Twenty years ago I spoke with an RV’er in Branson, MO. He said he owned 13 different campground memberships, that way he would keep his camping costs low. He and his wife are full-time Rvers.
We went home and listed all of these Campground Membership directories onto a spreadsheet.
We listed each membership along with the memberships that park recognized. After a sorting process, we found 85% of these parks could be accessed with four different memberships.
Then we placed these parks on a mapping program, similar to Microsoft Streets & Trips.
With two years of planned trips in front of us, we looked to see if any membership parks were located in the areas we intended to visit.
The average camper night this past year was around $24 a night. So we compared the cost of nightly visits, with and without membership camping.
Could we save money in these area using membership campgrounds and keep our mileage down to save fuel. We intended to stay the longest time available to us at each park, and not travel more than 150 miles on a move day.
We listed Coast-to-Coast, Good Neighbor, AOR, CAN, RPI, Thousand trails, Resorts of Distinction, Passport, Enjoy America, NACC, Sunrise and Sunbelt. You will find other discount chains as well.
Using Thousand Trails, with park-to-park privledges, Resorts of Distinction parks, Coast-to-Coast and Passport; we paid $600 total camping costs in 2006. We stayed west of the continental divide during that time.
Our upfront campground membership costs were $14,000 dollars. At $20 per night we would spent $7000 for the year.
We feel we can justify our camping costs using these parks. But, we must USE these parks in order to save.
Happy Camping,
Fred b.