56. Playground Scouting: How We Do It

Playgrounds are critical to toddler RV life. We make a point to find playgrounds, especially on drive days. This can be more challenging due to the size of our RV, but here are some ways we figure it out:

• Map out the safest RV route between destinations.

• Try to notice green areas along the highways, especially at the fringe of towns, and see where the parks are. Can also try searching playground or park, but sometimes that will miss them.

• Once a playground has been identified, check out the google pictures to see if it looks decent.

• Once a decent playground has been identified, change to satellite view and see if there is any obvious large parking lot that can fit the RV. If needed, drop to street view to see how the parking looks from a car view.

• If no large parking lots, check for nearby street parking.

• If no street parking, check for nearby grocery stores or malls with large parking lots (example photo above, we parked by the Safeway).

• If none of these are around, find another playground.

• Once you find a good playground option, check the surrounding area and route in for a lunch spot, if needed. Or else, prepare lunch in the RV. We did a lot of Subway on the drive days, and Domino's to a lesser degree. Most of the time, we had our own food in the RV though.

  
  

Pitfalls:

• Can't tell if there are steep hills (we had to leave from a playground before we could stop because the whole area was a huge hill that we didn't feel safe parking on with the RV).

• Can't tell if an area is sketchy. We have felt weird at one or two playgrounds, so we spent as little time as possible before leaving. In cases like that, a popsicle was a good way to lure Jordan back to the truck without her getting too upset for leaving early.