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What campground membership do you have and how are they?

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Hoshi

RVF Regular
Joined
Jan 7, 2021
Messages
40
RV Year
2015
RV Make
Newmar
RV Model
Baystar
RV Length
29 ft
TOW/TOAD
trailer with a Jaguar F-Type R or a Jaguar S-type R or a Mercedes GLK (the dog mobile how we call it)
Fulltimer
No
Doing something different this year and wondering about a campground membership. Thousand Trails? HarvestHost? Coast to Coast? travel resorts of America? Any input is greatly appreciated.
 
We have a Thousand Trails (TT) contract and also participate in Passport America. I like TT and have used it in the East. Some places are old, some are expanding. The good part is you can make it a part of your retirement plan if you full time. My BIL and Sister definitely rely on TT as part of their retirement plan. Passport America I use as a stop gap between TT CGs.
 
We have a Thousand Trails (TT) contract and also participate in Passport America. I like TT and have used it in the East. Some places are old, some are expanding. The good part is you can make it a part of your retirement plan if you full time. My BIL and Sister definitely rely on TT as part of their retirement plan. Passport America I use as a stop gap between TT CGs.
Thank you, still want to keep our home in Florida but want to be on the road more. Seems like a sad part of life that I have BEEN to almost all 48 states but have really SEEN very little.
 
We have a few, all are kept or not depending on value to us. We’re not travelers in the pure sense, I have a business and a hobby. We go from home to a destination then back usually.

KOA; not going to renew, Overall their pricing is higher than the value we get IMO.

Harvest Host; On the fence on this one. We really like it when we use it but we don’t use it often enough to justify. If we traveled more this would be a must have.

Passport America; We will renew it ONLY because a RV Park we go to several times a year honors it. We find for the most part their parks to be less than where we want to stay. IMO
 
Thousand Trails if you in the midwest and do a lot of travel in the midwest is worthless.

I signup for Passport American only if we going to stay in one that will save us more than the membership cost.

Harvest Host, we use traveling from location to location but we are going to take an entire trip jumping from Harvest Host to Harvest Host.

KOA we seem to find a spot at KOA when other local campgrounds are full. We do agree they are a little overpriced for what you get.

Good Sam, we keep because of the discount at Campworld stores. Yes, they are a little overpriced but if you need something now they the ones most likely to have in stock.
 
Doing something different this year and wondering about a campground membership. Thousand Trails? HarvestHost? Coast to Coast? travel resorts of America? Any input is greatly appreciated.
We are big boondocking fans vs RV parks. So Harvest Hosts w the golf course option works great for us. Since some HH sites have noise/generator restrictions, our RV has solar panels and works great there.
 
We have a few, all are kept or not depending on value to us. We’re not travelers in the pure sense, I have a business and a hobby. We go from home to a destination then back usually.

KOA; not going to renew, Overall their pricing is higher than the value we get IMO.

Harvest Host; On the fence on this one. We really like it when we use it but we don’t use it often enough to justify. If we traveled more this would be a must have.

Passport America; We will renew it ONLY because a RV Park we go to several times a year honors it. We find for the most part their parks to be less than where we want to stay. IMO
thank you
 
We are not full timers and looked into a couple. We decided that we go to different places or where we want to go are not part of any membership. We decided not to join any. In many cases when we travel we don't even have a plan on where to stop until were ready. :)
 
All - Have been TT member since 2004 or so. There are currently 58 or so in system parks. Two thirds of them are in the west, 5 in TX alone, very few in east part of country. Based on the ones we have used in the east, Orlando is the best, max two week stay. They have/are expanding that park, don't know if those new sites are "leased sites", as you can lease for a year a site in your park of choice. Many of their parks interior roads are horrible, not just bad, horrible, the facilities are good to excellent again depending on park. SC, and TN parks are ok, but lots of spaces are "leased" and getting into them might be problematic. You can augment TT parks with the "Trails Package" which open up many Encore parks for you to use, that costs 399 annually. The costs are 10 nightly most of the time, some parks in high use areas are 20 nightly even with the package. You also can get a zone annual membership check the website for deals.

The best parks based on our usage when out west are:
1. Lake of the Springs, Oregon House, CA
2. Chehalis (1st campground in system) near city of same name in Washington State.
3. Bend/Sunriver, near Bend, OR
4. Pacific City, near Lincoln City, OR - roads are tight to get around in.
5. La Conner, WA, sewer sites are assigned, you pick site, walk around over the next few days, and then go to ranger station and bid on site (not money) and then if get it, you move into site. Very high use in Summer/Fall.

Those are the ones which come to mind. There are others, some aint worth the time to visit. Please Note: Palm Springs, and Las Vegas, NV parks are very, very tight to get into, PS is especially tight as there are 850 Date Palm trees which are an active grow park for that fruit, I did get my 40 into a space, it was very tight, with two spotters helping so did not hit tree. They allow you to wash rig (at least they used to) because the water helps the palm trees. Vegas is very tight, just off the highway, lots of road noise, and only back two rows are sewer sites if I remember, that park was having some serious renovations last time we were there, which was several years ago.

Do not buy membership new, you can find deal for one in the secondary market very reasonable, also not, any second owner of a membership is only good for 10 years for you. Try the annual pass portion and stick to a region to see if you like that kind of camping. Check YouTube "the odd couple" they review TT more than one time, watch all their reviews to get the whole story. If we sell our MH, we are including our TT Platinum Membership with the coach, otherwise we keep it since we are less than couple hours from SC park and 4 hours from the TN parks.
Keep us posted on your choices. I have attached the 2016 campground listing.
 

Attachments

  • ThousandTrails_Camping_Directory_2016.pdf
    8.1 MB · Views: 12
We travel extensively every year (6 to 8 months) and I have found the following. Memberships are great if you want to go to the same places all the time. If you TRAVEL, they may or may not be a good deal. Reason, if you are traveling you want to go where you want to go not where a chain of parks has a place. You may still use those memberships along your trip (Passport America works well for me in this instance) but it can be a near miss too. I look to recover my membership costs and a little more. If you are looking to stay virtually for free it's not likely that a membership will work out for you if you are a true TRAVELER.

NOTE: If you are ok dry camping from time to time then Overnitervparking.com and app is a must!!! and will save you $$$$$
All Stays Camp and RV app is also the best for finding places on the go, or pre trip planning.
Campground Reviews (now part of RV Life which is notihing special) has great reviews and is very helpful for pre trip planning
 

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