How best to improve a primitive RV site to rent it out?

[Dacks_Camper]

Hi all. This is my first time on the forum and I need some advice. I own some property in the Adirondack mountains in upstate New York and I have four camp sites that I’m considering leasing out to RVers. I’d like to get your advice on how I could make these sites attractive to RV campers, ideally leased out for a whole season to the same person so I only need to do check-in/check-out once a year and the person has a sense of ownership in the site. The problem is that right now these are truly primitive sites – there are no bathrooms, no power hookups, no potable water, no structures, no staff on site, no wifi, and limited cell service, so I don’t know how appealing these sites would be to the typical RVer. I definitely can’t add on-site electricity or well water, so I’m hoping to get input on whether you think somebody would want to rent them as-is and what kind of improvements would be most helpful to make them rentable. I apologize in advance if this post isn’t allowed on the forum since it’s potentially commercial (I couldn’t tell), but I’m not going to show photos or be too specific about where I’m located so that no one mistakes this for an ad.

Let me describe them with enough detail to get your advice:

General location: The sites are in gorgeous woods on the edge of a very touristy area of the Adirondacks. Nothing is exactly nearby, but it’s 15 minutes to the nearest grocery store, 25 and 35 minute scenic drives to two major resort towns, and in the middle of tremendous hiking, paddling, fishing, and biking areas. There are dozens of real tourist destinations within 30 minutes drive. All of the sites are surrounded by many acres of hikeable forest with wildlife including loons, deer, moose, foxes, fishers, and black bears, plus this is a great place to see fall foliage. The temperature tends to be in the 70s and low 80s all summer, with cool evenings in the low 60s. Montreal is 2 hours away, and New York and Boston are both about 5 hours away.

Site 1: Directly on a quiet mountain lake with a great view. It is a level grassy clearing in pine woods that’s about 100’ x 70’ with 70’ of lakefront that would let you swim, fish, or launch a kayak from your own site. It’s at the end of a long dirt road that can handle basically any size vehicle but it gets tricky if you meet someone coming the other way – I would guess you’d want to minimize the number of times you drive the RV in and out, so it would be great if you have a car too for local trips. Its only existing infrastructure is a fire ring. I would imagine you could pull straight into the site and turn around to exit pretty easily in any size RV.

Site 2: Directly on a quiet mountain lake with a spectacular view that is at the end of a long but easily navigable dirt road. It’s a level, pine needle-strewn clearing about 50’ x 30’ with about 30 feet of shoreline that requires a bit of a scramble to get down to it but has a sandy section that could support swimming, fishing, and drawing up a kayak. It has no existing infrastructure. I would imagine you could turn a travel trailer around in the site without much trouble, but a large RV you’d want to turn around on the road and back in/out.

Site 3: A 65’ x 45’ clearing in the woods that has no view but is located above a large waterfall so you constantly hear the falling water. There’s a short but steep trail down to the Saranac River for fishing or hiking. The lake is a short walk from the site – you could carry or wheel a kayak to the water if you wanted to. A nice thing about this site is that it’s located immediately off a low-traffic paved road so access is very easy. I would expect you could turn around any size RV in this site, though maybe you’ll tell me otherwise.

Site 4: A roughly 100’ x 50’ clearing in the woods on a hill overlooking a gorgeous lake with a view of Whiteface Mountain. It connects to extensive trails that would work for hiking or mountain-biking, but it has no direct lake access. It is directly off a paved road so getting in and out would be easy. It has an old shed I could fix up to make it usable. You would pull straight into the site and I expect you could turn around inside it with any size RV. The other three camp sites are ready to go but this one needs me to brush it out and improve the steep dirt driveway a bit, so I’m also trying to decide if I should prioritize getting this one into rentable condition or improve the others first.

Here are some improvements I’m considering for any or all of the sites. Please let me know how much you think these would add to the desirability of the sites and whether you expect it would be worth the investment:

1. I could install outhouses on the sites. Otherwise the closest place to dump the black water tanks is probably a campground with a public dump station 20 minutes away. Well-built outhouses might cost me $3500 per site.
2. I could add picnic tables and fire rings. This would cost about $500-700 per camp.
3. I could build a tent platform or small enclosed storage for about $500 per camp.
4. I could (reluctantly) add a gravel pad, but I’m not sure I understand why it would matter on hard rocky ground.
5. I could place gas grills on each site for about $500 per site, though that would introduce the need for me to take them in and out of storage for the winter.
6. I could provide some kind of outdoor wash basin with a drain and a little counter space to put a water carboy on for washing dishes (maybe $500 per site to do it well).
7. I could provide some permanent infrastructure at each site like a large propane tank to supply a generator or potable water tank for the campers’ use. This would cost roughly $700 per tank per site.
8. I could build an outdoor shower using collected rainwater for about $300 per site.
9. I could offer multi-year leases so that people could leave stuff in the camp site from year to year (though the RV itself would need to leave for the winter).
10. I could include about two acres of woods around each campsite in the lease.

