When we first started out with fulltime RV life, we were made aware of a travel club called Thousand Trails. To make a long story short, Thousand Trails is a sort of campground membership where you pay yearly dues and have access to stay for free at their campgrounds all over the country. I know it sounds too good to be true, and we felt the same way. However, before departing Florida for Maine in 2019 we decided to go ahead and get the basic TT membership with what they call a “zone pass”. The basic membership dues for basic currently cost around $600/year and allow you to stay up to 2 weeks in a thousand trails park and then you have to be out of the system for 7 days. Then, you can go right back to another TT park for 2 weeks and just continue that process. I’m sure you’re doing the math now and can see that yes…that basic membership will pay for itself in no time if you consider that many RV parks charge $300 or more per week. Just 2 weeks of staying at a park for free basically pays the membership for a year! By the way, here is a little trick to where you can stay at thousand trails parks for free indefinitely even with the basic membership. if you only stay 4 days, you can go from park to park to park and never have to be out of the system for 7 days. This is GREAT when trying to go long distances in a short time. Then, you get to your destination and stay your 2 weeks. The basic membership works by selecting a “zone pass”. When you get the basic membership they will ask what zone of the country you want for the membership. You can always add other zones to your membership. When we started out, we had the Southeast. We added the northeast and used our membership all the way up to Maine. You can also add the “trails collection” and it really expands the number of campgrounds you can stay at!
Now, the basic membership is pretty sweet and we used it for 2 years. BUT, as I am sure you have guessed, there are better memberships. They also have an “elite” membership. Now, the elite is just like it sounds. With the elite membership you can book parks anywhere between 120 and 180 days out. And you can spend up to 3 weeks in the TT parks and jump from park to park to park without ever having to be out of the system for 7 days! Now THAT is a great deal. On our travels we met many people with the elite membership and they all told us how great it was and how theirs had paid for itself many times over. But we just couldn’t come to grips with spending the cash. Well, we finally decided to reach out to Thousand Trails and found out they would finance the membership and we wouldn’t have to use our cash or put it on a card! Between the membership dues and the monthly payment it is around $250/month. That is amazing! With RV sites costing $45-90/day or $800-2500/month you can easily see that doing a membership like this is a no brainer. We of course jumped on it.
I know you’re going to ask how the campgrounds are. Well, they run the whole gamut of quality. Some are nicer than others. We have several that we have come to love and have gone back to multiple times…and some we plan to go back to multiple times. Others we do not plan to visit again. As far as the type of people camping at these parks, you will find a lot of families. I mean A LOT. The campgrounds are usually very family oriented and many of them have lots of events and such for kids. We have actually met some of our closest friends in the last 2 years at various TT parks.
SO, is it worth it to get the membership? In our opinion ABSOLUTELY YES. It pays for itself many times over.
If you would like to speak with a great membership specialist, please send us a message and we can connect you with ours!
