weekend observations

It's getting to be more and more common, especially in areas with high housing prices and moderate climates. Apparently people with kids tend to buy toy-haulers and use the garage for a bunkroom.

A good many of these folks with less "conventional" lifestyles are also home-schoolers.

I think it's a great contrast to the people with huge houses crammed full of their kid's stuff.

I wouldn't have liked that.

I have mixed feelings on this trend. On one side, I'm glad people are able to make it work when there are no other options. On the other side, I see some people taking advantage of land meant for everyone's enjoyment to the point others can't enjoy it anymore.

I also wonder about a double standard. 7 people living in a small (under 1000sq ft) house in an affordable neighborhood are considered white trash or "scum" by default, but 7 people living in an RV on public lands are now being applauded.

It just seems that we are condemning the middle ground these days - either you go huge or you go micro, but the affordable midsize is being eliminated and is looked down upon.

As we travel around the country you see more an more people living in camp grounds, I hate to call them full timers but in a way that is what they are but they just don't move so maybe they are long timer's :)

Anyway this year there seem to more wherever we went, even in the KOA's we were in there were long timer's, one KOA we were in the full timers took up all the concert pads an the people traveling or staying for a few days were left up to the gravel pads or pull thoughts. In this same KOA I would bet there was at least 40 full timer's out of the 70 sites in the camp ground ....

What I saw in other Good Sam camp grounds were power meters on a number of site for long timers, when ask about such they said they paid a monthly rate plus power. When ask how long that some of these people stay they stated in one camp ground that had people that were there over four years, most I ask about were only there one maybe two ,,,

When out away from the main city's there were far less, one camp ground in Indiana we stayed in had over 100 sites an only had 5 families living there including the camp host ...

It's starting to be somewhat of a problem for us who like to travel since these camp grounds are so full of long timers there is no or little spots for others ...

safe travels

ChuckV1 wrote:
It's starting to be somewhat of a problem for us who like to travel since these camp grounds are so full of long timers there is no or little spots for others ...

That and the fact that RVs are selling at record numbers with no new CG's being built.

and because of this, it is getting harder to get reservation at many campgrounds

toedtoes wrote:
I have mixed feelings on this trend. On one side, I'm glad people are able to make it work when there are no other options. On the other side, I see some people taking advantage of land meant for everyone's enjoyment to the point others can't enjoy it anymore.

I also wonder about a double standard. 7 people living in a small (under 1000sq ft) house in an affordable neighborhood are considered white trash or "scum" by default, but 7 people living in an RV on public lands are now being applauded.

It just seems that we are condemning the middle ground these days - either you go huge or you go micro, but the affordable midsize is being eliminated and is looked down upon.

I will disagree with your last statements....that's not the case where I live. Families with 5 children are unusual, but I know several families with 3-4 children who do just fine in their modest 1000-1200 sf ranch style homes. No one thinks that's trashy, just SMART.

A couple problems with modest housing towns, villages don't want it. They want taxes and the more the better. The 1000-1500 sq ft homes don't bring in the taxes that the Mcmansions do. Also the 3 BR with 2-3 kids only brings in a fraction of the school tax that the Mcmansion does. Guess who is running the town, the guys living in the Mcmansion.

old guy wrote:
...it is getting harder to get reservation at many campgrounds

And I'm glad I'm equipped to boondock. I've never cared for making reservations.

I tend to agree with your observation based on what we experienced on our six week long trip this past summer. There was a lot of extended stay units in most of the parks we visited. And as noted, in several but not all, the extended stay folks had the prime spots. From an owners perspective, it makes good business sense to rent to extended stay campers versus overnighters. That gives them a steady revenue stream and takes fewer man hours to take of the extended stay campers' needs.
This trend just means that there may be fewer impulse stops on our travels and more reserved overnight spots. But we will adapt and do whatever it takes to continue our travels.