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Old 02-01-2017, 06:13 AM   #15
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Like a few have mentioned it very much depends on what you like, where you are going, and what your expectations are. We have been full timing for about 1.5 years as a family and use a variety of clubs, a few thoughts on ones we use.

Good Sam -- Tends to be 10% off for a night or two stay, anything past that is not discounted, but based on parks policy. Somewhere around 2000 participating parks if I recall. So not a huge savings, but the real benefit is they have pretty good online trip planning tools and you get a discount buying stuff at Camping World, which as much as I sometimes hate them, tends to be a consistent store for buying RV related items.

Passport America -- A discount club intended to help parks fill their spots on off peak times. Normally about ~50% discount on rates good for Sunday-Thursday (Depends on parks policy) and can normally use only a few days in a row at one park. Awesome deal for finding parks when you are traveling to a destination and don't want to Walmart it. Easily pays for its self in 1 or 2 uses and I think is a no brainer for most on the road. Does anyone know if Passport America is owned by Good Sam? I ask because they oddly share the same office building in Crestview, FL as Good Sams mail service.

Thousand Trails (TT) -- The beast we love and hate. A hot bed of confusing programs and information owned by a larger vacation/lifestyle company. Like others have mentioned some of their parks are absolutely run down, but on the other hand some are excellent. You will never find the truly unique interesting parks run by a family because it is a large corporation and the bottom line is king, but you can find some fun parks and a place to park your rig with full hook up.

TT parks are mostly down the east coast, across FL, TX, then from CA up to WA. If you need parks in the middle of the country it is a barren wasteland. We have been to some great parks in PA like their Hershey and Gettysburg Farm locations (great parks), but we have also spent time in their Indian Lakes/Batesville which is almost a 1000 sites and caters to Annual sites who like to party all weekend (not our cup of tea)

With that TT also has a host of options from Zone passes to elite memberships that allow access to all parks (~80). When we tried to find out info about it we thought it made sense to talk to a TT rep at one of the parks... not a great idea, they tend to not have much info on how TT works and are armed with an agenda for selling that benefits them. First time we went that route we got a lot of bad info. We did end up finding a blog that did an excellent job explaining how they work (search "RVLove TT" on Google and it will pop right up). Note we are not affiliated with them at all!

From there we learned that Elite type memberships from TT are lifetime and transferable, so there is a market for selling/buying old ones out there. But there are also 100's of different memberships and contracts out there so it can be uber confusing. So with that we go directed to Buy and Sell Campground Memberships | Campground Membership Outlet who basically resells campground memberships, but best of all you can pick up a phone and talk to them and they will explain everything about almost any membership program (including TT) and better yet they facilitate buyng/selling of used memberships. We got an older Platinum Plus TT membership for around $2800 that gives us ~75 camp grounds we can stay at for up to 21 days, park to park and an annual fee of $545. If you buy the current similar package from TT MSRP is like ~$12000. For us it has worked great, when going to visit a location we love to explore, we don't spend a lot of time at the park itself unless it has something cool to offer. In 2016 we spent almost 260 days at TT, so it has easily paid for itself. Would take a VERY long time with the 12K version!

So those are just some of our thoughts, there are lots of options out there and to be honest it is hard to find good info on a lot of them, I would start with something like Passport America as it is a no brainer and talk to folks who use the different memberships and learn a bit before expanding.

As a side note this year we are spending a lot more time in state/federal camp grounds as we like the more rustic settings and don't mind W/E only. They also tend to be value priced plus a bunch participate in Passport America.

Have fun and good luck in your adventures.
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Old 09-23-2017, 10:41 PM   #16
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Quote:
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The Passport America rates are great, and more than most Thousand Trails parks are worth. Avoid TT


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Do you know if passport America is a one time fee? Or is it a yearly fee
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Old 09-24-2017, 11:01 AM   #17
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Annual or multi year. Your choice.
https://m.passport-america.com/members/join
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Old 11-13-2017, 05:12 PM   #18
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We're just starting the RV life style. Used our One year free membership to Thousand Trails (Came with purchase of Motor-home) once for 5 days to a park in Virginia to do a shake down run in the new coach. We are Passport America & Good Sam Members and I also acquired a Senior Pass for National Parks. Hope to be heading west in the next month to start using these.
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Old 01-30-2018, 12:22 PM   #19
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Smile Good reviews

Lots of very good information.
Thank you to all who have replied.
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Old 01-30-2018, 12:45 PM   #20
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Do you know if passport America is a one time fee? Or is it a yearly fee
As someone else said either or. I wanted to mention that I searched around I think got a $10 discount on PA but then found I could have gotten a discount on either the good sam using the PA or got a discount on the PA using the good sam. I saw that info in the CW store display.

