Any suggestions on where to buy a "used" membership for Thousand Trails parks? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanx Liberty99
Thanks for the reply. We are retiring in a month, and we just bought a Winnebago Adventurer today so we will be heading out on the road come November. That will give us a chance to get a membership of some kind to save on RV parks. We are so new at this we have a tremendous amount to learn. We only know about the Thousand Trails but don't know if it is the best. Forgive the ignorance but what is the FMAC magazine? Thanks for any response from anyone.
Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) - club membership will give you subscription to magazine. They have a website to read up on all the bennies of being a member. Congrats on retiring.
Thanks, Pasco: Was exhausted last night, but so excited, here I am up at 5 a.m. making lists of what we need to do. Lake99
Recommend you avoid buying any memberships until you do a little traveling and get some experience regarding where and how you want to travel. Least expensive way to save some money on overnite stays would be to consider Passport America for $44. Participating parks agree to reduce overnite fee by 50%. These parks are not meant for weekly or monthly stays but can help you defray your costs traveling to and from locations. If you are going fulltime or even long term you should also check out the Escapees RV Club....lots of help/services for the RVer who is on the road long term. In addition they have a small network of parks across the south and in the west that run from $12-15 a nite at which you can stay longer. http://www.passportamerica.com http://www.escapees.com If you plan to see the country as part of your new status as a retiree you may find that Thousand Trails parks aren't necessarily located near all the stuff you want to see. They do provide many vacationers with a nice experience though.
Thanks for the reply, Sunflyer. We have been cruising the net and have already come to the conclusion that Thousand Trails may not be the one we want. RPI seems to have a pretty good package, and combined with Passport America, etc., it should cover us for just about anything. I appreciate your in-put. Lake
I wouldn't be so fast to purchase ANY campground memberships. We have been on the road for 2 years. In the beginning, people told us we HAD to have Coast-to-Coast. So we bit. What a waste of money! The campground we went to were just this side of bankrupt, and a couple of them were derelict parks where we were actually a little fearful. Believe me, all you need is Escapees and Passport America. Between them, the state parks, the city parks, country parks, Corps of Engineers parks, Elks Lodges, and yes even Wal-Mart parking lots on occasion, you will need nothing else.
Thanks for the reply, Buckeye. Have you compared RPI with C to C by any chance? And was it hard to get into the parks, that is, are reservations hard to get?
Initially we picked up RPI and C2C with our campground membership. We never used RPI because we didn't care for the fact that you had to make a reservation through them and pay them $2 to do it plus the cost of the camping. Then we realized that both systems had virtually the same campgrounds in their directories so we dropped RPI first. We finally dropped C2C when we realized our yearly fees were costing us more than the savings because the parks were never where we wanted to be or required driving well off our established path to use them. At $2 a gal. gas and 7-8 mpg, driving well off our route quickly made the park less of a savings. We have friends who have been devoted to C2C parks for a couple years now who are quite upset with this years shake up in the reservation process and the number of parks that have decided to drop out. If it were me I'd avoid the memberships for now, let the dust settle, then take another look. I've come to regard these campground memberships as being as tricky to benefit from as the timeshare sales of the 80's. A few people can make the process work for them, but the majority spend a lot of money into the system and don't get much return for their dollar. Buyer beware and be informed.
As fulltimers we have 1000 Trails/Naco/LTR, RPI, C2C Deluxe, PassPort American and we get our $$$ worth each and every year. But we stay mostly in the West and West Coast. We do not go out of the way to stay at any of the campgrounds. We DO NOT stay at Wal-Marts. Was a member of Escapees (the poorest investment)
I appreciate all the replies. The in-put has been very helpful. Can you tell me, Stagecoach, if purchasing a used membership is a good deal? There's someone listing one w/NACO for sale for $2500. + $625. transfer fee, and $745. yearly dues. That seems kinda' pricey. We're planning on doing a lot of traveling and feel we would enjoy it more if we're not encumbered with nightly fees for RV parks. Thanks for your reply.
