GPS Tracking

GPS Tracking Systems Help Senior ‘Road Warriors’ Stay Connected to Family

This winter was a good one for recreational vehicle parks located in warm weather climates. A national chain of RV parks called Equity Lifestyle Properties reported a 16.5 percent increase in revenue this winter over last.

The difference is an increase in snowbird campers, said the National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds.

There are three general categories of RVers: vacationers, part-timers and full-timers. The quickest growing group of these three is the full-timers. These are people who live in their RVs nearly all 52 weeks of the year. A majority of them sell their brick-and-mortar homes. They give up a permanent address for a license plate number.

Many senior citizen spouses choose this lifestyle to downsize, simplify their lives, meet new people and rediscover their lives as a couple.

Some contributing factors to the increase:

• Aging baby boomers. There are simply more retired and pre-retirement individuals in the world today.
• A questionable economy and financially-conservative consumers, wishing their travel to be comfortable, memorable, but not over-indulgent.
• Reasonable fuel prices (certainly not the $4.50-per-gallon peak the U.S. hit in June, 2008)
• The nation’s raised consciousness about fitness and Earth-friendly endeavors.

Most folks who cut the apron strings and choose a life as “full-timers” plot out five, six or eight destinations a year. When they arrive at each, they stay for awhile and set down temporary roots. Some take on jobs. They are called work-campers.

Sharon Smith, 68, who with her husband Bill, 73, is spending the winter in Falcon State Park in southern Texas, gave three reasons for choosing their home on wheels: They enjoy traveling, they like meeting new people and they’re on a budget.

Many industries in the consumer market are catering to full-time RVers, an intriguing and ever-expanding culture. Many electronic products are designed to make an RV a true home away from home, ranging from satellite dishes to wireless Internet. Custom software offers spreadsheets for travel expenses, a tracking system for vehicle service and repair, and an address book for personal contacts, campgrounds and businesses.

One of the most exciting product areas is GPS tracking and navigation systems. GPS navigation solutions will find the best route from Point A to Point B, check traffic and construction status and give travelers turn-by-turn directions to their next destination.

GPS tracking systems, either real-time GPS tracking or passive GPS tracking, have many applications in the RV world. Vehicle tracking systems help ensure that traveling cross-country is as efficient, comfortable and carefree as possible. Today’s GPS tracking systems are small enough to fit in a pocket or palm of the hand. Many are magnetic and water-resistant, so they have a variety of vehicle placement options.

These tracking systems use satellite signals and a GPS tracking receiver to determine exactly where the mobile vacation home is, any time, anywhere on earth.  Any authorized user can track the RV by remote computer, no matter the amount of distance that divides them. Depending on the tracking system, the position update frequency can usually be changed from seconds, to minutes, to half-hour time frames.

Following are some common ways GPS tracking systems are used in an RV/mobile home setting:

• GPS tracking in RVs offers much of the same benefits as fleet management. Users can log their trips by exact speed, time and distance; calculate fuel efficiency, and track and schedule routine vehicle maintenance.
• Senior citizens, at a time in life when memories might be failing them, can use GPS tracking systems to capture and document vacation experiences.  The GPS receivers have extensive memory capacity to hold trip data and help build a vacation scrapbook, including geotagging and Google Maps.
• An exciting feature of real-time GPS tracking, that will benefit families monitoring RVers from home, is geo-fencing. Geo-fencing allows someone to program virtual boundaries, or borders, into a tracking system. An automatic text or email alert goes out to a designated user when the tracked vehicle crosses one of the borders. When Mom and Dad near home, or cross a state line, or hit those Rocky Mountains, their loved ones will be promptly notified!
• Portable hand-held GPS tracking systems often have unique mapping features and are used to navigate and record long hikes and to prevent the adventurer from getting lost.
• Finally, real-time vehicle tracking systems have a value unmatched for asset management. The GPS tracking receiver can be easily hidden on the vehicle. If the RV is stolen, its current location and heading can be monitored remotely, and law authorities have an excellent chance of recovering it.

People are living longer and healthier lives than even a generation or two ago. The recession popped the bubble on a lot of IRA accounts, so many Americans in their “golden years” do not have the savings to sail around the world or see Paris in the springtime. The alternative is setting up camp within hiking distance of Old Faithful in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park, or maybe practicing amateur photography on Arizona’s Painted Desert.

For family still coping with the daily grind, Mom and Dad’s long absences do not have to mean loss of contact. Place a vehicle tracking device on the Winnebago and children and grandchildren can log in any time to virtually watch their loved ones’ road adventures: stop by stop, landmark by landmark – minus the “you-had-to-be-there” scenic views.

Sources: Senior Housing News , New York Times

Tags: fleetmanagement, Geo-fencing, GPS Tracking, Recreational Vehicle, Retirement, RV, Vehicle Tracking

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 11:53 am and is filed under GPS Fleet Tracking, GPS Tracking, Personal Tracking, Vehicle Tracking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.