Wannnnabe here - RV-Dreams Community Forum

RodandGeorgia · RV-Dreams Community Member

Wannnnabe here

Happytrails · RV-Dreams Family Member

Hi Rod and Georgia!! Welcome to the RV Dreams forum and family! This is a great place to be and to make wonderful friends. Looks like you are in the planning stages of full-timing so you are busy....lots to do. We started full-timing in August 2009...wow almost a year ago. It doesn't seem like a year. It went by so quickly and what a wonderful year it has been. We have learned so much this first year. We are loving it!!

We decided to not join a campground membership such as Thousand Trails. I have heard good and not so good about those memberships. With campgrounds closing due to the economy and such we just thought having a membership with Passport America would be more beneficial for us. We also belong to Escapees which gives you access to their campgrounds at a reduced cost. We like to stay in state, national campgrounds as much as possible because we like nature. I guess, bottom line, we felt it would limit us too much.
I am sure someone on this forum does belong to Thousand Trails and maybe they will give you some better advice or at least a different twist on things.
Good luck to you guys and stay in touch. :)

RodandGeorgia · RV-Dreams Community Member

Mike and Gerri. Thanks for the info. Rod talking. I'm an x-Special Ed teacher(high school-voc training and math-etc) and Georgia also taught piano. Will look into Passport and Escapees---If we join--do you receive a referral "something". If so, would be glad to list ya. Yes. Lots to do in the next year. I barely know what a wheel is on an RV--lots to learn. Headed towards FT with lots to look at. This new adventure is quite a process (mentally and otherwise) Know, in the end, that we will not know if FT rving is for us until we get into it. Good point about closing membership plans. Considering because trying to keep costs to a min. Thanks. Will look into what you have said. Take care and thanks again. Rod

Jbbar · RV-Dreams Family Member

We are members of Escapees and that gives us a discount at a lot of places. Although we have thought of other memberships nothing has jumped out at us as being a real deal. We boondock a lot so maybe that colours our thoughts also. If I was looking for a membership I would be investigating buying one 'secondhand' rather than a new purchase, I have heard that like time shares they are usually more reasonably priced.

Speedhitch · RV-Dreams Family Member

We use our SKP and Passport America. My favorite is the National Park Pass. We stay at all the COE parks for half price and you can't beat that one.

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

The standard advice is to not buy into membership camping until you have been on the road a year. The reasoning for this advice is that most people find how they travel and where they travel does not match what they originally thought it would, including a few finding that full-timing is not for them. Until you really know what you want you can't really do the math and see if a particular membership will benefit you. Passport America and Escapees are relatively cheap, Escapees in more ways than lower cost camping, so they are a good start and are recommended for beginners. For boondocking spots you can't beat Escapees Days End listings. Plus there are some low resale values for membership camping for those who are patient, don't pay retail. If you are an Elk or Moose a benefit is they often have camping, plus they are great organizations.

We have and use Thousand Trails (we use this one a lot, but know people who barely use their membership), a Coast to Coast (C2C) park that is cheap, and Sunrise (this one we are not using enough).

Edit: I realized that being the detail oriented person I am I can give you our true nightly costs for each membership or discount we get, which includes all buy-ins, dues, nightly surcharges, etc: Passport America $17.64 (182 nights), Escapees $19.25 (161 nights), Elks $24.29 (56 nights), Thousand Trails $21.46 (261 nights), C2C $21.10 (107 nights), Sunrise $49.08 (106 nights).

-- Edited by bjoyce on Tuesday 13th of July 2010 09:29:08 AM

-- Edited by bjoyce on Tuesday 13th of July 2010 09:40:41 AM

Luvglass · RV-Dreams Family Member

Bill, From your historic analysis of actual usage, it's evident the the TT and C2C are not the bargains that they are presented to be in the sales hype, so what is the attraction? Are the campgrounds that nice?

RodandGeorgia · RV-Dreams Community Member

Wow!! What great information! Thank you all so much for the benefit of your experience. Especially the financials. We have about $3500 net coming in and this info is important. I'm (Rod) the information junkie----Georgia is the real brains. I'm just the grunt man. Went out to an RV sales last week and decided that 31' motor home (with expand living room) feels like the right size for us. Goal is to get one in 12-14 months--depends on how things go with downsizing-money-etc. Motorhome is what we think will be best for us. Will get a small car--very small to pull behind.

Have had some experience at TT when my X in-laws had me stay with them in Pacific City-Bend-Florence OR. Was about 15 years ago and was very nice at that time. Just looked at the financial reports for the parent company and I'm not an expert or accountant but they have a little more debt then I like to see. Not like OMG but I'm a tad (only we would know what this means) nervous. Over the next year will just have to look at it all before we decide. And if we do it, will buy a previously owned--ya, I found out that there are many-many different contracts during the years with TT. Ok, breeeeeth. We have a year or so.

Being on the road a year is good advice. Will seriously look into the sites listed and share with Georgia. Thanks again "RV Family" and God Bless. R&G

-- Edited by RodandGeorgia on Wednesday 14th of July 2010 07:25:38 AM

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

Luvglass wrote:

Bill, From your historic analysis of actual usage, it's evident the the TT and C2C are not the bargains that they are presented to be in the sales hype, so what is the attraction? Are the campgrounds that nice?

C2C and TT are bargains compared to many other campgrounds, where our averages are $30 or more per night (this does not include Passport America campgrounds). The campgrounds are decent and some are very nice. Many who have TT have older memberships with dues frozen at much lower numbers than ours, so it is more of a bargain for them. If we did not have TT our C2C usage would be higher and our nightly cost would be lower. But, yes, they are not the bargains the salespeople like to portray them as but we did our homework and are using them about as expected. We originally thought we would use Sunrise much more than we did, so we lost that bet.