One of the better purchases we’ve made in our full time RVing journey was buying into the Thousand Trails program. When we first hit the road, we got the camping pass with two zones (it was a buy one get one when we signed up), and the Trails collection.
The camping pass will give you access to the 8-23ish campgrounds in the zone or zones that you pick. We chose Southeast and Southwest since we knew we’d be spending a lot of time in Florida and in California during our first year. You have to have this before you can get anything else. The price varies, but I’ve seen it from about $500-700 for a year.
The Trails Collection gives you access to another 100+ campgrounds. These are all around the country and you don’t need to buy a zone. But you do have to have a camping pass to add this one. These campgrounds have been some of our favorites so far, especially Lake Magic in Florida. This photo is at Lake Magic! This add on also varies in price, but I’ve seen it from $200-400.
The way the Camping Pass works is that you can stay at a Thousand Trails campground or Trails collection campground (if you’ve paid for the add on) for two weeks but then you have to go out of the system for a week. We ended up spending $2,042 hopping out of the system on our drive down to Florida and while in Florida during our first year on the road. In January 2021, we decided to at least see what the pricing would be if we decided to upgrade.
The upgrades are plans where you can stay longer in the parks and you don’t have to leave the system. The differences between the plans come down to how far out you can book and which campgrounds you can travel between. We choose the Elite Basic plan. This allows us to book 120 days out for Thousand Trails campgrounds and 60 days out for Trails Collection campgrounds.
The other plans allow you to book out farther and the current top plan allows you to travel between Trails Collection campgrounds. I have to say, I would LOVE to get this plan (Adventure) but it does come with a bigger price tag.
Because Thousand Trails is confusing, I put together a map to help you see all the different parks, enter your email below to get the map.
Even though the timing for our upgrade was a little early, since our spring and summer plans were not close to any Thousand Trails or Trails Collections campgrounds, we knew the prices would only go up and we WOULD use it in the fall and winter of 2021. I feel that a Thousand Trails upgraded membership more than pays for itself in Florida.
Another good thing when we upgraded to Elite Basic, is that we got a year free to Resort Parks International. They have parks all over the country and some are only $10 a night. We stayed at a few of these out west. We did end up renewing this membership for under $200 for the year.
We have used RV Trip Wizard to plan every trip since we got on the road in November 2020. We love RV Life so much that we have partnered with them. If you’re looking for a planner for your RV trip, this is what we use!
When we first got our camping pass, the Elite Basic package was around $5,000-$6,000, when we finally did upgrade, it was over $7000 with fees. Here’s the thing, we had already spent over $2,000 on camping up to that point. The great thing is that it is financed and even with all the fees and interest and what not, we were still saving. Our monthly payment, with dues and paying down the membership was $241.13 a month. Not too bad for the ability to camp for the month! We did pay off the membership in the spring of 2022, so now out monthly cost for camping is $75.31, this amount is a monthly cost for our annual dues.
So, what’s our honest review of Thousand Trails? We absolutely love it! We would recommend it to anyone who will be camping at least a few times a year, if they’re near the campgrounds.
The good:
– access to over 200 campgrounds
– you get to meet lots of other full time RVers
– minimal cost
The bad:
– campgrounds can be hit or miss
– popular campgrounds can be tough to get into
– the initial cost, especially if you pay for the upgraded membership up front, is high
If this has helped you in your decision in what to buy, you can use this link to save $100 off your camping pass – Make sure you tell them Bret & Jennilyn Gaitan sent you. We’ll get a little something, at no additional cost to you, for the referral. Do you have any additional questions? Let me know in the comments below!
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