Camping Resources

I was talking with my daughter today and she was asking about our process on selecting where we are going to stay.  Her and her friends who read the blog wanted to know.  So this posting is for you….

Presently we have an outline in mind of where we want to head to.  Part of it is dictated by being in a certain place for an event, which for now is Idaho by May 7th.  Towards that we select a route, preferably scenic and then look at possible stops along that route, about 200 to 250 miles apart.  We then use our camping guides, Woodall’s and AAA, to look where RV parks are located.  Once we find some RV Parks then we use the computer to do additional research to prepare a list of places acceptable.  We are looking for big rig friendly parks, good site width so we are comfortable and a reasonable price.  We also enter the park name into Google which then gives you reviews of the parks, so you can see what people who have stayed there are saying.  In addition we use Google Earth to view the park from the air to see what the area is around it and does it match with what they are saying in their write-up.  We generally do not make reservations at a park and have not had an issue yet.  The reason for this is we like to check the park out first before deciding, plus if you change your mind while driving then you are out that first night’s cost as a cancellation fee.  We have also learned, the hard way, to only pay for a couple of nights at a time as plans change or you end up not liking the park for some reason and if you leave they do not refund unused nights. 

On the road we may change our mind on where to stop because we see a nice area or were delayed while driving for some reason.  If this is the case we then have our new tablet computer, Motorola Xoom, available to use to do the research on the fly, plus our GPS has AAA tour book information built into it.

We are members of the Good Sam club and KOA so we do get 10% discounts at parks affiliated with either of those.  We have met fellow full timers who have mentioned Passport America, Camp Club USA and Thousand Trails as additional organizations you can join to get discounts.  We have looked into each of those but are not sure due to the many restrictions on Passport America and Camp Club USA and the high cost for Thousand Trails. 

So far our process has worked fairly well.  We were disappointed with the KOA in West Sacramento but generally satisfied with all the others we have been to.  The one in Redding was selected while driving as we changed our mind and that ended up being one of the nicest places we have stayed.