I'm going to throw a slightly different slant to this discussion. I bought my first RV in May. I left home "Full Time" May 31. So, in the last 4 months I have stayed at many parks from Coast to Coast. Issues with 98% of them. 1. The personnel, mostly women or 20 somethings have been RUDE, Disrespectful witches. Some paid but most are work camper suckers trading labor for a place to camp. 2. Parks advertise amenities and then don't provide them. When you protest they are always rude and defensive. it's never their fault and how dare I want a small refund for NO WIFI. I asked on RV Park for a free bag of ice for 3 days of no WIFI and I got told NO. 3. The prices are getting outrageous. here in Oklahoma I have paid 36 two nights in a row and neither park was more than a parking lot with hookups. 4. Do not sign up to Franchise as a KOA. Their fees force Campgrounds to overcharge and be expensive. Tonight's parking lot is a KOA next to I-40. I run my air conditioner as long as I can to drown out the noise from the Interstate. You want to make money, build a small casino. Everyone who has told you to camp first and then do the park is telling you straight. Until you spend time on the road being treated like dirt, you'll never understand the people you are serving and you will end up treating them like dirt too. After four months, I am pretty much sick of this RV adventure. All the hassles have far outweighed the fun I have had.
Hi RVwriter, Try to find places to stay that are off the beaten path. Here is a place to find some different campgrounds: http://freecampsites.net/ What sort of fun did you expect?
QUOTE(RVWriter @ Sep 26 2014, 08:33 PM) [snapback]38473[/snapback] I'm going to throw a slightly different slant to this discussion. I bought my first RV in May. I left home "Full Time" May 31. So, in the last 4 months I have stayed at many parks from Coast to Coast. Issues with 98% of them. 1. The personnel, mostly women or 20 somethings have been RUDE, Disrespectful witches. Some paid but most are work camper suckers trading labor for a place to camp. 2. Parks advertise amenities and then don't provide them. When you protest they are always rude and defensive. it's never their fault and how dare I want a small refund for NO WIFI. I asked on RV Park for a free bag of ice for 3 days of no WIFI and I got told NO. 3. The prices are getting outrageous. here in Oklahoma I have paid 36 two nights in a row and neither park was more than a parking lot with hookups. 4. Do not sign up to Franchise as a KOA. Their fees force Campgrounds to overcharge and be expensive. Tonight's parking lot is a KOA next to I-40. I run my air conditioner as long as I can to drown out the noise from the Interstate. You want to make money, build a small casino. Everyone who has told you to camp first and then do the park is telling you straight. Until you spend time on the road being treated like dirt, you'll never understand the people you are serving and you will end up treating them like dirt too. After four months, I am pretty much sick of this RV adventure. All the hassles have far outweighed the fun I have had. Maybe it's all about attitude and expectation, but our experience with many years of RV'ing behind us, has been vastly different than your brief exposure. I would guess at least 95% of our campground experiences have been at least pleasant, including our interactions with the staff whether owners, paid employees, or work campers. By the way, work campers at many privately owned campgrounds are paid an hourly wage along with the free site. Volunteers at public local, state, and national parks, are more likely to be unpaid, although even then there is sometimes a stipend, depending on the duties and hours required. KOA only gets 10% of the campground site fee, and nothing from the store sales and other amenity charges, so the site fees should be fairly competitive with other comparable parks in the area. If you have KOA VKR card of course, you save that 10% on your site fee, as well as accumulating points towards rewards. Our average nightly cost spread over the year is typically in the $20-$22/night range, not including boondocking nights, using a combination of various discount cards and RV club owned parks. Two months in Florida this winter will average $21/night. Oh, and we learned long ago to provide our own Internet service if we wanted a reliable connection. Parks with a good WiFi service are a pleasant surprise when we happen on one.
QUOTE(RVWriter @ Sep 26 2014, 06:33 PM) [snapback]38473[/snapback] I'm going to throw a slightly different slant to this discussion. I bought my first RV in May. I left home "Full Time" May 31. So, in the last 4 months I have stayed at many parks from Coast to Coast. Issues with 98% of them. 1. The personnel, mostly women or 20 somethings have been RUDE, Disrespectful witches. Some paid but most are work camper suckers trading labor for a place to camp. 2. Parks advertise amenities and then don't provide them. When you protest they are always rude and defensive. it's never their fault and how dare I want a small refund for NO WIFI. I asked on RV Park for a free bag of ice for 3 days of no WIFI and I got told NO. 3. The prices are getting outrageous. here in Oklahoma I have paid 36 two nights in a row and neither park was more than a parking lot with hookups. 4. Do not sign up to Franchise as a KOA. Their fees force Campgrounds to overcharge and be expensive. Tonight's parking lot is a KOA next to I-40. I run my air conditioner as long as I can to drown out the noise from the Interstate. You want to make money, build a small casino. Everyone who has told you to camp first and then do the park is telling you straight. Until you spend time on the road being treated like dirt, you'll never understand the people you are serving and you will end up treating them like dirt too. After four months, I am pretty much sick of this RV adventure. All the hassles have far outweighed the fun I have had. Wow! Can't wait for the RV book you are writing to come out. Bet it will be a big seller. Glad you have such great RV park business experience that you can instantly ferret out an overcharge ($36.00 is too much), know what business models work and do not work (don't be a KOA). Don't understand the build a casino comment. Are you saying RV parks shouldn't be in the business to make money, and if you want to be in an industry to make money of the traveling public a casino is the way to go? Don't know if that business plan will work either. I know many RV park owners who have no interest in owning a casino and there are a lot of casinos that are failing right now. What I don't see are well run RV parks dropping like flies. Sounds like it is time for you to give up RVing. You don't like it, and it appears the people who have to wait on you at the RV parks you stay at would probably not miss you either.
Sorry RV but just reading what you wrote makes me feel that you are expecting 5 star hotel services at RV prices. When people come to our office with a problem I try to bend over backwards to help them. If they come in making demands or being rude I am not quite as likely to want to help. If they come in being rude and abusive then I feel I'm being attacked and I don't feel any inclination to be be helpful. If you had a bad experience with 98% of the places you have stayed I would pretty much bet that you need to check out your own attitude
QUOTE(RVWriter @ Sep 26 2014, 05:33 PM) [snapback]38473[/snapback] After four months, I am pretty much sick of this RV adventure. All the hassles have far outweighed the fun I have had. I would think that it would be in everybody's best interests, including yourself, to sell your RV and bring your RV adventures - or misadventures - to an end. It will be a win-win for everyone.
I wouldn't build a park as a way to enter the business. I would do some RV camping at several facilities and find out what RV'rs like and don't like about the parks. I would then go find an existing park to buy. There are many out there for sale....but beware...they can be extremely overvalued and it is very difficult to place a fair market price on a park. I would look for someone trying to get out of the business and purchase as an asset sale. Building a park is very expensive and can be complicated by codes, permitting requirements and availability of knowledgeable contractors. I bought a park several years ago with room for expansion. We have added sites, storage , cabins, clubhouse, etc. and more than doubled the top-line revenue. There is no way I could have done it by building. Just my $ .02 worth. Good luck.
So I'm interested in living in a Tiny House on Wheels. They say they can only be in RV parks legally. I would also like to be in an eco village. So I'm thinking a group of us buy our land together- an RV park. preferably one that was not owned already because that might cost more. Do RV parks HAVE to have all the RV hook ups, if everyone in the park is going to be off grid?
Did you ever get your Tiny house community up and running? or find a place for your tiny house? I'm thinking of having a tiny house community in the Poconos (about 2 hours directly west of NYC)
