RV clubs and memberships

We are active Good Sam Life Members. We belong to a local chapter in Texas, and camp monthly with them when we are in Texas. We've attend samborees in the six states of the South region and intend to do so whenever we can.

Recently while traveling up the east coast, we got a chance to attend the Georgia Samboree. We will be in New England volunteering this summer, and hope to be able to attend seven state samborees if the schedule works out.

I've gotten a Good Sam discount at one RV park in Texas. I've gotten a 15% Escapees discount at four parks in Texas which also offer Good Sam a 10% discount. (There are about 1,200 commercial RV parks which offer Escapees members discounts ranging from 10% to 50%.)

We are Escapees for several reasons, but the mailing service is the main benefit for us. We've stayed at two of the Escapees owned parks, and one of the Escapees affiliated Co-ops.

Passport America pays for itself quickly each year in one or two nights stay. We don't search for PPA parks, but often find there is one when we need it. I got into a PPA park near Daytona Speedway during Bike Week for $20 per night for three days.

That said - our main 'discount' card is a US Federal Government Senior Pass. We love federal campgrounds, especially COE. We are even volunteering this summer at a COE park.

Some day we expect to add Thousand Trails. It would work for us when we stop volunteering. A hefty initial cost that would pay for itself over a couple years.

As said above - which you join, which you use depends totally upon how you use your RV rig. One quick trip around the country, GS is a good choice. Depending upon how comfortable you are with not having specific plans - PPA can be a great choice. Don't forget things like AAA and AARP. Some parks offer discounts for those.

Always ask for a discount. You might get one.

Also don't set your plans to totally depend upon one specific RV park. Flexibility makes it easier and less stressful.

I do like GS, if only as a way to support this forum.

They do not need any money to support this forum. GS, aka Affinity, aka AGI,......billionaires. When AGI failed to make a $6.2 million interest payment to bondholders they changed their name to Good Sam. :W

I do like GS, if only as a way to support this forum.

If I'm on the road more, PPA makes sense, maybe even KOA for long trips since there is a minimum standard of quality with that franchise. I've seen some pretty bad RV parks, and if I'm saying at one while exploring an area, at least KOA is a known quantity.

C2C and such are iffish... if the home park is really, really good and worth going back to, then maybe... but some of those memberships can cost so much that I would be better off buying parcels of unimproved land somewhere, having a trail to the center bulldozed, and use those as "home parks". The advantage of this is that the "park" is always open 24/7, no reservations needed.

We have a liftime GS membership and have since they first offered it many years ago. 10% discount on most of their overpriced CG's isn't squat and only brings the cost closer to the other CG's in the same area. That said, we are lifetime members so having a GS membership doesn't cost us a dime. Very rarely used though and doesn't entice us to do so. KOA's are in the same catagory and most are over priced and thus underused. Private CG's and they make all the decisions. One thing that really sticks out the constant changes of ownership and/or closing down of so many KOA parks we see when traveling over the same roads from year to year. Tells something as to why. Being a long time business owner before retiring, it's quite obvious to us as to why most do!

Also had 3 home parks around the USA with our C2C (Coast to Coast) RPI (Resort Parks International) and TT (Thousand Trails) memberships. Very expensive and a ripoff and yearly dues are very high, yes, all 3. Finally dropped out as ehen your home park closes or is sold, they move you to another park willing to accept you and hit you with more fees and restrictions. Joined C2C in 1987 and other member parks use was $2/day, now 5+ times that and you have had to upgrade your membership at high additional costs to be able to use most of them. Basically the same with the other 2 we joined also about 2-3 years later. Miss all 3 like missing the having of a broken leg!

The winners today are PPA (PassPort America) and if old enough etc, the National Parks Senior Pass or the Access Pass if disabled. Some states give seniors a discount to all seniors and some only to residents of that state at their state parks. We've been PPA members for about 15 years now and never had a problem with finding a site at a member CG. Saved us hundreds of dollars each and every year over the cheap membership cost. So has Some allow one night and most allow 2+ nights. Of course they have blackout times when they are full anyway and most on weekends too as why give a 50% discount when they don't have to? Smart RV travelers plan their trips and CG use/needs accordingly as they are not usually staying at one CG for an extended time. PPA is designed to better fill member CG's during the slow times or during the week as 50% is so much better than getting nothing! Have to pay rack rate for 2 days out of 7 and get a 50% discount for the other 5 days and complain? How incredibly cheap can some people be anyway??? A CG has to be profitable or it won't be open long, DUH!

We have Escapees, PPA, Good Sam, and Thousand Trails.

Before we went fulltime, when we took long trips, PPA and Escapees came in handy and paid for themselves. Our first year fulltiming, PPA saved us $500+. Escapees also saved us quite a bit. We only used Good Sam rarely but it has probably paid for itself.

We stay mostly in public parks which don't offer discounts but need FHU about once per week which is where PPA comes in handy.

Thousand Trails - we were given a Zone Pass for free when we bought our rig. We have used it for three days so far and plan about 6 more days before it expires. We will not renew. All of their parks are also in PPA. If we stayed in the same place for a couple of weeks, it would probably be a better value. at $500/year for one zone, it just doesn't pay for itself.

Escapees is a club that offers much more than just campgrounds. But, if all you are interested in is campgrounds, they have two, which are quite nice, in California. One is about 25 miles from Yosemite and you can't beat the price for the location.

