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

Lay out the route in Streets and Trips
1 Look for military
2 Look for RPI
3 Look for 1000 trails
4 Look for Passport America
5 Check all of them at RV park review
6 Have DW check the Woodalls book

Dutch_12078 wrote:
My first stop when looking for a park in any area is always RV Park Reviews.

x2. i look for a consensus among the reviews. that's to say i'm not put off if there are 1 or 2 negative reviews among a dozen or so positive review. i want wifi, wife wants cable. we gravitate to the GS parks as a tie breaker but as we're usually in a park for at least a week the 10% GS discount usually doesn't enter into the decision making.

for overnite stops we tend to return to parks we've used before...or avoid parks we've used before. but if it's a new place for us we use the same criteria as i stated above but add close to the highway but not right ON the highway. and in these cases we look for a GS park for the savings.

we used to overnite at wally and flying j but that was when we would drive 10-12 hour days. these days we only drive roughly 4-hrs per day and are in a park usually between 2-3pm in the afternoon.

steve_sheldon wrote:
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!

Just be cognizant of the restrictions on the PPA parks. I am a member of the RV Parks Review forum and there was a thread over on that forum where a poster was complaining about a PPA park was misleading in regards to their amenities. The poster wanted a pull through site and wanted it at the PPA rate. When the campground told them the rate only applied to "back-in" sites they were unhappy. They paid the full rate for the pull through site and they posted their displeasure in the forum. The PPA site for the campground plainly states that the rate only applied to "back-in" sites. Most PPA parks have restrictions and some do not. Also a lot of the PPA parks are not five star resorts either but I am a lifetime member and I have only been in two PPA parks that I just drove through and chose not to stay. Some of the parks are really nice like the two in Beaumont, TX. YMMV.

I'm a working full timer, in sales/management (for another 9 mos anyway:)). The nature of which, affords me significant latitude on where I choose to work. Conversely, it can be restrictive with regards to the length of time working in a local area. I've found that, aside from some unique challenges in it's own right, full timing negates the stress of very long commutes, reservations, motels, restaurants, some of the costs and much of the time contraints of maintaining a sticks&bricks. It's quite conducive to following the money in my profession.

That said, 3 days-2 week(s) in many localities is generally sufficient time to maximize profits. Moving so frequently, I've become fond of government parks for their ambiance and price. Therefore, I use this site almost exclusively to locate campgrounds. I'm a card totin' member of the National Geezers Club and use Passport America occasionally while in transit.

There have been times when I've wintered on family owned acreage and commuted up to 50 miles out. And I've sometimes stayed 4-8 weeks in small commercial parks (@ a monthly rate) with the desired ambiance or government parks where allowed. I'm practicing for retirement... LOL:B

Because DH is still working, I choose a few campgrounds based on certain criteria. User reviews, but also proximity to Interstate while traveling.

1)safe RVP
2)with 50 amps and Big Rig sites
3)within a reasonable distance from jobsite.

Then we also inquire about monthly rates, so we keep the cost down. PPA or Good Sam Discounts while traveling.

Since many of our stops are as we journey - we tend to use the Trailer Life Guide to RV Parks. We like that one because it clearly identifies park that might have dog restrictions (we travel with 3). But now that I have internet access on the road thanks to my Smart Phone - I'll be checking rvparkreviews - because that website tells you things that the guidebooks don't: stuff like "a busy railroad line runs 100' behind the campground" or "the nearby Air Force Base may decide to test their air warfare weapons at 2 in the morning" (two situations *I* have reported on that website after spending sleepless nights....LOL!)

We mostly rely on Woodalls either the book or online. We belong to Passport America but have found thier member CGs are not too plentiful on the routes we have taken. Only once in 4 years have we found one campground that was in the areas we visited, therefore the membership was a flop (in our opinion).

Some of the other suggestions are great but I'd say the best is word of mouth. Ask other RVers for good campgrounds on the routes you will be traveling either while you are traveling or on this forum.

Another tool that is great and we recently used this past summer is Google Earth--we spent a week in Huntington, WV. We have been there many times and found Fox Fire (a KOA) and one other CG not to our liking. So we found a small CG with an airfield that offers skydiving right on the Ohio River but between the River and a railroad. It concerned us so we went to Google Earth and took a real look at it. Only by seeing it and talking to the campground staff did we determine it was a great place to stay. The railroad had very few trains and the airfield was only busy on weekends.

From now on if we have the time to search we will look in Woodalls then check them out on Google Earth! If you have a personal recommendation too...you can't go wrong.

I use rvparkreviews. So far, I have not been steered wrong.

mockturtle wrote:
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

This is what we use when traveling north. PPA is a good choice when we are in their areas. They seem to be mostly in SE U.S.

I travel by myself and don't have any need for amenities that most families are looking for, but I do want FHU including cable and WIFI, and pull thru sites. Once I've figured out the areas where my overnights and extended stays will be (300-350 miles), I use RV Park Reviews to scope out the parks in the area. I ignore 10's and 1's and read the ones in between. It seems that I wind up in KOAs a lot, which is fine with me. I'm more of a traveler than a camper.