How do you pick the RV Parks you stay in ...

My first stop when looking for a park in any area is always RV Park Reviews.

steve_sheldon wrote:
Hey Guys,

This is probably a silly question but how do you pick the RV parks you choose to stay in while on the road?

There are so many websites I am never quite sure which to look at? Is there a particular IPhone application any of you use?

Save Travels,
Steve

We belong to three campground clubs - Ocean Canyon Properties, Coast To Coast, and Resorts of Distinction. On our RT from Texas to NY and from Texas to CA, we planned our stays at these clubs campground with the exception of staying at a SP in Texas and at the Air Force Acadmay at Colorado Springs.

We plan our trips to be no longer than 250-300 miles a day and choose from one of the three plans - works for us.

I first look on Passport America's site and then go to RVparkreviews.com.

If I still have questions, which I normally do not, I ask here.

We tend to travel to a location, so we look for what camping options are near that location. depending on the length of our stay and what we are going to be using the campground for depends on what we look at. we tend toward state parks. if we are looking for more amenities then a state park offers then we will see what campgrounds are in the area. we consider cost of the campground, location to what we want to see and do in the area, and amenities of the campground, we also look to see how many seasonal sites the campground has, and how they are located within the park. Once we have picked a campground (or a few) based on that, we will check and see what rvparkreviews.com has to say. since we have been camping since before there were online reviews of parks, we have developed a fairly good "gut instinct" of what a campground is going to be like without reading reviews.

Thanks guys for all the great suggestions! Is that passportamerica for real, that's an amazing discount... We are about to start living full time from our RV, the passport america membership could literally save us a small fortune!

Passport America directory. If it's an overnight stay when traveling I would NEVER waste enough time to get reviews or references. Even if the showers aren't clean I have my own and it won't bother my nights sleep. The only time I stay in an RV park is when a campground is not available and then it's almost always a PPA park (50% discount). Annual membership for PPA is a tad over $40.00 so you usually save that much in just a couple of nights stay.

For what it's worth, you can usually get just as good a rate as PPA if you plan on staying somewhere for a month or so but with PPA you can get that rate for a single night.

That's fantastic, we just signed up right now. This information just redefined how we will be travelling. We kind of expected to have to stay in one place for a month at a time to get the decent rates but now we are free to move as we see fit. This is a good day... Thanks so much!

skipnchar wrote:
Passport America directory. The only time I stay in an RV park is when a campground is not available and then it's almost always a PPA park (50% discount). Annual membership for PPA is a tad over $40.00 so you usually save that much in just a couple of nights stay.

For what it's worth, you can usually get just as good a rate as PPA if you plan on staying somewhere for a month or so but with PPA you can get that rate for a single night.

Good Sam's Trailer Life Campground Directory and RV Park Reviews. If I'm looking for a NFS campground, I look here NFS Camping and if I'm looking to find any public campground in an area, this is a good source: All Public Campgrounds

I first map our route on www.mapquest.com or Google Maps. I double check the route against my Walmart Rand McNally Atlas.
Then I locate where we'll stop (we only drive about 4 hours per day)
Once I get a city, I use www.woodalls.com
Then when I select a campground I check the reviews on www.rvparkreviews.com and look at their website and check for amenities, rates and discounts.
Once I get all the planning done, I input the route into our RVND 5510 GPS.
I asked Rand McNally to create an online mapping and planning feature on their website with the ability to transfer to their GPS's. Hope they're listening!!

I usually find the area I want to visit. Say, Charleston. Then I hit the state website for Charleston tourism. The I hit lodgings and then campgrounds.
Get an idea of what is in the area first. THEN I hit the listings for state parks for that area.

then off to RV Park Reviews and Good Sam to see what other parks exist in the area.


then depending on weather or what type of camping I want (like a pool or such) I will kinda decide on a few and maybe come and post it on this site to see if anyone ever visited it or has another recommendation.