It begins with Bob Munro (Robin Williams) having a conversation with his 5-year-old daughter Cassie (Erika-shaye Gair) at their home in Los Angeles. After some shenanigans, Bob's wife Jamie (Cheryl Hines) walks in carrying their 2-year-old son Carl. It concludes with Bob saying to Cassie "No matter what happens, we'll always be best friends."Now, ten years later, Bob is driving a BMW X5 with his family riding along, with 15-year-old Cassie (Joanna "Jojo" Levesque) asking Bob when he became such a loser. Cassie is a typical teenager who wants little to do with Bob or Jamie. Carl (Josh Hutcherson) is now 12-years-old. And the family has planned to take a vacation to Hawaii.They're on their way to go pick up Cassie's friend Gretchen (Veronika Sztopa) at Gretchen's house, and apparently Cassie has no idea where Gretchen lives, but Cassie remembers a fountain close to Gretchen's house.After picking Gretchen up, the family ends up at a corporate get-together in a backyard BBQ type atmosphere. Bob works for a beverage company called Pure Vibe Soda, and his boss is Todd Mallory (Will Arnett). Bob suggests that Cassie and Gretchen make small talk with Mr. Mallory, so they do.However, it ends up going horribly wrong, as the only reason Gretchen wanted to tag along was to accuse Mr. Mallory in person of contributing to the bad health of children nowadays, and also accuses Mr. Mallory of causing the company to have a poor environmental record. Gretchen ends her rant by throwing a glass of green goop in Mr. Mallory's face.Later, Bob and the family drop Gretchen off at her house, and Gretchen merrily thanks them for inviting her to go with them. Bob makes a quick movement as if to run Gretchen over, and Jamie says "Don't."The Munros go home. It seems that Bob and the kids don't communicate as well as they used to. But Bob and the family are very much looking forward to the trip to Hawaii, even though Bob fears that Mr. Mallory is grooming a young co-worker named Laird (Richard Cox) to take Bob's place at the company.On the next day, Bob is at the office, with Mr. Mallory talking to him. Mr. Mallory says that he was considering firing Bob after what Gretchen did, but Mr. Mallory has decided instead to give Bob a second chance by sending him to a meeting in Colorado.Bob reminds Mr. Mallory of his family's plan to go to Hawaii, but Mr. Mallory basically tells Bob to cancel the trip to Hawaii and go to the meeting in Colorado if he wants to keep his job.Pure Vibe Soda wants to merge with a small Colorado-based company called Alpine Soda, which is run by Larry Moiphine (Rob LaBelle) and his brother Garry (Brian Markinson).It seems that Garry and Larry are getting cold feet about the merger, so Mr. Mallory wants Bob to go to Colorado with him and convince Garry and Larry to go through with the merger.A day or two after Bob's talk with Mr. Mallory, Cassie is sitting on the couch when a big green RV pulls up in front of the house. Jamie and the kids are shocked that the Hawaii vacation has been canceled, and that Bob has decided to rent an RV and drive the family to Colorado with him.This doesn't sit well with Jamie and the kids, but Bob convinces Jamie that it's for quality time with their kids, and she reluctantly agrees.Bob calls in sick to the office so he and the family can get a head start to Colorado in the RV. The family packs up, and gets in the RV. Bob has extreme difficulty getting his seatbelt on.After finally getting his seat belt on, Bob disastrously tries to get the RV turned around so they can leave. Bob ends up crashing into some things. Once he gets going, he turns on the RV'S navigation system, which he's nicknamed Lola.Jamie tells him to go straight, while the navigation system tells him to take the next right turn. Bob ends up making a hard right turn to follow the navigation system's directions, and all the stuff that was stored in an overhead cabinet falls all over Cassie, who is laying on a couch.Later, the Munros exit the Value Barn supermarket with supplies, and the RV starts rolling toward a large train of shopping carts, and plows right into the shopping carts.Bob makes a call to the RV guy whose name he cannot remember. The RV guy, Irv (Barry Sonnenfeld), tells Bob that he must have damaged the parking gear interlock and the emergency brake when he maneuvered the RV in front of his house, and Bob must now put chalks under the rear tires to keep the RV in place whenever it's parked.After hanging up. Bob pulls a bunch of shopping carts out from under the RV, and the Munros leave. As Bob is driving along, a shopping cart dislodges itself after having created sparks with its friction on the road.Jamie and the kids are each wearing a headset and singing along with what they're listening to. That seems to be driving Bob crazy. Later on down the road, the Munros stop at an RV park in Nevada, and prepare to spend the night there. Bob even activates the RV's pop-out, which is a section that extends outward from the side of the RV.Bob goes outside to hook the RV up to the electricity, but when Bob opens the electrical panel cabinet, the endless list of instructions make it look so complicated that he thinks he may never figure it out.Carl goes to use the toilet, but can't. That's because the toilet is all backed up. The previous renters didn't empty the tanks, so they have to go to a dump station and empty it themselves.Jamie and Cassie are uninterested, so they set up beach chairs in the lot. The boys go to the RV park's dump station and open the hatch to the pump. several hoses