I wanted to summarize my personal thoughts on RV caravans. Let me emphasize that again – my personal views. These comments are based on the one and only caravan I have ever been on, the 63 day trip to western Canada and Alaska. So take it for what it is worth, perhaps very little!
We signed up for this caravan after our planned trips (sans caravan) in 2020 and 2021 were cancelled due to COVID. We were really worried that with three years of demand we wouldn’t be able to find places to stay or get into attractions we were interested in. It turns out the increase in diesel prices kept a lot of people closer to home this year. Few campgrounds were completely full, and there were nearby options for the ones who were. Oh well, live and learn.
Good things:
Everything is set up for you, and you need to plan very little. This is particularly good if you are new at RVing or new at long trips. I would say well over half of the folks were in the “newer” category, though some had been full-timing for years. We had travel booklets with routes identified in detail.
Lots and lots of full hookup campsites and even more electric/water sites. We have never in our life stayed at so many serviced campsites in the period!
Lots of built in social activities if you choose to participate. Things like drinks around the fire or dinner at a local restaurant.
A good wagon master is well organized, keeps people informed, provides alternatives if an activity isn’t appropriate for an individual. We had travel briefings every 2-3 days to discuss the details of the next few days travel and planned activities. The wagon master also confirmed our campgrounds and directed us to our sites when we arrived. Our wagon master was amazingly organized. He was retired military man, and it showed.
The tail gunner can be extremely helpful if you have trouble on the road. Every morning he went by all the rigs thumping tires to give a brief check. At the start of the trip, he crawled under everyone’s rigs checking out undercarriages, springs, shackles, etc. We had a few people come down with serious rig issues on the road, and the tail gunner stayed with them until they got to the campsite or had service arranged.
The activities that a group can get are more varied than an individual can get. For example, we had guides when individuals did not, for example on an old riverboat. We were allowed into special areas that weren’t open to the public, like a puffin exhibit at an aquarium. We got a special viewing of sled dogs and a presentation that others did not, and there were other things. The bus trips were nice since we got an entire bus to ourselves and the trips were customized to our group.
Now for the not so good things.
With all that planning there were times I really wanted to stay longer or stay less long at certain places. There is significant rigidity in the schedule. And I found the schedule,rushed. I would have taken at least half again as long for the trip, maybe twice as long. It was more of a sample rather than in-depth, even at 63 days.
Some of the activities were of zero value to us. For example, we spent lots of time at coastal towns where the main activity was fishing. The thing is, we aren’t anglers! These are very small places that can be well explored in a day or two, but we stayed longer.
While the social butterflies were extremely happy, I found all the emphasis on group socialization a bit uncomfortable. We are more introverted, and we are used to solitary camping in a wide variety of places. There were a few days where I just hid in the camper because I was overwhelmed and “peopled” out!
I got tired of the complaints people had about the campsites. We were in fairly remote areas much of the time, and campground amenities weren’t 4* except in a very few places. If we had electrical service, it was almost always 30 amp. They didn’t tell us this when we signed up, but they did tell us in the preparatory emails we got a month or so ahead of time. Those with full electric rigs that need 50 amp struggled some, and a few of them (ok, one in particular) whined on a regular basis. I think this fits in with the item above – no control over who we were around.
Summary: We won’t do a caravan again. I am just too solitary a creature to enjoy the forced company of others quite so much. I will happily trade the special group activities for the flexibility of staying as long as we want where we want. While I recognize the value a caravan trip might have for many, it just wasn’t our cup of tea. Oh, and I don’t think Adventure Caravans, the company we went through, is significantly different than Fantasy. It wasn’t Adventure Caravan’s fault that we just aren’t caravan people. They did exactly what they said they were going to do, so I won’t fault them.