campimg membership for a newbie

We have belonged to Passport America(half price rate) for 11 years and have saved many dollars. The 1 year membership is around $44.00 and you recoup that in just 2 nights staying in a PA affiliate park. There are restrictions such as limited nights use and some have weekend and holiday restrictions and in FL some seasonal restrictions. Go online and checkout participating parks.

We are travelers not really campers so most of the PA restrictions don't apply to us. Our last cross country trip from FL to San Diego we stayed in PA parks the whole way round trip. We don't stay at WalMart as we prefer campgrounds even for 1 night. Many rvers prefer to stay there and truck stops. It is just a matter of personal preference.

We also have the Golden Age Pass and have stayed in many Federal and COE parks at the half price rate.

There are some who are happy with their memberships, but those folks are usually full timers and do get gain some benefit in the over all price. But, with some memberships, you have initial membership fees, then annual fees, then you still are limited to the number of days you can stay, or the number of days you can use your membership, or whatever. Then, there may be some place you want to visit and that membership club does not have any parks in that area. For every night you spend somewhere else, other than the membership club, you are loosing money, and the membership cost is costing you! And some of those memberships are VERY costly (Thousands of dollars), and you still have lots of restrictions and minimal availability.

Do your research carefully. On paper it may look like you are ahead, but in reality, when you need to make a reservation, and find out the desired campground is booked solid, or simply not taking anyone new, or you are outside your "geographical" region, you may end up paying through your nose!

Then there is the long-term commitment. Selling a membership in order to get out of it can be difficult and expensive to dump it on someone else.

Some memberships are nothing more than time-share memberships. If you are a part-timer RVer, you WILL loose. It's much better to just pay as you go and pay for what you actually use, like State, County, Federal, and Private campgrounds.

There are a few lesser constraining RV club memberships that are worth while. The membership is usually a year, and the price is usually less than $30, and usually, you can gain your money back after 3 or 4 visits to one of their parks. Namely, these are KOA and Good Sam. Both are very comparable, in price, in the styles of their campgrounds, and availability. In pretty much every direction we've traveled, there has always been either a KOA or a Good Sam campground within easy reach. We are members of both, renew every year, and probably looses money on them (especially this year), since we did 95% of our camping in State Parks this year. Last year we did a lot of Good Sam. The year before we did a lot of KOA.

This year, we also bought the annual Indiana DNR (Parks) pass for Indiana State Parks and Recreation areas. This covers the cost of entrance fees into the Indiana State Parks. The cost for in-state residence is now $50 for the annual pass. We camped about 15 times this year at Indiana State parks, and with entrance fees at $7.00 per car now, I think we came out ahead. And my son used the card a few times, and a friend used it too. So this card more than paid for itself this year. But that card does not help on actual camping fees in State Parks, only the entrance fee, which you pay, even if you camp.

So the bottom line is, YOU have to figure out your usage. Will the cost of a membership actually pay for itself? Or is it better to simply pay-as-you-go, and have the luxury of camping anywhere ... anywhere! without feeling guilty or feeling like you've been cheated or angry because you did not spend 'x' number of nights in the membership campground. Only you can decide that.

One more thing to consider about the non-annual renewable memberships (I'm referring to those types that are more in line with life-time memberships) ... what if your situation changes next year? What happens if you have a financial set back? An accident that prevents you from traveling? A family situation that knocks you out of camping for a year or two, or longer, or permanently? And you STILL have to pay for that life-time membership? CONSIDER CAREFULLY GRASSHOPPER!

If either of you is 62 or over, I'd highly recommend picking up a "senior interagency pass" from the nearest National Park, Forest Service, COE, or BLM facility. At $10 for a lifetime pass, it's quite a deal, since it gets you free or reduced entrance fees and half-price camping at pretty much all Federal facilities. Although most Federal campgrounds do not offer hookups, some do. I've stayed many a night at such campgrounds for as little as $8 a night without hookups and as little as $12.50 with electric. At the extreme end, the BLM lands around Quartzite, though without hookups, afford an entire winter, 6 or 7 months, for about $90 total.

Compare the cost of a campsite with a room at a hotel/motel to see if that makes you feel better. Maybe you thought of campouts in a Walmart parking lot but that isn't what most RVers do.
It doesn't help with the cost but I like the memberships connected to a manufacturer where owners of similar rigs get together for both social and technical reasons. One can learn a lot in a hurry when talking to veteran owners of a rig like yours.

Welcome to rv.net . I am not sure about your question. If you are interested in clubs or organizations to help out with camping costs I personally use Passport America, Good Sam and to a lesser extent, coupons and AAA.

If you are looking for help in the cost parking or storing your RV the cheapest place is always at your house if you have one and/or have no restrictions on doing so. If you need to store your RV shop not only the price of the RV storage place but the tax rate of the area that you will garage or store it in. I'm lucky in that I can park my rig right next to my house and the county that I live does not charge personal property taxes on boats, RV's and air planes.

Good luck and have fun on your RV journey.

I don't recommend them for the above reason.
I do mostly monthly with some weekly. Depending on how you camp, Good Sam may be of some benefit.
I would try it on your own for a while before I would jump.
Fellow campers are most willing to share their experiences.

Unless you use them almost excluseivly they can be a very costly mistake. Many of them are nothing more than a time share scheme. You get locked into their parks, paying yearly maintenance fees etc for life with no way out.