To be honest, if you had asked us before the trip, we would have said that Rumple was going to be one very unhappy mutt. He is terrified of traveling in cars, afraid to wade into a stream of pond even to get a drink and at an overweight 14 1/2 not a great candidate for 3 hour hikes.
For the first 10 years of his life, a car trip reduced Rumple to a shaking, drooling practically catatonic mess. After our attempts to entice him by trips to parks etc failed, we resigned ourselves to drugging him whenever we needed to take him anywhere. When he developed allergies in 2012, we discovered that Benardryl calmed him down in all sorts of ways, including making it possible for him to ride in the car without further medication. But it was still an ordeal and usually once in the car he could not be budged (e.g. to get a drink or relieve himself) until we were at our final destination.
However, Rumple has not had any problems at all with the RV. He no longer uses his bed much, preferring to be closer to his humans. But he is relaxed, and gets out to have a stretch when we do.
National and state parks and our friends are all pretty pet-friendly, so Rumple can traipse along with no difficulty. Museums and indoor restaurants are not so welcoming. So far, it has been cool enough to leave Rumple in the car, and he has tolerated that well, too. When we get to the real hot weather, we will likely have to leave him in the RV, which has air-conditioning. On the other hand, we have found that in the south many restaurants that have outdoor seating are very dog-friendly, bringing a bowl of water for the dog and sometimes even treats.
Since Rumple does not like to wade, he has never been swimming. In fact, before this trip, the only time he has been in the water was a memorable Mother’s Day hike when we ended up wading across an icy waist-deep stream. Instead of following us, he stayed on the shore crying until Chuck went back and carried him across. So we were not certain whether he would like kayaking.
To get Rumple into the kayak, we lift him in from shore and then push the kayak into the water. Since he is pretty much sitting in Naomi’s lap, he tolerates this for about an hour before getting antsy and looking for a means to get to land. The other day he mistook a floating patch of duckweed for land and took a flying leap into the water. 
Our kayaks being pretty much rafts, the boat hardly rocked. However, Rumple got the shock of his life as he discovered that he was unable to touch bottom. Fortunately, this elderly dog with no swimming experience still had an instinct to dog paddle.
Naomi still had the leash, but could not paddle with one hand. And Rumple was totally disoriented. After a couple of minutes, we decided the best idea was to let go of the leash and hope that he would follow us to shore, because lifting him back into the kayak from the water did not seem feasible. Fortunately, he made it to shore, and the alligators rumored to inhabit lovely Lake Marion did not make an appearance. Fortunately as well,, the shoreline muck was not slippery. However, once again Naomi got to kayak with a muddy dog in her lap. No photos of Rumple swimming – we were too concerned with keeping him from drowning.
Rumple has always enjoyed several short walks during the day, and often walks of an hour or more one the weekend. However, we are serious (if slow) hikers while traveling. Sightseeing in a city or town, we seldom walk for more than a couple of hours without stopping. Sometimes we have been able to enjoy a snack in a park or cafe with outdoor seating where Rumple can join us. At other times, he waits for us back in the car.
In the woods it is another matter. We have hiked for as long as 4 hours without a real rest stop. We have found that he (and we) do best if he is off leash, as he likes to sniff around and then catch up. We are not too worried about his bothering the wildlife – at his age he cannot catch anything faster than a snail – but we do keep an eye out for larger animals, particularly other humans with their dogs. As we move farther south, we are running into more people on the trails, especially on the weekends. The first couple of hikes led to a very tired dog for the rest of the day. However, Rumple, like his humans, is getting more in shape.
There are advantages and disadvantages to having a dog on our trip. The biggest disadvantage is that we always have to figure out where he can stay when we are going some place that is not dog-friendly. Besides that, Rumple has always been very insistent on night and morning walks. It is quite impossible to sleep in when he is around. Naomi, who is the morning dog-walker, has seen several sunrises that she would have otherwise missed, and even some earlier walks. The advantage, however, is that Rumple is a conversation-starter. Lots of people want to pet him or talk about their own pets.
Rumple’s biggest networking triumph to date was to get us a campsite on MLK weekend, when all the campgrounds were fully booked. A neighboring camper stopped to pet him. In the course of the conversation she mentioned that her husband had just gotten a job, as a result of which they had just decided to leave a week early. We went to the office together, and the next thing we knew we were able to keep our campsite.