Realistically, most of these options are fairly expensive compared to the rent they would generate and would only be worth it if they would really help me attract long-term campers and eventually recoup my investment. Which improvements do you think are most helpful?

I know it’s difficult to judge price without knowing the exact location or seeing photos, but I’d also like to get a sense of what you’d expect to pay for a site like this as-is or with improvements. I hope to rent them out for the full season of Memorial Day to mid-October (roughly 21 weeks). I haven’t found seasonal rates anywhere nearby, but I know the two nearby commercial campgrounds charge $350/week and $450/week for their cheapest sites with just water and electric and they are usually full all summer though of course they have a lot of other amenities. The nearby state campground charges $126/week for primitive back-in sites for up to 20’ vehicles with no hookups, so kind of like my sites, but they also have a dump station and shared bathroom facilities. My sites are way more private and beautiful than any of those places but are totally off the grid. There are not many places for public RV boondocking in the Adirondacks, so I don’t need to compete with that. Given all this information, what would you expect my annual rental price to be for the property as-is? What if I added outhouses, picnic tables, wash basins, propane storage, and outdoor showers?

Thanks for reading to the end!

[theoldwizard1]

Without a pit toilet and some kind of potable water, even a hand pump, I cannot imagine anyone staying there for more than a weekend.

[DrewE]

Make sure you check carefully on all the legalities and requirements and limitations for camping on the land. At least here in Vermont there are a fair few specific requirements at the state level, which vary some based on length of time staying, and how many sites are involved, and so forth; and local towns can impose additional requirements via zoning laws, etc. You may find that you legally must have some approved sewer system (not just a vault toilet) for long-term stays, or that camping for more than two weeks is forbidden, or any number of other unfortunate regulations that basically make your idea a non-starter.

As for what I would consider necessary for a rustic RV campsite, I would expect to find a semi-level place for my motorhome, a picnic table, and a fire ring or fireplace. The latter need not be anything fancy; a simple ring of stones in a safe place would suffice. For a seasonal campsite (one that is or could reasonably be occupied for the whole season), water and electricity and sewer hookups are pretty much essential. It sounds like you're more hoping for a seasonal lease on a weekend or short-term stay campsite; I kind of suspect that may be a hard sell for most people, though you really only need to find a few who are interested enough to fill a few sites.

In an RV, a pit or vault toilet is not very useful. It's not suitable for dumping the RV tanks, and the value in having it available to use instead of the indoor plumbing in the RV is marginal at best, particularly compared with the expense of building and maintaining one that the government likes.

My gut feeling is that the scheme is not practical. I really would like to be wrong, but....

[toedtoes]

A potable water tank could work, but I suspect you'll find there are many restrictions so do your home work. You'll want to size it right also. Fresh water tanks run from 15gal to over 100gal and folks vary on how often they need to refill.

Even if you have folks just come out for the weekends and leave the RV there, they will need to be able to charge the batteries. Many folks want electric so they can run the fridge while they are away.

As I'm thinking, this is how I'd go about it:

I would look into insurance for letting them keep the RV on your property for the season Get that priced along with liability insurance for injuries, fire insurance, etc. That gives you a minimum cost for renting.

With that, I would try word of mouth and see if you can find a few folks interested in primitive "pack it in, pack it out" camping for a season at just above the insurance costs. No amenities. You can provide a map showing the closest dump station and, if available, place to refill fresh. They provide their own recharging system. Put in fire rings - otherwise they will burn down your property.

This will give you real life data on whether this is viable. If the insurance is more than people will pay, then it's not worth all that extra work and cost to upgrade - you won't be able to charge enough over the base price to cover insurance AND upgrades.

If the first season goes well, you could add picnic tables and charcoal grills for the next season. Otherwise keep it primitive.

If after a few years, you find that people would like potable water onsite, you can then look into adding a tank.

This gets you started with the least amount of investment and gives you time to work out the practicalities.

[Dacks_Camper]

toedtoes wrote:
For seasonal camping, you really need to offer the basics: electricity, water and sewer. All the other stuff is fluff. Without those three items, it will not be enticing for folks to stay 3 months.

