RV Parks and Memberships

[txred]

I travel in my work. Mainly east and north of Texas. What are reccomendations for RV "clubs" etc.? I am mainly interested in trip planning, general info, rates, discounts offered, and good solid info.

[wolverine]

Joining Good Sam Club is a great place to start. They offer nationwide discounts, travel planning, publications with maps, etc and is recognized nearly everywhere. There are several other clubs with more limited acceptance. but Good Sam Club has a wide variety of benefits including web information.

[Mikethefixit]

If ya check Good Sam's website,they have had a special going on of $12 a yr membership ,but you have to sign for 2 yrs. Not bad considering its normally $33 dollars a yr. We joined but have not had time to avail ourselves of the services yet. Its really a better deal than the other options.

[eubank]

For Good Sam, you get a small discount -- usually around 10% -- after you pay to join. (Be prepared for a TON of junk mail, too.) And Good Sam does it both coming and going: For a park to be Good Sam, the park also has to pay. There's always the suspicion that some of these parks jack their prices by about the amount of the discount, and then offer the discount to bring the prices back to their pre-raised level.

For richer discounts, albeit for a smaller number of parks (and there are restrictions), I'd suggest something like Passport America. Again, you pay to join, but you get a 50% discount.


Lynn

[loudruff]

Larry and I are lucky to be "senior citizens". In Ohio, just before you turn 60 you get your GOLDEN Buckeye card in the mail....(ask me how I know! LOL) This senior card gets us 50% discount on State Park campsites in Ohio during the week. Sat. and Sun. we get a 10% discount. So if you are a "senior" you may also want to look into whether your state has a program similar to the one in Ohio.

[chiefneon]

Howdy!

Your already a Texan you may want to check out escapee. Their headquarters is located in Livingston, TX. We've use them for our mail forwarding and other thing they offer along with discounts across the country. Website is escapees.com

"Happy Trails"
chiefneon

[moosetags]

We belong to Camp Club USA and Passport American. They both have enough restrictions to make us angry at times. But when it's all said and done, we save enough money each years to pay for the member ship several times over.

For instance, last week, we save $80 at a Camp Club USA CG in San Diego. Last fall we saved $75 in Salt Lake City. Other times that we've tried to use it, it hasn't worked out.

Brian

[76sovereign]

Are a lot of parks dropping the Sam's club and Passport Am. Because of the economy?
I noticed Passport America has a list of parks that have canceled their affiliation. I like that they are posting them, very honest I think.

Any thoughts before we get a membership to PA?

[Lily&Me]

We like Passport America a lot, annual fee is pretty minimal, and a 50% discount pays for itself quickly. They can be much cheaper than state parks. If you renew for multiple years, annual rate decreases. We had Good Sam for a year, a 10% discount was simply not worth the fee given the high rates of their parks, also the deluge of annoying solicitations. We can get a 10% AAA discount at most campgrounds that take Good Sam, plus AAA discounts many other places---and we already had AAA.

Some PA parks are VERY nice, others moderately so, some just a place to park for the night with electricity and possibly other amenities. When just going from one place to another, how lovely and inviting a park is or how many amenities, really don't matter to us. We like electricity and showers. The nice thing about our lovely Interstate-- wherever you are, you close your blinds and you are in your own, beautiful home.

We have a "spend less, do more" philosophy, which works well for us and allows us lots of road time. We keep expenses down by seldom going over $20/night for a campsite--nearly always PA, state, national, federal sites-- and cooking most of our own meals. If we need to do laundry, are pining for cable TV, want to immerse ourselves in a particular area, etc., we will spend more for a really nice campground for a couple of nights. We are still very much about the journey, not so much the destination.

Travel safe.

[Jim Foster]

We were coming back across the country a couple of years ago. It was late in the afternoon, and we were tired. We spotted a small RV Park just off the interstate and pulled in. I got our my Good Sam, AAA and AARP cards for the nice lady at the desk and asked "what's the best discount". She said, "all of those will give you 10%, but we are also Passport America". The park was not listed in the PA book.

$11.00, and they had a nice restaurant/bar with great hamburgers.

Can't begin to tell you where that was.

[76sovereign]

WOW!
Thanks for all the great stories and tips!

[Lily&Me]

You're so welcome! Where would any newbie be without the sage advice of more experienced travelers!

[DaveFL]

Originally Posted by doug&maggie

We like Passport America a lot, annual fee is pretty minimal, and a 50% discount pays for itself quickly. They can be much cheaper than state parks.

Travel safe.

Alum Creek State park in Ohio gives the passport discount for the weekdays.