Thousand Trails

Time share. Just read online about them. If you do decide its what you want, be sure to buy from a reseller. Used ones are for sale everywhere for a third to half of what TT wants to charge you.

It all comes down to your expectations. The parks are generally ok to decent with the rare exception that there is a really nice park. But generally speaking, the price is hard to beat if you buy an aftermarket membership.

There are quirks-
1) All of the sites are first-come, first-served. You reserve that the park will have a space for you but it might not have sewer or 50amp service. You don't reserve a specific site or level of site (with the exception of handicap sites).

2) Only some memberships allow you to leave one TT park and go directly to another once you stay 4 or more nights at the first one. Being able to is generally called "going park to park"; not being able to is called "2 weeks in/1 week out".

3) The parks are pretty sparsely located. There are about 80 parks around the US that your membership will allow you to us. Are these in areas that you want to go?

4) Some parks charge extra for 50amp spots if you're on one. Even if you only have a 30amp rig. If you're on the spot, you get charged for it.

For us, we are full hookup RV parks kind of people. We've spent/planned for 180 nights in our camper and of those, 65 are TT park nights. My membership dues are ridiculously low (mine was an old 1970s hand-me-down membership) and it works out to $7/night for those TT park nights. Including that and the cost of actual nights in other parks- my overall average nightly rate is at $29/night. Which means, TT saved me about $1,500 per year in camping fees.

Like anything else- it's a good deal if you make use of it.

The Zone membership is a great deal! You get to try it for one year then after the year is up you can either walk away or sign up for another year. I have a regular membership. My dues are only $275.00 a year. I can stay in Thousand T
Parks every day of the year with no time out other than two weeks in a Park than move to another.This is our 35 year as members. TT is not perfect but its still better than any other Camping type membership

samsontdog wrote:
The Zone membership is a great deal! You get to try it for one year then after the year is up you can either walk away or sign up for another year. I have a regular membership. My dues are only $275.00 a year. I can stay in Thousand T
Parks every day of the year with no time out other than two weeks in a Park than move to another.This is our 35 year as members. TT is not perfect but its still better than any other Camping type membership

Is that 275 for a certain zone?we are looking at the SE zone and the current special is more.

A lot of RV'ers use Passport America along with a couple of other campground discount services like AAA, Good Sam, national and state passes....

We are currently staying in a snowbird RV park in Arizona.

We get a discount with our 1000 trails card - apparently both are owned by Equity Lifestyle Partners - or something like that.

We come down here every winter. The discount is more than the cost of the annual renewal of the 1000 trails card, so we come out ahead.

We got the 1000 trails membership "free" as part of the package when we bought our RV from Lazydays.

sayoung wrote:

samsontdog wrote:
The Zone membership is a great deal! You get to try it for one year then after the year is up you can either walk away or sign up for another year. I have a regular membership. My dues are only $275.00 a year. I can stay in Thousand T
Parks every day of the year with no time out other than two weeks in a Park than move to another.This is our 35 year as members. TT is not perfect but its still better than any other Camping type membership

Is that 275 for a certain zone?we are looking at the SE zone and the current special is more.

The zone membership was $499 a year for two zones. If you only get one at this time wait until later and they will have the two for one.

Look into the zone membership. Year to year, no contract. Right now, until Nov. 30th you can buy a one zone pass for $395 plus tax. Reg. $545. For this you get 30 nights free and then it's $3.00 a night. We bought the NW Zone. It has worked out very well for us. Friendly staff at all the parks we have stayed at.

TT has a huge number of different membership plans. Basically, you get to stay in a park for a couple weeks, maybe three and move to a new park or only leave the park for a week and return to repeat. You pay a huge amount of money to buy a first owner membership...thousands of dollars or buy one from a member who no longer has a need for pennies on the dollar. Dues are from a couple hundred dollars a year to several hundred dollars. Your stay at the TT park is free but some do charge a couple bucks a night for 50 amp service...not all, just some. If you are a fulltimer, buying a used membership can be a really beneficial plan for you, for the weekend/vacation RVer, its doubtful it will pay to have it. We fulltime and it is a life saver for us. We spend the entire winter in S CA for free, year after year. We do pay $260.00 for yearly dues. Bought the used membership for $500 about 8 years ago. Three weeks in a park, move to a new one for another 3 weeks and move to another etc....

If in Texas, I'd scope the TT parks out. There are 7-8 in the state, and a fairly far drive from each other for the most part. If you like the park, as stated above, find someone willing to part with a membership and go from there.

Otherwise, I'd go with a GS membership and Passport America. Both of those cover a lot of RV parks.

Finally, don't forget state park passes and such as well.