How much should a night of camping cost?
Okay all, I pose that question to you. Now, I am talking about trailer camping, electric at least and more than likely water. We live in Hamilton County, Indiana. It's a quite wealthy set of towns ...
Forum Discussion
The in-county rate for your county's park is subsidized by your taxes as a county resident. (That's why there's a separate rate for county residents.)
US: $40 and less seems to be the going rate for state parks (depending on hookups), $30 and less for NP (usually), and $20(ish) for NF. As with everything, there are exceptions on both ends.
Canada: $50 and less for most PPs and NPs (in Ontario at least). Sometimes a bit more for a site with hydro (electric).
Private campgrounds generally cost more, have more communal amenities (pool, game room, etc...), have more on-site amenities (hook-ups, trash pickup), but also tend to have smaller sites. (There are exceptions.) It's all in what sort of experience you're looking for.
Land value, etc... Chances are, the land your county park was built on, and the land the state parks and national forests have been built on has been owned by their respective entities for MANY years (sometimes over a hundred). So, regardless of land value, the land was obtained inexpensively. (Brown County SP in Indiana, for instance, was obtained by the state when the farmers that originally settled the area discovered it was no good for farming and abandoned it.) The current land value is irrelevant, since the entity likely has no plans to ever sell it. However, private parks have generally been owned by their owner(s) for a relatively short time (a few decades, at most), and are generally viewed as a long-term investment. As such, they paid more, probably have a loan for it, have to extract more value from it in order to cover any loans as well as their living expenses, and also want it to go up in value so that they can eventually sell it and retire, or pass it down as an asset.
US: $40 and less seems to be the going rate for state parks (depending on hookups), $30 and less for NP (usually), and $20(ish) for NF. As with everything, there are exceptions on both ends.
Canada: $50 and less for most PPs and NPs (in Ontario at least). Sometimes a bit more for a site with hydro (electric).
Private campgrounds generally cost more, have more communal amenities (pool, game room, etc...), have more on-site amenities (hook-ups, trash pickup), but also tend to have smaller sites. (There are exceptions.) It's all in what sort of experience you're looking for.
Land value, etc... Chances are, the land your county park was built on, and the land the state parks and national forests have been built on has been owned by their respective entities for MANY years (sometimes over a hundred). So, regardless of land value, the land was obtained inexpensively. (Brown County SP in Indiana, for instance, was obtained by the state when the farmers that originally settled the area discovered it was no good for farming and abandoned it.) The current land value is irrelevant, since the entity likely has no plans to ever sell it. However, private parks have generally been owned by their owner(s) for a relatively short time (a few decades, at most), and are generally viewed as a long-term investment. As such, they paid more, probably have a loan for it, have to extract more value from it in order to cover any loans as well as their living expenses, and also want it to go up in value so that they can eventually sell it and retire, or pass it down as an asset.
