daveesl77 wrote:In 2012 my wife and I decided to do a "round the US" camping trip. At that time had an F150 and a 24' Coachmen bumper pull trailer. I was shooting a bunch of video footage, so we were carrying all kinds of gear. We ended up going about 14,000 miles if I remember correctly in about 3.5 or 4 months. We knew we would be primarily staying in Federal areas, such as Corps of Engineers, BLM, Nat'l Forest and in three cases in Nat'l Parks. I'm an old long-distance sailor (as in two solo transatlantic sails) and so we were prepared for extended time away from anything modern, if needed or desired.
We purchased the Passport America pass for one reason, we made the decision that about every week or so we would want to pull into a commercial campground to do a full system cleanup, tank dumping and cleanout, laundry, etc.. In a couple of legs we knew that there essentially were no Federal/State areas that would be convenient, but there were Passport America campgrounds. For that it was well worth the money and paid for itself many times over in just convenience. Yes, the price was almost always at least 50% off, sometimes more. Now to the negative.
The vast, vast majority of the PA campgrounds were really trashy, run-down, no way would I stay there if it wasn't so cheap and only for a day or two. Many were right next to busy interstates, one was wedged with a train track on one side and the interstate on the other. That said, many of the operators were actually really nice people and we kind of felt sorry for them as they were not "living their dream" as they had hoped. There were a couple of extremely nice, resort style locations, which we really hated, since they were all concrete and plastic. Give me trees, rivers, mountains and the occaisional washboard, dirt road over "paved paradise and put up a parking lot". there can be a fair number of restrictions, and that is kind of understandable, think of these as "space fillers"
So, would we do PA again? Yes, IF we were doing what we did in 2012. But with how we camp now and me no longer doing extreme video shoots, probably not.
dave
Thanks for the well thought out response, Dave. I'm obviously not an expert on camping clubs, but I can definitely see the moral to your story. For $50, the reality is that one simply cannot expect luxury type KOA facilities or 5 star CG's. I know I'm certainly not. That being said however, I do hope to at least save 25% to 30% off the listed price with my membership, over the long haul.
A clean, safe, well run establishment is all I ask for. But I've been doing a lot of research lately, and the MAJOR source of the problems with many CG's in general it seems, is that they rent space to a lot of undesirables who basically set up an old rickety trailer and permanently call it home. This creates an eyesore for visitors staying short-term and give the CG a bad name, which it rightfully deserves. Or...
The CG owners are simply underfunded or overwhelmed (or both), and simply do not have the means to keep the place looking modern, neat & safe. So it slowly withers away year after year and gets by on the barest of levels.
If the majority of the CG's PA has under their umbrella are anything like the above, I will definitely NOT renew after the first year. But if I can find even 3 or 4
decent CG's through them, and can save 30% to 50% off, for me, in my situation it wouldn't be half bad.
I'm with you, I would MUCH prefer to dry camp in the desert or on federal/state land, however, here in NJ those options are extremely limited, if they exist at all. If I had the option of hightailing it out west, I'd do so in a heartbeat, but my son is here, and I just couldn't go more than a few weeks without seeing him. So, I'm stuck for now in the land of asphalt and potholes.
Do you have a YT channel with all of your adventures? If so, I'd love to see it
Dudeman