fall out of the compartment.A family behind them decides to help them out with their dumping, because it is quite obvious that Bob and Carl have no idea what they are doing. Bob gets help from a pair of men named Howie (Brendan Fletcher) and Joe Joe (Matthew Gray Gubler). Needless to say, Bob ends up being the victim of a tank eruption.Now covered by the eruption, Bob looks up to see Travis Gornicke (Jeff Daniels) telling him that he shouldn't have let Howie and Joe Joe help him, because Howie and Joe Joe don't really know what they're doing.Travis hoses Bob down with a pressure washer hose, and invites the Munros to dinner with his family that night. Bob thanks him kindly, but says he is in charge of the cooking on their trip, and should get started.Later, while Bob is cooking, Jamie and the kids ask how much longer it's going to take for the food to be ready...not soon enough. They decide to take up Travis's offer.Travis's family turns out to be quite odd indeed. Travis and his wife Mary Jo (Kristin Chenoweth) have three kids -- teenager Earl (Hunter Parrish), 12-year-old Moon (Chloe Sonnenfeld), and 9-year-old Billy (Alex Ferris). Moon instantly gets the attention of Carl, who becomes smitten with her.Bob mentions that Mary Jo is a mobile sales representative for Happy Max, a company that sells musical car horns, and she earns about $60,000 a year, so the Gornickes can afford to be an RV family, living in their red and white RV, traveling the country.The Gornicke family ends the night with a song and dance number. The Munros run away from the Gornickes, and say that they are early risers, also saying that they appreciate dinner, but won't be able to see the Gornickes again.Bob has to prepare a proposal for the meeting with Larry and Garry, so that night, Bob sneaks off to the RV park's bathroom and goes into a stall to work on the proposal on his laptop computer.Billy enters the restroom and talks to Bob for a few seconds. It seems that Billy has a sleep disorder, and as a result, he hasn't slept since he was 5-years-old, so he's just wandering around the RV park all night. He also says that Bob has a nice laptop computer.The hours go by, and Bob is finally done with his report for work, but he can't get any signal in order to send it, so he saves it to the hard drive and snuggles up in bed with Jamie, only to hear the alarm clock to go off about 30 seconds later.The family rushes to get things organized so they can hurry up and leave before the Gornickes make their way over for breakfast. They manage to get out of the RV park just in time, with Bob accidentally knocking the awning off of the RV's door area.The Munros are on the road, and they get stuck behind a slow-moving tractor that's pulling a small trailer behind it. Bob tries to pass the tractor, and almost gets hit by an 18-wheeler. Jamie says that Bob is not that good a driver, so Bob makes another attempt to pass the tractor, and barely makes it.Next, the Munros stop at a gas station because the RV's 80 gallon tank is low on gas. While the gas is pumping into the tank, Bob grabs his laptop and decides to see if he can send the proposal from the bathroom stall in the gas station. But Carl interrupts Bob before he can finish, and tells Bob that the RV is rolling away again.Bob hides the laptop behind the toilet tank in the stall. Outside, Bob finds Travis putting the chalks in place under the rear wheel. Bob and Jamie agree to have breakfast with the Gornickes, and while the Gornickes are in their own RV getting ready, the Munros race off.Before leaving, Bob tries to get his laptop out of the restroom, not knowing that a guitar player named Marty (Brian Howe) has taken it. Marty hops a ride on a truck, and is gone.The Munros drive off, with the gas pump nozzle still in the RV'S tank, because of the haste in which they left. And the Munros end up behind the slow-moving tractor again. While the Gornickes pick up a hitchhiker who turns out to be Marty, the Munros cross over into Utah, and park the RV at another RV park.Jamie goes to turn the oven on for Bob, and finds a raccoon in the oven. Everyone runs out of the RV, screaming. Jamie makes Bob go back in to get rid of the raccoon, but it turns out that there is more than one raccoon in the RV. In the Gornicke RV, the Gornickes find the laptop, and kick Marty out of the RV.At the same time, Bob buys a stink bomb from the guy who works in the RV park's office, and Bob throws it in the RV, causing three raccoons to flee from the RV.But the label on the stink bomb said that the stink could last up to six hours. The Munros are forced to sit in lawn chairs outside, even as a thunder storm moves in, and the rain starts absolutely pouring down.Bob goes to see if there's a place to go to get out of the rain, and he sees a diner on the other side of the hill. Bob slips down the side of the hill, which is now like a water-slide. The rest of the Munros follow him down.After they've reached the bottom of the mountain, they find themselves laughing about it. Maybe Bob is beginning to get his wish for his family to have some fun on this vacation, and get along better.They go to the diner, looking like hell. That night, Bob uses his blackberry to type up another report in the bathroom of the RV. He finishes and ends up climbing all over the rocks outside to get it to send, which it finally does.On the next morning, Bob sleeps while Jamie drives. Later, the Munros hear the musical horn that the Gormckes have on their RV. Bob jolts up out of the bed.Mary Jo tries to get the Munros to