Club Memberships Purchased
With the memberships we have purchased we will be able to save so much money on campgrounds, it’s unbelievable. I have budgeted $300/mo. for campground costs, but I mapped out a few tentative trips and with our memberships, I will rarely even spend the $300 on camping. Many months, we won’t even have any cost at all. All of the memberships will more than pay for themselves in not much time.
The following is the list of memberships we have purchased and below the list you will find more detail on each, including why we chose them:
Camping Memberships
Other Memberships
- Good Sam Club – discounts on gas and other things
- Escapees RV Club – mail service, setting up a domicile state, and roadside assistance
Thousand Trails with the Trails Collection Add-on
After much research, and with the plan to travel all over the country, we decided on a Thousand Trails (TT) membership. We opted for the membership that gives us access to any of 81 TT campgrounds across the country at no cost for up to 21 days at a time at each campground and we can hop from TT campground to TT campground all over the country for free. We opted to purchase our membership resale. We bought a Sapphire membership resale through Kimberly at Campground Membership Outlet kimberly@membershipoutlet.com. Along with the above features, with our Sapphire membership, we can book our campgrounds 180 days in advance which was important to us.
And since we want to be able to go all over, to more areas than just where the 81 TT campgrounds are, we purchased the Trails Collection add-on which adds more than 100 additional campgrounds across the country. Trails Collection (TC) campgrounds are at no cost up to 14 days, but you can only hop to another TC campground if you stay 4 days or less. But if you stay for more than the 4 days and then go to a TT campground or somewhere else for 7 days, then you can go to another TC campground. If you stay 4 days or less, you can hop from TC to TC campgrounds.
Coast to Coast and Resort Parks International
With the Sapphire Thousand Trails membership and the Trails Collection add-on, we have access to almost 200 campgrounds nationwide but on top of that, with the resale membership we bought from Kimberly at Campground Membership Outlet kimberly@membershipoutlet.com, a Preferred membership to Resort Parks International (RPI) was included, which gave us access to more than 200 RPI campgrounds for just $10/night up to 14 days at a time unlimited times per year except in peak season for a campground. Included in the Preferred membership are other discounts on other vacation rentals (condos, cabins, hotels, etc.) We will also have 20% discount at over 400 other campgrounds.
Also through Kimberly, we added a Deluxe membership to Coast to Coast (CCC) which gives us access to CCC campgrounds for $10/night up to 14 days at each site. Once we are out of a resort for 7 days, we can go back for another 14 days and can do that unlimited times per year. With the Deluxe CCC membership we get discounts on other vacation rentals (condos, cabins, hotels, etc.) and many other things (restaurants, gas, family fun, tires, etc.) Note: We also have Good Sam Club which has even better discounts on gas (5% off) than CCC has (3% off).
Both RPI and CCC have available campgrounds all over the country. These 2 memberships now opened us up to many, many more campgrounds, many times in areas where there are no TT or TC campgrounds.
Passport America
With TT, TC, CCC and RPI, we have access to more than 400 campgrounds at $0-$10/night and more than 400 more at discount prices. Although this gives us ample choices of places to camp all over the country, we opted for one last very inexpensive membership for just a tiny bit more flexibility. We purchased the Passport America (PA) membership which gives 50% off more than 400 PA campgrounds. While most of the time this still leaves you with costs of more than $30-$50, there are about 120 campgrounds across the country that end up only costing about $10-$15/night with the PA discount. This ends up being helpful for some occasions if necessary and will pay for itself if we at only stay at 1 or 2 campgrounds per year. Some of these are restricted to 1-4 days at the discount but it is still a help in a pinch.
America the Beautiful Senior National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass
And as if that wasn’t enough, we couldn’t pass this next one up. As a senior, if you have an America the Beautiful Senior National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass, you get in to all national parks and recreation areas for free. The pass is worth that by itself, but you also get 50% off camping fees at all National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers campgrounds. We purchased the lifetime pass. These campsites are regularly from $5-$30/night so 50% off of that is a great deal.
Harvest Hosts
And you thought we should be done! But no! Harvest Hosts (HH) has businesses all over the country that will allow you to stay for one night for free and they just ask that you purchase something from their business. They have hosts at all kinds of very cool places like vineyards, breweries, museums, and much more. For that occasion where you just need to stay one night, this is very cool. We got 20% off our HH membership through our Escapees RV Club membership.
Boondockers Welcome
Boondockers Welcome has private property owners that have room for an RV and will allow you to stay on their property. Each has their own amenities or not and their own restrictions. Some are restricted to one night but some will allow more than than. Some have electricity and/or water at a cost. This is another nice option when you only need a day or 2 at a certain stop.
Good Sam Club
We got an annual membership with Good Sam Club for free through our Coast to Coast membership. Although this membership has many discounts for the RVer (gas, Camping World, and many others), we mainly got it for the 5% discount on gas. Because we will do a lot of driving, this will pay for itself right away. But you do get many other discounts.
Escapees RV Club
Escapees RV Club is a club that offers many valuable things for the RVer. We signed up because we wanted to get their help in setting up a domicile state, use their mail service, and get their roadside assistance. But they also have other things that are great for the RVer.
Domicile State – Since California (Our home state before going full time RVing) has high taxes, we decided it made a lot of financial sense to change our domicile state. After research, we opted for Florida, so we will be traveling to Florida in January of 2022 and will work with Escapees in Bushnell, FL to set Florida up as our domicile state.
Mail Service – After checking out many other mail services, we feel that Escapees offers the best mail service.
Roadside Assistance – We signed up for this very affordable roadside assistance because it is tailored toward RVs and is much better for us, with much better coverage than what we had. We had AAA roadside assistance for many, many years, which was excellent for our autos, but it was not good for the RV.