Quality of Park Reviews

philh wrote:
Looking to make our first multi state longer trip with 2-3 day stays at multiple parks. As I'm beginning to plan out our trip, I'm overwhelmed with discrepant reviews. One reviewer said the showers are filthy with bugs and worms crawling on the walls, while another states it's one of the cleanest parks they have ever been in. Friendliness of personnel, quality of park sites, list goes on and on. It's even worse when there's only 2 or three reviews, don't people review parks on a regular basis? How do you separate the wheat from the chaff?

I agree entirely with the posts above. Reading reviews and extracting the useful information is almost an art form.

• I mostly use http://www.rvparkreviews.com, but I also Google the campground and read reviews there and on other sites, like http://www.tripadvisor.com.
• From that, I usually have enough reviews to start the analysis.
• Like others, I discount the extreme reviews on both ends.
• I tend to look at reviews only for the past couple years (campgrounds change), except for things like nearby attractions, waterfront sites, etc., that are permanent.
• I also discount reviews that read something like, "My campsite had a bug and the staff wouldn't deal with it and when I threatened to sue they treated me rudely..."
• Where a review indicates a potential shortcoming, I check the reviewers other posts. Some people are just perennial grumps and frankly I don't care what they think.
• After all that, I usually have enough left to go on, so I make my best judgment and live with the consequences. FWIW, I can count on one hand the number of times my educated guess about the place was way off.

I do agree. I wish people would post more reviews. Well, I wish normal people would post more reviews. :)
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