New Campgrounds

[TXiceman]

What is it with the campground owners? They buy a beautiful wooded piece of property and immediately cut down ever tree in site and scrape it to bare dirt. Then they might come back and plant some twigs that could provide some shade in 2o years.

I want some shade from that all too hot summer sun in the south.

We pretty much by pass any campground that does not offer some shade. i am sure that there are a few other that do the same thing.

For those that do not want bird poop or tree sap on their rig, leave part of the park with out trees for them.

My 2 cents worth.

Ken

[RickO]

Great point Ken! We got to know the couple who built and own 4 Paws Kingdom in Rutherfordton, NC while spending May, 2009 there. They had a dream of building an RV park with focus on dogs. They bought a beautiful 60 acre plot in the NC foothills.

They had several consultants/builders come in to assess what they wanted to do and every one said they would start by scraping it all clean. And this is a heavily wooded forrest area.

They would hear of it and ended up building the entire place by hand so they could develop sites around the mature trees and it turned out beautifully.

Rick

[TXiceman]

Scraping the land clear is an easy and cheap way out for the lazy bulldozer driver. The campground owners need to hire a local native plant expert and landscape designer to ride herd on the whole process. If they mess up the ground around a trees root system, the tree may die.

All it takes is some planning and maybe a few less sites.

Ken

[RJay]

Hi Ken,
As someone staying in Austin, TX with the last two days approaching 100 deg. and today at 94, I count my lucky starts that I'm in a heavily shaded site. Part of the reason why new campgrounds don't have trees is to start with level sites and ease the installation of facilities. I stayed at a park in Arlington, TX that looked like the trees were kept when it was built. The sites were not level, front to back or side to side and the roads were put in to preserve the best features of the land but made for hard to maneuver roads that made a first time visitor feel lost in the park. But I'm sure glad I have shade.

On edit: The owner/managers at this park don't mind if you wash your RV as long as its done between 6 am and 10 am. No problem with sap and birds.

[Route 66]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TXiceman All it takes is some planning and maybe a few less sites. Ken

Too many CGs want to pack 'em in like sardines.

They see more sites = more revenue.

With 2 satellite dishes on my roof, I preferred few trees.

[TXiceman]

The satellite issue is easily solved with a portable dish...

ken

[John_N_Terry]

The problem is, as i see it, that too many campground owners wouldn't know the first thing about RVs or RVing. The few that do, live somewhere else.

[NLOVNIT]

I know what you mean, Ken. I'm in the I-want-shade group. The campground builders find out it's easier & less costly to lay out sites & run utiliites on a blank slate rather than try to work with or around the existing trees. Although, I have been to several mature tree CG's that could use someone with a pair of pruners so I don't have to watch that I don't take out one of my MaxxAir or A/C covers.

Lori-

[ralper]

One of my grumps is with all that bare ground to work with they design a narrow roadway with the site perpendicular to the road instead of at a 45 degree angle so you do not take out the front of the RV across the roadway while backing in. Then management complains that everyone runs over the grass while backing in.

[Mr_D]

If the trees are big enough they bring extra $$, income to help pay for improvements, plus making it cheaper to build.

Just another reason to stay away from KOA's (Keep On Adding).

[paz]

I guess I'm the oddball. I actually prefer not to have a heavily wooded site. A few trees are nice, but I don't like the dirt, sap, leaf litter and twigs that come with a lot of trees. It is especially bad when it rains - all the crud sticks to your feet. And when we used to have a dog, it was even worse. She never learned how to wipe her feet.

[hondo122]

The problems working around the trees are many, the first is site drainage nobody wants to stay on a soggy site, you have to layout the road to carry the rain water away, then you have to layout the sewage drainage, again no easy task. Work out the roads and site location.All in all a tough job.