Any groups or memberships worth joining or avoiding?

PUCampin wrote:
Good Sam membership also gives you a Swipe and Save card good for $0.03 per gallon discount at participating Pilot / Flying J. Since I live 2 blocks from a Pilot and commute to work, the gas discount pays for the membership. We also stay at a Good Sam campground once in a while, so I feel it is worth the value.

I did not know this. May have to do the math. The vast majority of my fuel for the car and truck are bought at a Pilot. They only have 5% to 20% bio diesel, so I cannot run the motor home on it (Mercedes says use <5% bio only in it) so I go to the other side of the interchange and buy the BP for the same price.

I keep a spreadsheet on gas, so I can easily figure out how much a year I buy at the Pilot.

Edit: just figured it out, would have saved me $9.31 over the past year. (310 gallons of gas in two vehicles).

Charles

The most important thing, IMO, before joining ANY club or group, is to THINK!
Think about the "benefits" of membership. Think about how often YOU will make use of those "benefits".
I was a Good Sam and KOA member for a while, then I realized that most of my camping was done in military famcamps or Forest Service campgrounds. I very rarely stayed in a Good Sampark or a KOA (although we did make one cross-country trip where the KOA membership came in handy, especially for the week at the destination KOA).
IMO, if you won't or can't use the "benefits", the membership fee is a waste of money!

This is an hour long, but worth the listen. It is a archive of a live webcast that Technomadia did on Youtube. They discuss the various memberships and the good, bad, and ugly of each, and then take online questions and answer them. Anyone can learn something watching their webcasts.

https://youtu.be/3UUL2D5vcS4?list=PLgtEZDX9EG7oZqT9ZNunbyJN4O5XwUHto

Charles

Good Sam membership also gives you a Swipe and Save card good for $0.03 per gallon discount at participating Pilot / Flying J. Since I live 2 blocks from a Pilot and commute to work, the gas discount pays for the membership. We also stay at a Good Sam campground once in a while, so I feel it is worth the value.

Thank you all again for the replies. I see I have more work to do. Lol.

I will likely be a full timer soon. At least locally. I find I sleep better in the RV than I have in any S&B. The only time I sleep better is in a tent.

Hope everyone has a great week.

Bill

P.S. I did post some pictures in my other thread, Just got my first RV, now what?.

Other than getting flooded with junk mail, a Good Sams card is good for a discount (down to the regular price) just about everywhere.

Until you get some experience in and figure out what kind of camping you really like I wouldn't recommend anything other than a GS membership (approx. $25) for the small discount on member parks and the discount at CW stores.

although I wouldn't advise something like TT, IIRC folks here in the past have said to make your "home club" no where near your actual home. IIRC they stated that all other clubs within X miles of your home club were off limits. If your "home club" is somewhere else, you have access to more clubs closer to home.
but until you get some camping under your belt, do not spend big mon$ey on anything, spend the $39? or whatever for Passport America to get your feet wet so to speak.
bumpy

Thousand Trails isn't a bad deal (specifically their annual zone membership) IF their parks are close to where you want to camp and IF you are spending several months not days on the road. Their parks are not where we want to currently be and we are weekend warriors who mostly visit state and national parks so it wasn't a good fit for us. YMMV.

Same with Passport Amercia. While you don't have to be a full timer to benefit from PA if their locations are convenient for you, we have found the many varying restrictions from the parks we want to stay at were deal killers. Of course, we live in the state with the most national parks in the US as well as has amazing coastal camping and weather, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised the PA parks in our preferred areas have more restrictions.