Campgrounds in Jello??

[larrymo]

Still in research phase of FT in MH. I’ve had an RV from pop up to 5’r TH over the past 20 years. Due to the 9 – 5 grind, I was committed to reservations in local TX CG’s for a weekend a month. For the last 6 months I’ve stopped making reservations in attempt to adapt to the “schedule in jello”. Most trips are within 2 hours from Houston area, mid Fri – mid Sun, with the shorter drive allowing for more relax time. The issue is using Allstays app, campgroundreviews.com, Google Earth, etc, I map out about 10 – 12 potential CG’s in the local area, then we drive thru the CG’s and decide if they would work for us. We’re used to destination CG’s, so I’ve given in to checking out what I call city CGs.
1 The ratings / review system seems to be biased to feedback from long term workcampers who have most concerns about monthly cost, understandably. The better reviews seem to be from the maps on FT blogs. What’s your experience?
2 The majority of CG’s in the local area stay at near capacity, so easily finding a space available on the same day (Fri) is a challenge. If we were in a 40 DP with toad, this would increase exponentially to get a space the rig would fit in.
3 After checking out a list of 10 local CGs, we seem to only agree that 3 - 4 would work for us. Not high standards here, just prefer to not hang out in the 25 year old blue tarp FEMA places.
4 In this local area, showing up at a SP on a Friday is a guaranteed turn away without reservations.
5 Is the case of finding CGs at full capacity year-round just in the Houston area, or is it a nation wide issue? I understand about the southern states in the winter, as I’ve met plenty of snow birds over the years.
6 Is this an advantage to staying on the red roads in areas of lower populations and detouring the Metropolitan areas in order to find CG’s with availability?
I guess what I’m looking for is feedback to build my faith that yes, we can keep our travel plans in jello, and the navigator can locate a CG, then call by noon to check for availability for that night. I do like the rule of 2’s to help slow the pace down. Thanks in advance, back to lurking mode now…

[aauummm]

Originally Posted by larrymo

Still in research phase of FT in MH. I’ve had an RV from pop up to 5’r TH over the past 20 years. Due to the 9 – 5 grind, I was committed to reservations in local TX CG’s for a weekend a month. For the last 6 months I’ve stopped making reservations in attempt to adapt to the “schedule in jello”. Most trips are within 2 hours from Houston area, mid Fri – mid Sun, with the shorter drive allowing for more relax time. The issue is using Allstays app, campgroundreviews.com, Google Earth, etc, I map out about 10 – 12 potential CG’s in the local area, then we drive thru the CG’s and decide if they would work for us. We’re used to destination CG’s, so I’ve given in to checking out what I call city CGs.
1 The ratings / review system seems to be biased to feedback from long term workcampers who have most concerns about monthly cost, understandably. The better reviews seem to be from the maps on FT blogs. What’s your experience?
2 The majority of CG’s in the local area stay at near capacity, so easily finding a space available on the same day (Fri) is a challenge. If we were in a 40 DP with toad, this would increase exponentially to get a space the rig would fit in.
3 After checking out a list of 10 local CGs, we seem to only agree that 3 - 4 would work for us. Not high standards here, just prefer to not hang out in the 25 year old blue tarp FEMA places.
4 In this local area, showing up at a SP on a Friday is a guaranteed turn away without reservations.
5 Is the case of finding CGs at full capacity year-round just in the Houston area, or is it a nation wide issue? I understand about the southern states in the winter, as I’ve met plenty of snow birds over the years.
6 Is this an advantage to staying on the red roads in areas of lower populations and detouring the Metropolitan areas in order to find CG’s with availability?
I guess what I’m looking for is feedback to build my faith that yes, we can keep our travel plans in jello, and the navigator can locate a CG, then call by noon to check for availability for that night. I do like the rule of 2’s to help slow the pace down. Thanks in advance, back to lurking mode now…

We used the "schedule in jello" approach on our last trip from Iowa to San Diego and back. We left Iowa the 2nd week of December and returned at the beginning of March. Had no problems getting in to decent RV parks. Even got into "destination parks" in CA and AZ. Some of the overnight RV Parks we stayed at were less than half full. I didn't worry about getting shut out of a place to stay overnight-there's always a Walmart around to stay at and supplies do need to be purchased anyway. It worked out very well.

We did have reservations very early on to get into San Elijo State Beach Campground in Carlsbad, CA, but that's expected in order to camp overlooking the beach and an ocean view out the front windshield! That's the only prior reservation that we had on the whole trip.

A couple of the destination RV Resorts that we stayed at, we enjoyed so much that we extended our stay for a week or two and had no problems doing that.

[twogypsies]

Most trips are within 2 hours from Houston area, mid Fri – mid Sun, with the shorter drive allowing for more relax time.

That's your problem right there. Trying to get a site on Fridays.If you're full-timing you get your sites on late Sunday through Wednesday and possibly Thursday.


1 The ratings / review system seems to be biased to feedback from long term workcampers who have most concerns about monthly cost, understandably. The better reviews seem to be from the maps on FT blogs. What’s your experience?

Not sure what you mean here but many full-timers, not necessarily workcampers, stay for a month or so. We've used RVParksReview and you need to weed out the comments and take the middle of the road ones as semi-accurate. Everyone will have different wants or complaints.


[FONT=Calibri]2 [SIZE=3]The majority of CG’s in the local area stay at near capacity, so easily finding a space available on the same day (Fri) is a challenge.

Again.....you can't expect to get a site on a Friday.

5 Is the case of finding CGs at full capacity year-round just in the Houston area, or is it a nation wide issue? I understand about the southern states in the winter, as I’ve met plenty of snow birds over the years.

Even in the winter snowbirding states you can still get a site without reservations. We did it as full-timers for 16 years. We rarely made reservations.

6 Is this an advantage to staying on the red roads in areas of lower populations and detouring the Metropolitan areas in order to find CG’s with availability?

We never stayed in or near the big cities. They just don't appeal to us. We rarely drove interstates. We enjoyed the countrysides and small towns. We've stayed - without reservations and in a 40' motorhome - in national parks, state parks, national forests, Corp of Engineers, county and city (small city) parks.
[/QUOTE]