For those who follow us on Instagram, you know our road trip down the coast of Oregon went horribly wrong due to several fires that spread to the coast and caused power outages and evacuations. So setting that aside, the few days of our road trip that did go smoothly in our Cruise America RV were very enjoyable. We really liked driving/living in our compact RV more than we thought and appreciated the convenience it usually offered throughout our adventure.

We’re hoping we get a redo in the next year or two of this trip, but until then we thought we’d compile some helpful info about renting a dog friendly RV from Cruise America while we put our itinerary on hold.

BOOKING YOUR CRUISE AMERICA RV rental

Booking an RV from Cruise America was really easy. You can do everything online at https://www.cruiseamerica.com by searching the area you’re planning to rent from and inputing the dates you’d like to rent an RV. The site will show you daily rates and availability prior to booking. We wanted to pick our RV up in the San Francisco area so we could take it home to clean and organize and leave our cars parked at home. (Cruise America does allow vehicle parking on-site at their locations, but you need to make a reservation.)

Prior to booking is the time to do a lot of research. Cruise America offers several rental durations and RV types to choose from for your home on the road. Each option outlines the amenities and we would also recommend reading the FAQs on their site to get a full understanding of what you can expect and the total cost of your adventure.

For instance, we were trying to weigh our options for driving and renting AirBnB’s along our road trip or renting an RV. So, we compared things like:

Cost of AirBnB’s verse the RV and all the RV parks to stay at
Gas to fill our car tank vs the RV - if you’re traveling out of state make sure you look up your road trip route gas prices
Mileage on our car verse the extra cost for mileage traveled with the RV - $.35/mile over 1400 miles roundtrip
Use of the generator if needed in the RV - $3.50/hour
Level of comfort driving the RV
Convenience

Ultimately, when we did the math the pros for renting an RV were going to outweigh driving and renting spots along the way. It was also an experience we really wanted to do. If you’re not really excited to rent an RV, I wouldn’t do it. It’s not easy.

MAKING RV PARK RESERVATIONS

Once you decide to book an RV, you then need to make reservations at RV sites along your route to gain access to hookups and be able to park, eat and sleep. Thankfully, my grandpawrents are full-time RVers so Doodle Mom knew a thing or two about renting and living in a RV before our adventure.

The KOA network is a great resource for finding the best RV parks in the area you’re traveling and all reservations and payment can be made online. We didn’t care much about amenities (we were traveling during COVID 19 so nothing was open), so we focused on pet-friendly sites, which most are, and the convenience of the site along our route because we didn’t want to veer too much from the coast.

You’ll need to know the specs of your RV rental in order to find the right site and provide the right details to the park. Look for details like:

The length of your RV: site lengths can vary and there’s different site options (pull-through and back-in) based on your length and level of comfort parking the RV
Slideouts: If the RV you’re renting has slideouts or not
Amps needed to support your RVs power source
If the RV site comes with a dump connection or not: You’ll see “full hook ups” if a site does have water, power and dump connections. If a spot doesn’t, it’ll state “water and electric”. That means there’s a community dump site on property that’ll you have to drive to in order to flush your gray and black water. Our number one recommendation is to always get full hook ups.

Get familiar with your Cruise America RV rental

Once you’ve secured your RV rental and made all your RV site reservations, it’s time to get familiar with your Cruise America RV rental. This means reading the manual so you know exactly how to work everything and what to expect. It’s super helpful to watch some videos of the layout of the RV to start planning how you’re going to pack up all your essentials for your road trip.

If you’re renting the Compact RV from Cruise America, here’s a quick tour of our RV rental to get a sense for the inside. There’s also several detailed videos on Cruise America’s site and YouTube.

Tour the Cruise America Compact RV:

If you’re a first time RV renter/driver, we highly recommend the Cruise America compact RV. It was plenty of space for the three of us, provided plenty of storage cabinets for our food and clothes and had a decent size fridge/freezer combo. Doodle Dad also felt really comfortable driving it in tight spaces.

This bathroom is a toilet/shower combo, so you do have to wipe things down after you shower, which was a bit annoying. And the full size bed is lofted above the car seats, so if your dog is used to sleeping with you you’ll need to be able to lift them and feel comfortable with when them not trying to jump down.

packing your essentials for your cruise America rv rental

Cruise America does provide vehicle and personal starter kits for renters ranging from $60-$110 that cover things like kitchen necessities, bedding, towels, etc. But since we travelled during COVID-19 (and Doodle Mom is a neat freak), we decided to supply everything ourselves and to even clean the interior again before we started packing all our things in. Cruise America is following CDC guidelines for cleaning all rental RVs when returned, but we didn’t want to take any chances and figured an extra clean would just give us more piece of mind.

