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Hi, I'm new to this so bare with me if this sounds silly. Years ago my parents bought into a Collective/Network of Campgrounds. It was in the '80's so I have no idea if this sort of model still exists. They paid one large fee to join. That amount was set by their home campground. As I recall theirs was in Gulf Shores, AL. the buy in was around 3K (1980) as I recall. I suppose they paid a pretty low nightly amount if they stayed in that home campground. I think they had the right to stay longer than 14 days as some places have maximum stay periods. It allowed them to access a nationwide network of campgrounds at very low prices. This was back when camping wasn't as congested as it is in today's world. I've done Google searches but I'm coming up empty. We're thinking of camping but don't want to lay out a lot of money only to find there's no room in the inn. I come up with a lot of Clubs that offer discounts but I find no network of campgrounds. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
I use Passport America for big discounts on campgrounds - but there are a lot of small print rules when the campgrounds are available to PA members and limits to the number of days stayed. Sometimes these small print rules can be a PITA, but when you do find a few the pass pays for itself.
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Previous post has main sites, also search for camping membership parks (there are several)
Thousand Trails original Platinum membership can be bought used and transferrable (3x IIRC). They offer more days in park per year. New membership is $20k + and much more restrictions.
There's a market for Thousand Trails secondary membership transfers if you look for them - like time shares, people have buyers' remorse and want to unload them - there are a lot of Youtubers w/ reviews of TT ---membership isn't for everyone (I don't have one).....also there are a lot of of lots that you can buy/lease ---know a few folks who aren't happy with their decision to go that route, either. Again, like a timeshare they're stuck with a single lot w/ monthly fees that they're responsible for - they thought they'd go there indefinitely but changed their plans or moved to a different part of the USA and can no longer use.
Coast to Coast Good Sam network is one such thing. Travel Resorts of America is also affiliated with them and your membership, while based on the home campgrounds, includes cheap stays with that network (we don't pay anything extra for our time at our home campgrounds as it's included in the membership cost, and only $10 a night at Coast to Coast campgrounds).
Basically after becoming a member, I don't pay to go to my home campgrounds for up to 14 days at a time (and there has to be a week in between camping trips with them) and if I want to go to an affiliate campground, it's only $10 a night. Yeah it's kind of like a timeshare, but you don't get only a week "free." You can camp whenever you want. Since with dogs we were going camping MUCH more than we could go to a hotel/timeshare, we thought it would be worth it, and it has been. We've been members for 4 years so far and spent a lot of time at our home campground in Gettysburg, as well as traveling around the east coast to Coast to Coast campgrounds.
Thousand Trails offers Campers Pass, it list for $599 for one "Region". My brother just bought one for the Northwest region for $499.00, he can add another region for $59. This type of "membership" is for the non-fulltimer, who just wants to get away for the weekend. If you go to a park and stay for more than, I think, 4 days you have to wait a week before you can go to another park.
In 1987 we purchased a Thousand Trail Charter membership, don't remember what we paid. We then added other "park systems" to it over the years. Then we went full-time in 1996. We traveled from park to park, usually stayed for 2 weeks then to the next park. In other words we could go from park to park without any "out-time". I think this is now called the Platinum Membership now and adds 1week to your stay (3 weeks).
We then bought into a resort in La Pine Or which gave us access to many parks in a system associated with that park. Could stay for 2 weeks and didn't cost us to stay.
So it all depends what you are looking for.
Sorry sold the Charter Membership and all associated systems in 2006 when we put down roots again.
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