Pass Port America Pros and Cons (IMHO)

Last year when we bought our motorhome our dealer gave us one year of Thousand Trails for free. This year I renewed it for $299 and got the northeast AND the southeast zones. The first 30 days are free then after that it is $3.00 per night. If we used only the 30 free nights it would come out to $9.97 per night........win win..... After about 20 years we are pretty good at this game.

Despite the drawbacks there is no doubt that PPA is the best bargain available for camping after Good Sams. If you use it at least three or more times it pays for itself and then some. I would never pay for one of the expensive organizations like Thousand Trails since you are locked in at high cost.

Remember folks, we are talking twelve cents a day if you don't use it. Anyone out here doing what we all love that can't afford that? Nough said.

I live in a location where there are a few PA campground I would go to anyway. Add in a few convenient ones when traveling elsewhere I'm good. In general I will not travel much out of way to a PA campground. The PA rate can be a true bargain.

Also it never hurts to inquire about some flexibility on the restrictions..ask about extra days, weekend days, upgraded site, getting an adjacent spot for friend etc. I always accept the answer "no" cheerfully but occasionally I have been granted some really nice extra benefits.

Check the listings and the "notes" and see if it works for you. It does for me.

We put in around 10,000 miles on one trip (~10 weeks) last fall and rarely stayed in a campground two nights in a row. During this trip we did not seek out PA campgrounds, but whenever we picked a campground we asked if they were a PA campground and if that night would qualify ... so we saved some $$ at PA campgrounds by pure luck..

We would never seek out PA campgrounds, per se, over just seeking out a campground in an area we were already in for other reasons. If our chosen campground happened to be a PA one, great. In general we don't prefer the locations where PA campgrounds are and don't care for how their restrictions limit whether or not we in fact can save anything by using that campground at that time.

I think we would prefer a PA type plan that was much more expensive per year for membership, but where the member campgrounds could not restrict their one-half-off discount any day or during any season. The campgrounds would have to be compensated some way by the plan to make up for them not being allowed to place restrictions on PA member discounts.

As you can see by our map, we travel A LOT. This past year we put 12,000 miles on our new Fleetwood Expedition. We are retired military and use military campgrounds as often as we can. We fill in with Pass Port America, Flying J's, sometimes Wal-Mart where allowed, Good Sam and depending where in the country we will dry camp for a night. We have a membership to Thousand Trails Zone camping where we will stay for an extended length of time, maybe 2 weeks. Although we are no longer full timers we are like snow birds; we go home to Florida December, January and February to our stick house . Nine months on the road is a lot of miles and finding places to park for the night, week, etc. 270 nights @ $50 avg.is $13,500 for 9 months. I don't think so!!By using Pass Port, our military, Thousand Trails and boon docking, we can keep it down to about $15 a night or less. This is why I'm a big fan of Pass Port America. Crunch the numbers for yourself.

It only takes a few nights to pay for it and then the bargains begin. Problem seems to be more restrictions on dates over the past few years- many no weekend parks and no high season in lots of areas. We have it and use it some. For some it is a great deal, for us it is just OK because of our snowbird travel pattern.

We have been members for about 15 years. While we have saved money, mostly in the earlier years, we don't use PA as much today. Early on there were few date limitations and was easier to use. Now that there is so much info on the internet & we have our Senior Passes, we rarely use and will not renew our membership. Our biggest complaint is PA cannot be used in prime locations (most PA parks are not the best parks in a prime location) during high season (you use to be able to). We always check reviews of the park online before we visit a PA park.

rocmoc n AZ/Fld/Baja

2gypsies wrote:

agesilaus wrote:
I generally agree but I'd add that PPA CG are usually not where most people want to be. That is they are not near National Parks or other attractions.

We've used it during our 16 years of full-timing. I disagree that they don't have parks where people want to be and not by national parks. There are many parks in the big cities and not off the beaten path.

I just took a glance at some areas. Grand Canyon Railway RV in Williams is mentioned often on these forums as 'the' place to stay for visiting Grand Canyon. It's rate starts at $43..Passport is $21.

Others:
Moab has 4 parks - Arches National Park
Estes Park - Rocky Mtn. Nat'l Park
Colorado Springs
Tucson
Phoenix
Oregon coast - many parks
San Diego
Lake Tahoe
California has 100 parks
Cody, WY for Yellowstone

It just depends where you travel. As stated, using it only 2x will pay for it. It's quite a deal!

http://www.passportamerica.com/campgrounds

X-2, beside these, we've also stayed at PA campgrounds near Gettysburg, Acadia NP, Black Hills, Mt Rainier, and many places along the way.
It's a camping tool, we use it in conjunction with the Senior Pass, and Good Sams, it saves a lot of money, which is very helpful when you're on a fixed income.

From our experience, shopping competitively, Passport America is still the cheapest in a given area for an RV park. Now if you want a forest service campground (which we love) then yes, you can get a much cheaper campsite.