Since we made our own RV kits, Doodle Mom planned to use extra bedding we already had that fit the dimensions of the RV bed and use a lot of our camping kitchenware. We did pack some of our pots and pans, shower toiletries, first aide kit, etc. and did a lot of meal prepping so we only packed the food we truly needed since the fridge/freezer are smaller than what you’re used to at home.

Additional things to consider that you won’t get whether you purchase a kit from Cruise America or follow their list to make your own:

First aide kit (human and dog): You should really never travel without first aide essentials and you definitely shouldn’t when going on an adventurous road trip in an RV. You can find our dog first aide kit on Amazon.
Dog paw wipes: Doodle Mom is pretty religious about wiping my paws anytime we come home from walking outside and traveling is no different. Since we were going to be living in the RV for 10 days, she wanted to ensure it stayed as clean as it possibly could for our sanity.
Packing cubes: There is a small hanging wardrobe in the Cruise America compact RV to the side of the fridge that we used for jackets and sweaters, but beyond that there is no closet space so you’ll need to use the overhead cabinets. Instead of packing our clothes in suitcases, we organized our clothes in packing cubes. This allowed our clothes to better fit in the space we needed. For what didn’t fit, we packed in duffle bags so it was easy to move them around and store on seats verse having suitcases roll around and need space to fold open.
Extra towels: Similar to the first aide kit, you never know what’s going to happen, so it’s always nice to be prepared. Beyond packing kitchen towels to dry hands/dishes and bathroom towels for hands and showering, Doodle Mom packed what she calls “crap towels”. These can be used for things like wiping down the bathroom after someone showers because yes, the toilet, sink and everything else get wet. Or for wiping paws and feet after the beach or something spills on the counter, etc.
Headlamp: With the way our itinerary was planned we were moving locations every day and depending on how much time we spent on day activities, we could be rolling into our RV site after daylight and need to hook up. When you’re doing this you really need both hands, so Doodle Dad swore by his headlamp and said it made everything really easy.
Bluetooth car connector/speaker: On a road trip you need music and podcasts, right? Well as you can probably expect, the interior of the Cruise America compact RV isn’t the most up to date and this bluetooth car adapter worked like a charm. It would last all day while we were on the road and then we would charge it at night when we were hooked up to shore power for the next day.
Outdoor dog bed: The Cruise America compact RV was setup perfect for me to be the humans co-pilot. There was plenty of space between their two bucket seats for my bed so I could lay right in-between them while we drove. Since there’s a lot of in and out when you’re road tripping and a lot of it is outdoor activities, we took my car bed that’s made of durable outdoor material so it was easy to keep clean and didn’t get ruined by any of our activities.
Over the door hooks: In the Cruise America compact RV there’s only so many places to put things and only 4 hooks are installed in the RV. These extra hooks gave us space to hang kitchen towels, cosmetic bags, hand towels for the bathroom and jackets.
Tall kitchen gloves: These are ideal for when you have to flush the gray and black water tanks. That’s definitely not something you want to get on your hands.
Vacuum: A broom is on the starter kit list, but Doodle Mom knew she’d prefer a vacuum since we had a lot of beach stops on our itinerary.
Pillow top mattress cover: The beds aren’t the coziest in the Cruise America compact RV and are a bit makeshift in how the cushions are pieced together, so Doodle Mom bought a pillow top mattress cover to stretch across our overhead bed to try and make it a little softer.

In our opinion these items were lifesavers!

PICKING UP YOUR RV

When the day final comes for your trip and it’s time to pick up your rental, you’ll head to the Cruise America rental location, review your rental agreement, add on any last minute items (like returning with a full tank of gas, returning the black water tank full/empty, etc.) and then you’ll be escorted to your RV for an overview from a Cruise America staff member.

The staff member will do a run through to note any damage to the RV and then will cover all the important maintenance things to know when living in the RV: where your dump hose and shore line connection is, the location of the gas tank, how to pull the levers to release water, how to access the propane tank and the order of operations needed for keeping it on/off to power the fridge, what keys work where, and the power console inside to keep an eye on your water levels and power sources.

After all that is done, the staff member will hand over the keys and you’ll be on your way for your adventure!

Are you planning to rent an RV? What other information would be helpful to share? Drop a note in the comments and we’ll be happy to answer any questions.