Best Thousand Trails Deals

"I definitely wouldn't waste money on a zone pass - way too expensive and limiting.""I definitely wouldn't waste money on a zone pass - way too expensive and limiting."

The Zone Pass is working well for us...we took advantage of a "show special" last year offered at the Hershey RV Show. We picked up 2 zones (NE and SE) and really enjoyed the parks. The beauty of the Zone Pass is it's simplicity and flexibility. We can stay up to 4 nights before triggering a "7 Day Out" requirement. It's a good thing, it forces us to mix things up a bit and try out state parks etc.

The cost per night works out to a bargain depending on how much you use it.

The ZONE Pass is worth a look in my opinion, especially with the new "Trails Collection" add on.

The most important thing about TT is to understand that there are literally dozens of versions of membership.

And to also ignore all the 'experts' who have not been members.

Plenty of TT members can tell you that negative aspects.

First - you are never guaranteed a specific spot. You are not guaranteed a spot with sewer or a spot with 50 amp power. You are not even guaranteed a spot large enough for your rig. When you check in at a TT campground, you are told to drive around the CG and pick your spot. They can usually give you an indication of which spots are 50 amp and which have sewer. And the likelihood of one being open. Some campgrounds charge members an extra fee for 50 amp power. The six CG with 50 amp in Texas do charge $3 per night extra. Las Vegas charges $5 per night. San Benito in CA charges $5 per night. I've stayed at many in CA, OR and WA that do not charge extra for 50 amp.

Second costs - TT is always running specials on the zone pass. Picking up a two zones for one zone price is easy. The cost is going to run $400 to $500. The lower cost zone pass almost always requires a four year commitment. The higher cost may be only a one year commitment. Just make sure to ask if the price is for one year only or requires a multi-year commitment.

Third - the campgrounds - TT is a large company which includes campgrounds built by at least five different companies over a 40+ year period. Some are parking lot style with rigs very close together, some are open woodlands, some have very private sites. Most have pools and an activity center. They are not latest and newest five star RV resorts. The company sets budgets for each campground. Some need a lot of maintenance, some are in great shape. There is less consistency in their campgrounds across the country than KOA.

One issue TT has with upgrading campgrounds is local laws. I know of two campgrounds which cannot upgrade their number of sewer sites because the campgrounds are on water supply lakes. Current laws/ regulations would require them to run 12 miles of sewer lines (the other CG 18 miles) with pump stations and tie into a municipal sewer system. A multi-million dollar project. Chehalis in Washington is trying to gain approval for a new water supply well. Local farmers are opposing the project, and any other new wells, because it might possibly impact their farming/ irrigation.

We find TT works for us. It opens up camping possibilities in many parts of the country that we could not afford otherwise. We bought a zone pass, used it and d coded we wanted a full membership. Purchased a resale membership. It is NOT free camping. Including dues and 50 amp surcharges our cost per night is between 5 and 6 dollars per night. We use TT campgrounds at least 100 nights per year. Most of our winter in Texas is at TT campgrounds.

Make sure you understand the details of any zone pass / membership offer.

Also be aware that almost every membership available for resale has different provisions and only TT member services can explain those.

PawPaw_n_Gram wrote:
Make sure you understand the details of any zone pass / membership offer.

Also be aware that almost every membership available for resale has different provisions and only TT member services can explain those.

X2
Check very carefully the terms of a membership you buy.
Our TT membership gives us unlimited camping. We can stay up to 21 days at a site and only have to move out for 1 day to start the cycle over.( many sites actually will overlook the out time if they are not full and let you just stay put until the new reservation takes effect, not mentioned or admitted to by them). We do not pay any charges for any sites, either 50A, full hookup, etc. We have had ours for over 10 yrs and yes you have to pay dues, ours is $500 yr. So, depending on your time in camp, it can be expensive or cheap nights.
We are overall happy with our purchase but we have stayed next to members that regretted theirs very much because of the terms they received.

Definitely. ^^^

Whatever you do, it's critical that you get a seller's membership number and then phone head office to find out contract details because there are endless variations on contract terms and conditions. Some older memberships are highly desirable because some features aren't available now. Some features like being able to book 120 days out or being able to stay in the system continuously would be very beneficial for some.

There used to be a very good blog that went into great detail on buying a pre-owned T/T membership. I think it is RVlove.com here.

Just got some info. from T/T on their new "Trails Collection" and for $199/year you can upgrade your existing membership and get access to the over 100 Encore CGs across the US. We'll probably end up getting that. Seems like a good deal if you get around a lot and do a lot of nights/year.

On second thought, please don't buy a T/T membership. It's only gonna make it harder for us to get a site in some of them in the high season.

tjfogelberg wrote:
y. We can stay up to 4 nights before triggering a "7 Day Out" requirement. It's a good thing, it forces us to mix things up a bit and try out state parks etc.
n.

so you spend mega hundreds for this program and end up staying at state parks?
bumpy

Please note that I am not asking about buying a premium membership. I'm just looking for a one-year zone pass.

Understand. The Zone Pass is a good way to test the TT system.

No, we don't spend mega hundreds of dollars and end up having to go to state parks. The 7 days out of system only applies to the Zone Pass program. $400 to $500 at most. Say 20 or fewer days stay at state parks. And if you are from out of state, 10 days at state parks can easily hit $400.

Even on a resale membership, a person can recover their initial cost and yearly dues in the first year or two.

But the key is to USE the campgrounds for those times a person is near one.

We have used TT for 3 months now. Yea, the parks aren't always in the "ideal" location but they are close enough for us.

We recently added a year-to-year Trails Connection membership to our plan. This gives us about 100 more parks that we can visit over the country (we bought a "used" National Pass). The beauty of this is that you can go 14 days in a TT park, then 14 in the TC park without going out of network for the 7 days. This will come in handy when we go to Florida for the winter as our TT membership only covered 2 parks. The TC add-on gave us 36 more parks to choose from!