1000 trails and other member cgs

Bigdog wrote:
I was looking for places to go on the Oregon Coast and looked at several membership campgrounds as I know that you can usually get sites there for normal rates. There wasn't a single one available and that's, including the southern wa coast, way over 1000 campsites. So now, if you are a member and want to go somewhere at the last minute, or even a month out and there are no sites available, what do they do?

Oh, and this is not a bashing request.

membership or not, from about early May through late sept. Oregon coast sites are pretty full.
Here are a couple of hints

1) While reserve america will show oregon state park campgrounds full, that is often NOT true. It means ALL the reservable sites are taken. Many state parks have sites that are not reservable, but are first come first serve. This is especially true from Oct through April
2) there are many county parks along the coast NOT on reserve america, so they often have site available and often reservable, just not through reserve america.
3) even many popular sites that are reserved full 9 months in advance for weekends, have plenty of sites available tues-thursday, often even sunday- thursday.

After years of camping on the oregon coast I've learned lots of these and other tricks and rarely have trouble getting a good campground and good site on the coast during the week, and only occasionally have had trouble finding a weekday site a few weeks in advance.

When we first started full-timing I was naive enough to think that when school was in session fewer RV'ers would be out, and we could forgoe reservations. At the time we had a one year membership at a nationwide, popular membership park system. They were the only one in the area of So Cal we were staying that was full. Our membership made no difference when we pulled in, in mid-January. What we found was that membership parks tend to be older parks that the group has purchased. Rarely are they as nice as the competition in the area. We let the membership lapse at the end of the term. Now we make reservations when heading into a popular area, regardless of the time of year.

We're in Florence and have gotten into this place because of a cancellation. We found that EVERY campground we passed from Tillamook down that had reservable sites were full and several of the state tent cgs had full signs also. We will be going back to Pacific City because I was asking about next week as one of the girls got a cancellation for 3 nites. Yes, even the Elks clubs were full.
Interesting enuff, was the fact that a lot of the motels and condos had vacancy signs out,even on Friday PM.

Well... You pray.. Seriously. I have, on occasion had to spend a night at a Wal*mart or such in order to get in the next morning at a Membership CG (Never a Thousand Trails though) Some of them will have last minute canceles or a "no Show" policy (Check with the park itself on that).

And sometimes you pay 80 a night plus plus plus over at Keep )On Adding., (koa)

Simple Bigdog -- join up and enjoy the priveledges!

Casino parks...two on the Oregon coast. Upscale parks, couple in Newport. County parks, possibly. Elks RV campground north of Florence....Dennis

THey probably are reserving most of their sites for their members, and not releasing any to the public.

Even some say that they do not have any sites, when you are from certain campgrounds, or very low cost memberships.

Fred.

Are you a member of 1000 trails or any other group? As a member of 1000 trails I can tell you that they will only allocate a few space to the public.