That's a fair point. I guess I wasn't imagining that anyone would camp there continuously for three months, more like someone who lived close enough to go back and forth for long weekends and vacations. Maybe I really should be looking for locals who want a place to set up a camper for the summer and just drive out when they feel like it. Or maybe I need to revisit whether it's worth it for me to do shorter rentals where the lack of hookups is less of an issue.

toedtoes wrote:

if they have to drive their RV to get fresh water every 2-5 days, they aren't going to bother staying for a summer.

There is really no way I could get water or power to these sites for a reasonable cost. Do you think it would solve the problem to have a potable water tank (filled by a vendor) to refill the tanks from?

Thanks for you suggestions on the rest!

[wanderingaimles]

Dacks Camper wrote:


Thanks for the idea of the blue boy. The sites are a few miles apart, though the roads in and out do converge to within a mile of each other.

Hunting leases run about $5/acre in that area, and I was planning to lease part of the property out (including another section with an off-grid cabin). Maybe it would be good to combine those ideas. I've also considered building a small cabin on these sites instead, but that's a much bigger investment.

Thanks!

Then a single septic holding tank at that location where the campers could dump will help, Honey dipper service should be happy to empty once a month or so.

[Lwiddis]

Without cell/internet service they won’t rent.

[toedtoes]

For seasonal camping, you really need to offer the basics: electricity, water and sewer. All the other stuff is fluff. Without those three items, it will not be enticing for folks to stay 3 months.

You could skip the sewer since there is a dump station nearby, but if they have to drive their RV to get fresh water every 2-5 days, they aren't going to bother staying for a summer.

If you can get those three things worked out, then:

Fire pits and picnic tables are considered standard in most rustic pay campgrounds.

Don't bother with gas ranges. At the most install those charcoal grills on posts that you see in parks.

No storage of gear beyond the season - you don't want the liability.

[Dacks_Camper]

Fidel Gastro wrote:
Better check with the county/local and state governments, especially in NY where you can not take a dump without some type of expensive permit, usually proceeded by a pile of red tape. We used to live north of Albany so I know all about how things work in that hole of a state.

No cell service is a huge bonus as it will keep the riff raff away

Yeah, no kidding about the red tape. I've already checked that out though, and I quite literally have government-provided building plans for an ADA-compliant outhouse that I would be allowed to build on-site.

Fidel Gastro wrote:
No cell service is a huge bonus as it will keep the riff raff away

😄

[Dacks_Camper]

wanderingaimlessly wrote:
Are the entrances close to each other? Was wondering if a holding tank could be placed to service them all occasionally or with a blue boy....

As far as finding a comp price, what about hunting leases in the area? They may give you an idea, and may even be an advertising item if the land is available for hunting.

Thanks for the idea of the blue boy. The sites are a few miles apart, though the roads in and out do converge to within a mile of each other.

Hunting leases run about $5/acre in that area, and I was planning to lease part of the property out (including another section with an off-grid cabin). Maybe it would be good to combine those ideas. I've also considered building a small cabin on these sites instead, but that's a much bigger investment.

Thanks!

[Fidel_Gastro]

Better check with the county/local and state governments, especially in NY where you can not take a dump without some type of expensive permit, usually proceeded by a pile of red tape. We used to live north of Albany so I know all about how things work in that hole of a state.

That's a great area though, and I personally would jump at the chance to camp on sites such as in your description. No cell service is a huge bonus as it will keep the riff raff away

[wanderingaimles]

Are the entrances close to each other? Was wondering if a holding tank could be placed to service them all occasionally or with a blue boy. portable waste tank

As far as finding a comp price, what about hunting leases in the area? They may give you an idea, and may even be an advertising item if the land is available for hunting.

[QCMan]

With no electricity, water or sewer they will be a real tough sell to most RVers. Maybe if you advertise on an off grid forum you might find some takers but the sites would have to be cleared so solar would work. Sounds like they are far enough apart that nobody will notice that that the neighbors only shower once a month when it rains. Also need someplace to dump contents of composting toilets.

[Dacks_Camper]

pianotuna wrote:

Does the cell service work well enough to use a phone as a hot spot?

Probably not. I have occasionally been able to make a weak phone call or get a very weak data connection from Sites 1 and 4, but it seems to depend on the day and maybe the carrier. No service at all on sites 2 and 3.

Thanks for your input!

[pianotuna]

Have level pads. Gravel if need be.

fire pits and tables.

A central rain water collection system would appeal to me--just make sure the users know it is not potable water.

Does the cell service work well enough to use a phone as a hot spot?