I have a PA but haven't used it yet. Ive used the CW once. Note: where we live the availability is limited for both and we don't travel cross country. We usually visit the state parks and we are not old enough for their senior discount. lol
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Old 01-30-2018, 02:47 PM   #21
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We did a cross country trip last year and used Passport America quite a few times. In the places we used it, we got half price, which saved us a lot. There are limitations when using PA, but if you can work around them, it's a great way to save.

We also have Good Sam and the National Parks cards. We've used both of them quite a bit.
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Old 01-30-2018, 02:59 PM   #22
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As you can see by these responses a lot depends on where and when you travel. In my case I am semi retired seem to spend 60-70 nights per year on the road in my coach, with maybe 20-25 of those nights per year being in commercial rv parks. I am a Good Sam and FMCA member, and the Good Sam membership pays for itself with their very widely accepted 10% discount. Sure it is only $3-$4 off per night, but it does not take many nights for that to add up to the cost of the base $27 per year membership.
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Old 02-22-2018, 05:24 PM   #23
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We have GS and KOA. Both pay for themselves every Year.
We were about to buy a TT Southwest package but on our last visit to our former favorite in the Dan Jacinto mountains found they were selling Anual Sites to individuals.
There is no area dedicated to Anual Sites so they seem to have allowed them to squat on the most desirable sites throughout the park.
This is horrible and results on fewer good sites and ghost trailers spread all over.
I met with the local State Ranger and she showed me sides my 35 foot Class A would fit in despite the posted 25 foot limit.
Fees are less. We'll be staying there 3 or 4 times a year from now on.
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Old 10-05-2018, 01:13 PM   #24
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We are members of Coast to Coast, Good Sam, FMCA, Harvest Host and RV Golf Club. Take a look at these, they pay for themselves in no time and are easy to use.
Does Harvest Host host's really not allow any type of outdoor cooking? When we contacted them we were told that all cooking must be done in the RV.
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Old 11-09-2019, 04:04 PM   #25
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We have been full timing for 2 years now and love the Passport America membership we have. It pays for itself in a matter of a few months!


On passport America, is there a certain amount of time you can spend at one rv park?
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Old 11-09-2019, 04:16 PM   #26
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On passport America, is there a certain amount of time you can spend at one rv park?
Some parks are first night only for the discount, others limit but more nights. You need to check the rules. We found a park in Yuma, AZ that claims to apply PA rates to your entire stay. We are going for a month next year.
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Old 11-14-2019, 08:07 PM   #27
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We travel long distances over 4-9 months out of the year, seeing our great country.

We have found PA most useful when traveling between point A to B. Has paid for itself several times over. We travel in a 44’ coach and have found that most of the sites set aside for PA are 30amp smaller sites so if you are in a smaller RV then PA may be a better fit sometimes. That said, we have made it work.

When traveling distance, staying just overnight, we have found casinos to be the best no cost stopovers. Much nicer than Walmarts, no offense Walmart shoppers. We’ve had some nice stays in Walmart’s but more so in cabellas. Oh did I mention cracker barrel? Ok so why stay in zero cost overnight stays? In a six month trip you spend 30 days in transit staying in these sites then: 30 X $50 = $1500. If that’s not real money to you then enjoy staying anywhere you like and god bless.

The TT and their clones we have never been able to make an economic case for. See how many are trying to get out of these vs those who want to buy, just saying. You will mostly hear that these are great, from someone that will sell you theirs at a discount. Buyer beware. Oh and if you want to buy a great timeshare... [emoji10]

Good Sam also pays for itself in campground and camping world saving. Nothing to write home about, but as Ben said “a penny saved is a penny earned”.
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Old 11-14-2019, 10:00 PM   #28
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Passport America and Harvest Hosts are the two we use. We use them mainly for stopping while on our travels.
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