Old-Biscuit wrote:
Go and enjoy a year of RVng
Then after you have figured out YOUR style of RVng you will have a better idea of what would be a good choice.

I found that a lot of CGs would give me a 10% discount just for asking.

true. some parks will honor AAA, AARP and others will simply give it to you. but in order to know you received a discount you need to know the nightly rate before asking for the discount.

and i failed to mention in my original post that most parks will give substantial discounts for extended stays of a week or month. the GS discount is good only for individual nights; the PPA discount is valid only for X number of days on certain days of the week and sometimes on specific weeks of the year.

for example...a park we used several years ago had a non-discounted nightly rate of $40 p/n for full hookup including cable but they discount 10% for GS, AARP, AAA and 50% for PPA. that would bring the daily rate down to $36 (10%) or $20 (PPA). but their weekly rate was $115 or $16.42 per day and their monthly rate was $280 + $0.17 per kwh of electricity. that's a base rate of $9.33 plus electric. GS and the rest don't apply to weekly or monthly rates.

and sometimes it makes financial sense to pay for a week or month even if you don't stay the entire week or month. in our case we chose the weekly rate of $115 but intended to stay only 6-days. with the GS card that would've been $216; even if the PPA rate was available for 6-days (unlikely) that would've been $120 but we paid $115. that's a absolute savings of $101 over the GS daily discount of 10% and a possible savings of $5 over PPA.

as others have said you need to determine what type of camping or traveling you will be doing. stopping at a different park every night, every couple of nights, every few weeks, etc.

DownTheAvenue wrote:

rk911 wrote:
we belong to GoodSam. the 10% discount on camping fees easily covers the cost of the annual membership. others will recommend PassPort America for it's 50% discount. GoodSam has thousands of member parks, PPA has hundreds.

Actually, Passport America has 1900 member parks. Good Sam advertises 2100 member parks, so the difference is not as great as you represent. Many of the parks are both Good Sam and Passport America. So the question boils down to what do you prefer a 10% discount or a 50% discount?

I sit corrected on the number of affiliated parks but I still maintain PPA could offer a 90% discount but if there aren't any parks nearby when we need one it doesn't do us any good. the year we were PPA members on most nights there were never any of their parks anywhere near us when we were ready to stop for the night. and on the rare occasion there was a nearby park the restrictions kept getting in the way. I'm happy for you if PPA works for you but it sure didn't for us.

Buster52 wrote:
I see that there are many different clubs and memberships out there for us RVers. Groups like Escapees, KOA, and more. Are they a good value for what they cost? What are the ones I should look into. I am new at RVing and know there are many people who want my money.

Whether or not they are worth the money depends on what you want for your money.

Do you want camaraderie of like minded people?

DO you want discounts?

Do you want freebies?

We joined the Good Sam Club (who owns this free forum) because we wanted to join a local chapter and make local camping friends. We are now officers in our chapter and participate in over a dozen campouts and Samborees every year with our friends.

Escapees are also a good club with many events and with local groups also.

Discounts, insurance, and the like mean nothing to us.

I bought into all of them when I first started out. :(

I now do not belong to any. I am a full timer.

On some it depends on 'how' you RV. Just the weekends? Only on vacation? Snowbird, etc.

The ones that offer huge discounts come with huge restrictions. Certain days, certain time of the month, never on weekends and some the moon has to be in a certain phase before they will give you a discount. And never will any of the CG's around an attraction be part of these types of membership discounts. I found them to be worthless even with my time not be constricted as many RV'ers.

Join Good Sam and expect your mail box to be overflowing with junk mail, duplicate requests for renewal, and your email sold everywhere, etc., until you die. I had the us postal service shut down my mailbox while I was on the road because of the ridiculous amount of junk mail from them.

Escapees is mostly a full timer club. The discounts are at 'their' few CG's which I found them all to be remote locations and pretty much to be higher end resorts with higher rates to begin with.

I also found no real benefit with FMCA but a placard for the back of your MH with a number on it that anyone could look up all your personal info from.

Add up all the yearly costs of these memberships and see if it is worth the price to you based on your style of RV'ing.

BTW: All CG's have great discount programs for length of stay even it is not listed in their rates. All you have to do is ask them.

I usually can stay an entire month at any CG for around $250 to $300. If you were to pay by the day it with an average of $30.00 per day that would be $900.00. They also offer weekly and biweekly discounts also. Just ask the CG and you don't have to join no stinkn club to get the discount! :W

Buster52 wrote:
I see that there are many different clubs and memberships out there for us RVers. Groups like Escapees, KOA, and more. Are they a good value for what they cost? What are the ones I should look into. I am new at RVing and know there are many people who want my money.

We have both KOA and GS and generally use KOA when traveling. Besides the 10% you acquire points with KOA which gives you additional $$$ off so for us it more than pays for itself.

Not just for campgrounds, but almost anything else like tickets, etc. we always also ask about AAA, AARP and military discounts since many places honor those in varying amounts. Both HD and Lowes give a 10% military discount which for use really adds up and generally is on top of any specials they might be running. IIRC when we did our kitchen appliance upgrade they were running like $300 off for one time purchases of like over $2500 and our final pre discount bill was around $3500 so we got the $300 then 10% of like $3200 for another $320 so almost $650 off a $3500 purchase and on top of that used the 12Mo no interest option so scheduled and made payments so we paid no interest and financed it out of our regular monthly expenses.

Larry