Passport America - RV-Dreams Community Forum

mjlitz · RV-Dreams Family Member

Passport America

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Check them out at their website, but since they advertise discounts for Canada as well as the U.S., I wouldn't think a Canadian would have any problem joining.

Passport America

Terry

adeline and ed · RV-Dreams Family Member

Yes had one for years

igotjam · RV-Dreams Family Member

We are Canadian and have been Passport America members for 6 years. Great organization, worth the $ etc, but be aware that PA does not mail stuff (catalog, publications etc) to Canada. In order to get the new catalog every year we have to pick it up whenever we are in the US. We usually visit a local RV show and if there is a PA booth there we get one. I called the first couple of years to ask where our latest issue of the catalog was and was told PA does not ship to Canada.

mjlitz · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thanks for the info, as usual, all of you are so helpful. Must look into getting one - fulltiming is quickly approaching - Sept 17th!!!

Workinrvers · RV-Dreams Family Member

one thing they dont advertise is a lifetime membership but they are available if you ask them about it. We purchased one (in 2009) before heading out fulltime and it paid for itself our first year on the road and now we never have to pay annual dues again.

Phil

adeline and ed · RV-Dreams Family Member

they sent my stuff to canada

RVPAINTER · RV-Dreams Family Member

Try to check out Passport America before you join - based on your travel methods, it may not be worth it. We stay in RV parks for at least a week if not 2 - 4 weeks. Passport America typically offers their 50% discount for the first night and the discount is based on OFF SEASON time periods. Also many Passport America Campgrounds are quite a ways off the highways - up to 30 miles in some cases - so that is 60 miles of fuel to come off the highway and back onto the highway. Sort of negates the 1 night discount. Also the ones we have stayed at (three in total) have not been very nice campgrounds - good for overnight but would not stay longer.

Depends on your needs I guess but we would never renew our subscription - not a viable alternative for us.

Jack Mayer · RV-Dreams Family Member

I have not found it to be the case that PA is only on the first night of a stay. We stay plenty of places where it is for much longer. And we have no issue with finding places along major routes...although you do have to look a little harder sometimes. It is true than many of the parks are off the beaten path. And it is also common to have restrictions on the days of the week, or perhaps the time of year. For example, in the park were we are you cannot use PA during peak times (July/August), since we run near 100% during that time.

When we do our point-to-point winter cross country trips we use PA about 1/3 the time, about 1/3 the time we blacktop boondock, and the rest of the time we use non PA parks. Just 2-3 nights stay pays for the yearly membership, and we find no difficulty in hitting that.

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

In 2011 we stayed 18 nights at PA rates, two of those stays were one week each. In 2012 we have stayed 6 nights so far, 4 overnights and a two night stay. Only one of the 2011/2012 stays was out of the way and it was one of the one week stays, Riverview RV Park and Campground in Loveland CO. PA is definitely worthwhile for us even with the restrictions. We did pass by some campgrounds that honored PA at other times of the year, but that was their choice not ours. Everyone has to see if their route planning matches any membership, one size does not fit all.

Technomadia · RV-Dreams Family Member

Yup, PA parks have restrictions on length of stay and time of year. And it varies widely, and these restrictions are clearly indicated in the park's listing on the PA site, books and apps. However, it only takes about 2-3 nights of using it to pay for itself... so super easy to justify the membership cost if even if you only utilize the parks a few nights a year.

We use them a lot when making transitions between places, where having full hook-ups to casually dump the tanks and fill the fresh would be a nice break. Otherwise, we tend to favor state parks and other public options that don't tend to have onsite sewer.

And since we hardly ever take interstates and prefer the backroads, we find more often that not that a RV Park we've already selected to stop at is a PA park, thus us not even having to search them out or go out of our way at all. We also always read reviews before heading to a park, and have thus far had about a 90% success rate at finding PA Parks that were at least pretty nice for a couple nights.

- Cherie

igotjam · RV-Dreams Family Member

Yup..PA did say after 3-4 years they would send me a catalog but for a price. I forget how much they wanted but $14 sounds correct. I understand that mailing costs more to Canada and PA needs to make money but no mention was made when I signed up that it would cost extra for a Canadian to get the catalog. I chose not to pay the extra. My original warning on this thread was to indicate that although membership says a catalog and newsletter is included in your membership, it does not come automatically to Canadian members.

-- Edited by igotjam on Friday 28th of September 2012 01:44:19 PM

island girl · RV-Dreams Family Member

igotjam wrote:
We are Canadian and have been Passport America members for 6 years. Great organization, worth the $ etc, but be aware that PA does not mail stuff (catalog, publications etc) to Canada. In order to get the new catalog every year we have to pick it up whenever we are in the US. We usually visit a local RV show and if there is a PA booth there we get one. I called the first couple of years to ask where our latest issue of the catalog was and was told PA does not ship to Canada.

We are Canadian and PA members as well. Passport America did send us a new catalog after I requested one last fall. There was a small charge for the catalog, I think it was about $14.00 and although it took quite a while to receive, they did send it to us on Vancouver Island.