I am also trying to decide on which membership(s) to buy. I have KOA because in New England their rates are competitive and their campgrounds (the ones I have been to anyway) are usually pretty nice. I have to admit to being put off by all the restrictions at the PA campgrounds that I looked at, weekends, holidays, busy season ....all were not included at the discount rate, and if you did get the 50% rate, it was only good for one, maybe two nights. But now I hear many say that this is their favorite club, hmmm, I might have to give them another look. I will definitely join Escapees, they just sound like fun! Oh, I think some of these clubs will give brownie points for referrals, so if anyone here wants me to use them as a reference just let me know.
Many of the people responding are retired or can travel when the rates a in effect. I happen to be one of those persons that have reached retirement age and am taking full advantage of the PA discounts. Some PA places only offer their discounts during fall threw spring when younger families have to be home for school. That may be one of the reasons to consider a TT membership or some other discount group that offers the rates when you can camp.
CrusinSusan wrote: nifty: when you click on a campground, you will get to the restrictions. Each campground makes up their own restrictions....if any.
Thanks, I found it. Holy Cow! The park I was interested in only allows a 3 day stay during the middle of the week. So much for my big plan to stay for a month.
2 dirt bike enthusiasts and 1 cool Weimaraner
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1999 Volvo 610
Believe you will find the restrictions in the listing for individual campgrounds.
In some its good only weekdays. Holidays are blocked, and in others the entire month may be blocked. Like one on cape cod would not make reservations in July/Aug, but we got in with Coast to Coast.
Bob & Nadine 1984 Allegro 23 feet, always at home!
Living Life With a "Golden Age Passport"
and Thousand Trails VIP Membership, Priceless!.
After traveling for the past 3+ years we use Passport America and then added CampClubUSA. As stated, you have to watch the restrictions for both, but feel that we have saved fair more than both of them have cost. We had Happy Camper, but let that drop.
We did join KM Resorts up here in the NW and use them during our summers here. The big thing there was being able to use RPI and Coast to Coast around the country that also saved us a bundle. PLEASE - I know the arguments about the intial cost and "savings", but traveling fulltime it has paid for itself with the price we paid for it in the first 2 years. I wouldn't recommend it for someone not traveling fulltime.
I have seen some information about buying into a home park in the various places in the southwest for less than $500 that also gets you into the RPI, Coast to Coast, ROD access. That would certainly pay for itself.
We will always check to see what is offered in the areas we are traveling and have several times been willing to drive up to an hour from where we were wanting to really be. However, with the current fuel costs, we will have to anaylize that closer and see what the differences and tradeoffs are now.
Good luck with your choice(s).
Ron & Carolyn
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chiefcramer wrote: Most of the restrictions we have found with Passport America were specific to a particular campground. Say it was only good for Monday through Thursday nights or could only use during October to February, etc. Just make sure when you find a PA campground that you want to stay at, that you read the entire ad for that particular campground.
We do have PA but have only used it twice in 5 month because of their restrictions.. We will continue to keep it, but it sure has had restrictions in the areas we have traveled. We either got there too early in the season or too late to use it. We got excited when we thought we finally could use it again, until we found out we would be there on the week-end and could not use it.
We are not complaining though. We finally got to use it for an overnight stop in Wyo last week. The campground was a dusty mess, with lots of run down resident rigs all around us, but it had an available long pull thru site with water and electric and was only $16. We had a place to stay for the night, so we were happy, but would certainly not use it for a destination campground... It doesn't take many of those deals though, to pay for the membership.
We also stay in GS parks and are happy to take the 10 % discount. The best value for us is in State Parks.
We will stay away from some of those expensive membership parks for the time being...
Barb
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So much for my big plan to stay for a month.
