police car arrived to give them a ticket - I beleive $250 - and escrot them off the road.)

If you want to do this see the countryside it will be possible with careful planning - but this is not the way to see any of the larger cities.

We rented 30' RV's for two trips with our two kids when they were teens. One trip through the southern states and one to Alaska. Had a blast on both.

While Fodor's is a great forum for non RV travel, I too strongly urge you to go over to the RV.net forum and ask all your RV questions there. You will be warmly welcomed by a group with experience in exactly the trip you want to take.

Have fun!

I agree with checking out the forums on rv.net Also check the forums on irv2.com and rvforums.net. We bought our first motorhome a year and a half ago and the friendly, helpful people on all three of these RV sites have taught us so much.

They'll be able to guide you as to how difficult it will be to find camping space - there are possibly State or Federal camping areas that will coast much less than private cgs.

If you're thinking of renting and RV, just know it won't be cheaper and will, in all likelihood, be more expensive than going the car/motel route.

We love our RV and plan to travel up the east coast at some point, but I wouldn't want to do it without our trusty Wrangler in tow to get us around the areas where an RV big enough for 6 people would be a nightmare to navigate.

Some much depends on what you want to do on this trip. A bit more info here and on the RV forums would lead to more detailed answers.

Thank you all for your input. We plan to be gone for 4 months, in the fall. We might not go all the way around the tip of Florida if we get crunched for time. My wonder is this...once we get past NYC and DC area, will we still struggle with a motothome?

No, I don't think so. It will be off season and camping and RVing are more popular in the south.

I still think gas is going to continue to go up, but if you don't move more than once a week and can tow a small vehicle to drive into cities, you will join many, many people who still find this a nice way to see the country.

I don't know about costs of tolls for an RV, but heading down the Garden State Parkway to Cape May and taking the ferry to Lewes, DE might be fun for the kids, then head down to Assateague/Chincoteague and see the ponies and the beautiful beach. There is a campground on Assateague right near the beach. If you continue south from there you come to the Bay Bridge (big toll) which is interesting also. This puts you close to Williamsburgh/Jamestown/Yorktown historic areas as well as Virginia Beach. This route avoids the whole Baltimore/DC/Richmond traffic struggle.

4 months!! Wow, and good for you. I am sure you will need to have a car in tow to sightsee.
I would think you could make a list of the "biggies" you want to see--Boston, NYC, Washington, etc. and estimate the time you want to spend there. Then start deducting from your total days.
Then there are the parks--list them, and so on.
Are you going on toward NOLA, for example. Is this one way or RT?
Our niece and nephew did 3 weeks in the West last summer and had a ball--in an RV. We did 6 weeks with our kids out west, but in a custom van and did some camping. Great experience.

Yes you will struggle with an RV especially with 4 kids.
This is dependent on finding a company that will allow 1 way rentals. Perhaps rent an RV in the Boston area for your trip to Maine. Return the RV where you rented it and take the train to the cities you want to see between NYC, PHL, WAS. Decide in Washington if you want to rent a car one way to Florida or take the train to Florida.
Rental RV's are best for trips of less than 500 miles returning to the place where you rented them.
Some car rental companies allow 1 way rentals to travelers from outside the US without drop off fees.

No advice. Just wishing good luck. Our family with 3 kids did lots of RV camping, first a tent, then several folddowns, and finally travel trailer. You speak of a motorhome which is good for the size of your gang. You didn't say how old your kids but hope they are in agreement for such a long period (away from comfy bed, TV, internet, games, pool, friends...well actually these may well be available after all except for the last which could be a problem

OK, I do have advice...involve the kids in all planning and include doing what they want. Somehow I envision long boring travel even with computer games. Somehow I also hope no outright fusses.

What's been said you already know about camping in the East vs camping out West as to camping facilities. But we did locate campgrounds outside New York and other cities and tour them. But with a motorhome I'm not sure this will work.

Bill in Boston