pull over because she has the laptop, but the Munros are oblivious to that, and they don't pull over. The Munros head to the Mount Watson RV park in Colorado.At the park's basketball court, Carl happens upon three boys (Giacomo Baessato, Justin Chartier, and Andrew Botz) who are shooting baskets, and they start picking on Carl. Bob comes to Carl's defense, and then has a talk with Carl. Bob realizes that Carl is frustrated because Carl is short for his age.Later, while Bob is using the BBQ grill, Mr. Mallory calls Bob's cell phone. Mr. Mallory wants to use Laird's proposal at the meeting instead of Bob's proposal.When Jamie and the kids decide to take a walk on a nearby trail, Bob pretends to have a really bad stomach problem so he can go to the meeting while Jamie and the kids are on the trail.Bob rushes back to the RV to change and head over to the Alpine Soda company's offices in Boulder. Bob arrives and finds Laird and Mr. Mallory there. Laird starts to give a presentation, but Laird gets nervous and chokes, so Bob takes over and does really well.Bob starts heading back toward Mount Watson, but there's a huge traffic jam because of a landslide, so Bob has to take an alternate route, a rough mountain road called Diablo Pass.On the way up the mountain, Bob somehow gets the RV stuck on a huge bump on the mountain, and then the RV makes it over, only to go plummeting down a hill with Bob holding on to the windshield wipers for dear life.The RV ends up rolling over Bob, but he doesn't get hurt because he's laying right in the middle, between the right and left sides of the RV, so the wheels don't touch him.Jamie and the kids show up to see him lying on the ground. And that's when Mr. Mallory calls Bob. Mr. Mallory tells Bob that Larry wants Bob to come back tomorrow and make his pitch to the Alpine Soda company, all of its employees, at an assembly in Larry and Garry's yard. Mr. Mallory tells Bob that if the majority of Alpine Soda's employees are in favor of the merger, then it's a done deal.On the next day, the Munros drive off to see a scenic view of a lake, and have a family bonding experience. Bob thinks he should take the RV to Boulder get the emergency brake fixed. The kids sincerely thank Bob for taking them on this vacation, and then the RV rolls into the lake, and sinks.Bob goes into the lake to try to keep the RV from sinking, but Jamie convinces him to get out of the lake. Bob lets it slip that the trip to Colorado was for work reasons. Jamie and the kids are pissed off at Bob.Bob walks into the lake and disappears...only to come out of the lake riding one of the bikes that was been hooked up to the back of the RV for the whole trip. Bob takes off on the bike, to try and get to the meeting in time to save his job. Jamie and the kids start walking, and the Gornickes show up.Jamie and the kids get in the Gornicke RV, and they're driving along. Bob is on his bike, on a mountain path, and he sees the Gornicke family's RV, and his family with them, at a gas station.Bob barrels down the hill to try and catch up to them, and ends up coming up behind the RV, and grabs onto the rear ladder. Bob climbs on, loses his $4000 bike, and is now riding on top of the RV.Bob climbs to the front and pokes his head down so the RV slams to a halt, and then they all confront him. Bob talks to Jamie, and apologizes for not being honest with her.Bob just didn't want her to know that his job was in jeopardy. Bob explains that Jamie, Cassie, and Carl mean everything to him, and that what they think about him is the most important thing in the world. Bob also explains that he didn't want to fail his family. Jamie explains that Bob means more to her than just a paycheck.As it turns out, the Gornicke RV stopped at the entrance to Alpine soda Company. Bob is grateful to Travis and the Gornickes for helping him get to the place. Bob admits that some of his behavior toward the Gornickes was wrong. Cassie apologizes to Bob for being so much trouble recently.At the meeting, Bob gives a good speech, explaining how he got to Boulder. As part of his speech, Bob explains that it's an honor to have the Gornickes as friends.At the end of the speech, Bob says that if Larry and Garry merge with Pure Vibe Soda Company, that it would be the worst decision of their lives. Mr. Mallory is irate. He tries to pass Bob off as crazy, and accuses Cassie of assaulting him with the green drink.Cassie explains that Gretchen threw the drink in Mr. Mallory's face because the Pure Vibe Soda Company has one of the worst environmental records in the entire industry. Also, last year, the company outsourced for cheaper labor to other countries.Mr. Mallory angrily grabs Cassie to try to shut her up, but Cassie gets away from him. Mr. Mallory says that Bob is fired, and Carl grabs Mr. Mallory and flips him. Bob looks down at Mr. Mallory, and says "I quit."Later, the Munros are back in their RV, which has been pulled out of the lake. They talk about living in the RV, just like the Gornickes live in their own RV.The Munros get pulled over by a cop (Bruce McFee) on Independence Pass, and they get out of the RV, only to to find that the reason why they got stopped is because Larry and Garry have been looking for Bob.Larry and Garry tell Bob that they have decided that the Alpine Soda Company is going national, and they want to hire Bob to work for them. Bob accepts.Bob is really happy, and then the RV, because of the emergency brake problem, rolls over the cop's patrol car, and Larry's and Carry's fancy car. But things still work out.