While at Thousand Trails we listened to Valerie on updating our membership, she was honest and answered all of our questions, we decided this would be a great move for us.  We now have 3 weeks in all TT parks and can make reservations up to 120 days in advance, and we can go park to park. Staying 3 weeks in the TT/Naco and 2 in all Leisure time parks.  Mike got online last month and made our reservations for the summer we are good to go all the way to 1st of Sept.  We made a great choice in upgrading.  If you are a full timer then having a Thousand Trails membership would be a smart move.  We bought our used one from Chad out of Florida, he is the one to go to, as he is honest and will find the right used membership for you.  Then we did the upgrade, altogether we might have paid a little less or maybe more, by doing it this way, you will need to check that out for yourselves, no matter it is worth every penny.  Our membership upgrade was the Elite Basic, make sure you call Val and tell her we recommended you.

TT has a lot of parks along the coast of Oregon, Calf and in Washington as well as a few in the center of the country.  We have found the people running these parks are friendly and make sure your stay is one you will remember.  Some parks do not have septic, we have not stayed at those as of yet, but the three parks we have stayed at Thousand Trails, Las Vegas and Seaside (OR) are great wonderful parks. 

Over the winter months we used RPI, ROD, AOR and TT, the cost totaled for all 5 1/2 months was $600.  Now we have more free parks since we have the TT ( there is a $3 night for 50 amps). I don't mind paying that, just think of the savings in the long run.

It may take us 2 years to revamp the cost but I would rather do the upgrade then go to parks that are charging anywhere from $450-800 a month plus electric.

(See update at bottom of page, 07/07)

10/06
Here is the story of how we are now Members of KM Resorts, Resorts of Distinction, and RPI

We went to Camping World on 10/1/2006 while there we meet a salesperson (Bryon a great guy) who was selling the above memberships, since Mike and I are on a very tight budget and the RV parks were running any where from $24 to $34 a night (except passport America about $15 but stay only 3 nights) we decided to listen...
after about 2 hours of asking questions and making sure our figures were correct we joined.

The cost was around $5000..but we now have quit a few parks that we only pay but $8.00 a night and some are just electric of $1.00 night to stay, the only stipulation to these parks are .. you must make a reservation, in for 14 out for 7,  almost like the state parks (which by the way we have found are running around $21-$25 a night and  do not have full hook-ups.) Any way the other parks that you can stay in will only cost $8.00 a night and there are hundreds to choose from all over the US, some in Canada & Mexico.

We have heard horror stories on joining these memberships but when we did the figures, for instance if you were only able to stay in the $8 a night parks and not ever go to the free ones, your cost for the 365 days (after all we are full time) would be $2920 plus your yearly membership of $539 which equals $3459 divide that by 365 actual costs per day is $9.47 what a savings !!

The first year, because, you have paid for the membership your cost per day should you only stay in the $8. parks would be around $21 a day where are you going to find RV parks all the time for $21 ??  Good luck too you if you do. As of December 06 we have not had to pay anything as we have been staying in the ROD parks which do not cost us a penny.  If you need to stay in parks longer then 14 days this might not be for you, as you cannot stay in the parks for more then 14 days peak season and 3 weeks off season, This does not bother us, as we are ready to move in two weeks anyway, we have talked to several RV'ers and they too feel that in 14 days they are ready to see the rest of the USA!

We have found that the parks are clean, lots of activities and now we have had a chance to stay in a few, they are great.

Elma was the first and although I can find some fault such as all back ins and some space's with only 30 amps freeway noise, are the only faults with this park!  We have since stayed in a couple more. check out RESORT parks and would stay in all of them again as each might have a small flaw, but they are worth it. The people you meet at these parks are wonderful and we are slowly adding a list of great new friends.

Will be able to tell you more about other parks as we continue on with our retirement, since we plan to do this for years you will be able to keep up with the parks and too see if this is profitable for you!!  Now we are on to first park in Texas to use with membership.

07/07 Update

It will be a year in October, since we purchased the resort membership (KM) which included ROD, RPI and Coast to Coast. We have used mostly ROD (no cost to us, except some charge $1 a night for 50 amps, and I have no problem with this policy) going from park to park about every 2 weeks, and as I stated in our journals, all of the parks keep getting better and better.  There were 1 or 2 that were a tight squeeze between trees, but we did not have a problem, even with our big rig.  We have dropped Coast to Coast, we did not use it, and had heard too many stories about the difficult time getting to same of the parks. Can't tell you whether they were ok or not but I can tell you the ROD parks are the top of my list.  Some of the RPI parks which you pay $8 + tax a night for were a little hard to find,  but then again for the price they were worth it.  You can see the list of parks and my comments about each at RESORT PARKS page. 

We did purchase AOR, Byron suggested that was not necessary, but at the time Western Horizon was dropping a lot of the RPI parks, so we needed a back up.  We paid the full price for acquiring this membership, they also charge $8+tax a night to stay in an AOR park.  Guess what, Byron was right, we did not need it, as of today we have not used AOR.  But who knows we probably will, after all if you can't get in under ROD or RPI you can use AOR, which many full timers, we have meet are doing. Most all of the parks ROD, RPI and AOR overlap each other.

Thank you KM and Byron for being outside of Camping World with your Booth, if you had not, we might have had to settle somewhere and never traveled, RV parks who are not connected to the membership idea, are way too expensive on a retirement budget, and we may have had to give up the traveling if it wasn't for you guys. We are now going on our 2nd year of full time on the road, so stay tuned, we will be using many more parks that are with our membership, we will staying at a lot of the resort parks in Washington. (Home of KM Resorts)

Mike and Carol  PS if you join KM please tell them Mike and Carol Carmichael recommended you as we will get $50 off of the dues.  Thank you