KM Resorts

KM is a private Membership Campground/Resort business......

Every been to a time-share presentation?
What you have 'won' is an opportunity to buy into their private membership program. Used to be one got invited for 3days/2 nights of FREE camping....times must be tough cause now you have to pay $10/night for the free camping AND the opportunity to sit thru a 90 minute sales presentation where the price of membership starts out really, really high and then with each shake of your head NO price comes down a little at a time until you finally get up to leave and the old.........this is our best price and is only offered today spiel.

In my youth we would do the rounds of time share events for the free camping and cheap gifts because we were broke and once the presentation was over we were left alone.

Marketing....plain and simple

Run! Forrest! Run!..unless you like sales presentations......we used to go to the Thousand Trails ones but I'd always tell em up front, "I'm only here for the free gifts, I'm not buying anything"....good luck...Dennis

We had KM years ago. It is a private system. They get you there and try to sell you their memebership.
Bad thing is they went public. They take people off the street so members don't have any sites available.
Managment will not accept reservations, except from select few of their friends.

What did you win? Sometime K&M gives away memberships, sometimes it's just gifts.

Many (like 20+) we won a membership, with rights to all future parks, at the time they owned two parks, today its....eight (?).

I'm going to guess that K&M is giving you a basic membership to one park, with no rights to any of the campground exchanges (Coast to Coast, ROD, etc).

They would want some money from you to get rights to the other parks.

Now, if they are giving you a choice in which park, the park at Blaine should be quite close to you and you may find it suits you, it is, quite a nice facility.

It might be, that what they are offering you is something you will use, it might not, you need to talk some more with them.

They are a reputable membership campground company. They are in business to make a profit, but they are still in business after 20+ years, and still buying campgrounds and expanding.

enblethen wrote:
We had KM years ago. It is a private system. They get you there and try to sell you their memebership.
Bad thing is they went public. They take people off the street so members don't have any sites available.
Managment will not accept reservations, except from select few of their friends.

Things have changed

We had the same thing last year. We did the presentation and we ended up purchasing the vacation package. We get 30 nights a summer (we stay local most of the time anyway) and only pay a $1 fee for cable (if we want) and $1 for power. The cost out of pocket was under $1500 (which we spent that in 2 years at State Parks) and we have the Coast to Coast network (which we used extensively this last summer). We have no problems with getting a good spot and they do take reservations. The holiday weekends are the most booked times and they usually only allow their home park members (you have a home park) get the top spots, but they can't turn you away. If you don't spend your time at the 9 locations they have then don't do it. The areas they have are about where we go camping anyway and it's getting almost impossible to find a State Park during the summer in the PNW. JMHO

n7bsn wrote:

enblethen wrote:
We had KM years ago. It is a private system. They get you there and try to sell you their membership.
Bad thing is they went public. They take people off the street so members don't have any sites available.
Management will not accept reservations, except from select few of their friends.

Things have changed

X2 What enblethen describes has not been the case since I joined KM Resorts in 2011. With their new reservation system guests call each park directly to make a reservation, instead of the main office. I have a higher-end membership. I don't pay for electricity, my dues are frozen, and I don't have to leave the KM system for 7 days, between reservations. Then again I RV year round in WA and OR and my membership has already fully paid for itself - based upon $30/day rate.

At one time KM Resorts did not offer nightly rates but when the economy tanked and the ROD nightmare several years ago, many private parks started offering nightly rates. Even ROD's website reflects this change. During my 2 week reservations in KM's peak season (Apr 1 to Sept 30) I don't think I've seen more than 3 RVs (non-KM, non affiliate {ROD/RPI/C2C, etc}) in any of the KM parks while I was camping there.

I know a couple from Idaho with a membership that gives them 14 days/year in one specific KM park. It's all that they want and they are happy with it.

I have snowbird friends in AZ with KM memberships like mine. They come up to WA and stay in KM parks from Apr until Oct for the cost of the annual dues (after the initial membership cost). Membership resorts can work IF they fulfill your needs, HAVE parks in the places where you want to go camping, AND you can use it often enough to make financial sense to you.

The $2,000 membership is a very basic membership level. It is a teaser membership. The 1st time you use it expect a salesperson to be at the park during your first visit to try and upsell you.

To the OP: If a KM membership has any interest to you at all, look at where their resorts are located, how you would use the membership today, how you WILL use the membership in 5 years, do the terms; conditions; features; and restrictions of the membership meet your needs, should you upgrade now to get the features you want in 5 years (contract feature and prices DO change).

These things always bug me especially if they are pushy, when we bought our third used fifth wheel of a dealer they included supposed free camping at an outfit like this, but it just did not seem worth it to take advantage of the days we could get and to find the time to do it, so we gave up and did not go and therefore did not have to deal with them trying to interest us in taking on a membership.
I stuck with just calling around and booking spots, or reserving a week or two trip ahead of time.
Have relatives up in the osoyoos Rock creek area, keremeos is nice, been through many times.

Don't know if this its true about KM Resorts, but the term "Resort" in RV terms smacks of fields of concrete slabs with hookups, cheesy clubhouses and pools abutting the freeway. Top it off with a sales pitch as well. There are nicer experinces to be had - and it isn't hard to find them. Good luck.

2012Coleman wrote:
Don't know if this its true <- is this your justification for conjecture? about KM Resorts, but the term "Resort" in RV terms smacks of fields of concrete slabs with hookups, cheesy clubhouses and pools abutting the freeway. Top it off with a sales pitch as well. There are nicer experiences to be had - and it isn't hard to find them. Good luck.

I can't speak to KM's Columbia Shores and Beachwood parks as I have yet to visit them. Of the rest of KM's parks, only the new handicap sites at Travel Inn in Elma, WA are concrete. The other sites at it and the remaining KM's parks I've been to are gravel with grass patios. The overflow area at Ocean Mist is grass. The KM park that I'm at is 4 miles off of WA-101. On a clear day I can see Discovery Bay from the park.

"cheesy clubhouses"? I'm not seeing that at KM, at all.

It matters little if it is KM or any other membership park, if you use a free pass, free/comp'd membership, or starter membership - you're going to be called on by the sales staff. If you're a non-member just staying overnight and a sales person is in the park then there is a good chance you'll also receive a sales call. It's a given for all membership parks. It is in their best interest.