Breaking Up is Probably Going to Be Harder Than This To Do...

I don't know exactly what the cancellation process is to end my Thousand Trails membership, but I set this email to see if it gets the desired results:

Hello,

We do not wish to renew our Thousand Trails membership when it expires on September 12th, 2015.  We were told we needed to give 30 days notice to cancel our membership. 

Can you please cancel our membership on September 12, 2015? We do not wish to renew.

Yamila Abraham

XXXX XXXXXX-Abraham

Member #: _________

We will be using it in August with our last camping date being August 29th.  If I don't hear a confirmation from you by Tuesday I will proceed with a certified letter, return receipt required. 

We are cancelling for the following reasons:

1.  The Menifee California campground is in a remote area where there is little to do.  It's a long drive to get decent shopping.  We really didn't like Temecula.

2.  The nice Palm Springs campground is not usable for half the year, and it's not actually convenient to Palm Springs.  (But we did like the area).

3.  Many of the bathrooms in the Acton CA campground are locked up.  (Otherwise, we liked it here a lot).

4.  The road in to the Santa Barbara campground is horrifying, particularly when towing a 32' trailer.  Santa Barbara was back-in only, which I'm not capable of doing.  The gate has a single lane, and you must wait behind any incoming reservations to be processed in order to finally get in.  There was no Internet, cell, or TV reception there outside the adult lodge.  It's 15 miles in expensive gasoline country to get to any shopping.

5.  San Benito has a major electrical problem.  We were in a 30amp spot designated as functional and lost power 4 times the first 7 days, once for 5 hours in 90 degree heat.  Once again, the campground is extremely remote.  The only way we were able to get Internet here is by using the booster I was forced to buy for the Santa Barbara campground.  Cell and TV reception is spotty.

6.  We did not get to try out any other Northern California campgrounds in our membership zones because they do not provide sewer connections.  Then the campgrounds have the unmitigated gall to charge campers $25 for a truck to pump out rigs.  I'm just disgusted by this.  I wouldn't have signed up if I knew so many California campgrounds would not be usable.

As you can see, we gave Thousand Trails a very exhaustive trail as full-timers.  We have decided we need to pay for camping in urban areas to get everything we really want out of this lifestyle.  I'm sure a lot of people like remote camping, and I'm not saying that it's bad to have campgrounds like this, but as full-timers who are still working full-time we need access to shopping and Internet/Cell connections.  Also the lack of sewer connections in Northern California.  I can't put up with that bull.

 

Sincerely, etc.

 

Well, I haven't heard anything back today yet, so I'm probably going to send that letter.  Hopefully this won't turn into a fiasco. 

Incidentally, this is the first campground where we're having a minor problem with ants.  There's a great deal of wildlife and bug life.  Last night I battled a giant ugly bug who was trying to shimmy itself under my window screen to get in.  Every time I tried to knock it off the thing would HISS at me.  Ugh.  My friend insisted that it was buzzing, not hissing, so I recorded it.  You can hear the hiss at the 8 second mark:

Thousand Trails San Benito

So we're in Paicines California at the Thousand Trails San Benito park.  This is getting somewhat North in California, near San Jose.  We felt we should go north during the summer so that we have cooler climates.  That's not really working out, though.  It's sweltering here.

It seems that every California Thousand Trails park north of Santa Barbara has issues.  The majorly off-putting one for me is the lack of sewer connections at most of the parks.  We need to dump every seven days.  I've measured this.  Other people may need to dump less, but this is what we need for our situation.  That means I can't go two weeks at a park without sewer.  I'd have to move the rig to the dump station every seven days.  What a pain in the butt!  Seriously, forget it.

I was warned not to go to San Benito by a camp host who was trying to sell me an upgraded membership.  He said there are a lot of tent campers here and I may not like that.  Huh?  Um...who cares?  Incidentally, I haven't seen any tent campers (but as I said, it's sweltering).  I think he was trying to come up with a not so negative reason why we should avoid this place rather than stating the truth:  There is a major electrical problem at this camp.

A lot of reviews online mentioned this.  Most of the unoccupied 30amp spaces have red dots painted on them, indicating that they are broken.  -_-  We did find a spot that didn't have a dot, or shade, and was mostly grown over.  But I pulled in anyway and set us up here.

One of the red dots.

I've had electrical problems from the get-go.  My converter is struggling to draw amperage, making the cooling fan run on high constantly.  Then around 11am we lost power.  -_-  It was 85 degrees and very humid.  The thought of moving the RV just made me sick.  It was so hard to find even this spot, and this supposedly functional electric pedestal didn't even last a day.  How long would the next one last if we did move?

Ugh.  Well I wandered around with my surge guard testing it on other spots.  Some long-term residents saw me and gave me advice.  They seemed to think I could tell someone here that my electric went and it would be addressed.  I assumed the opposite, since the park allowed so many spots to just break and stay broken.  However, they hailed a golf-cart riding camp host and within an hour we had electric again.

@_@  Gosh.  That was good.  Maybe this place isn't so bad?  Sure my converter fan is running non-stop, but at least I have Air Conditioning and a sewer connection.

There's lots of amazing wildlife here, also.  We have big flocks of quail running around with their silly hats and red-headed woodpeckers.  As we came in late last night after driving to Stockton to finally sell the tow dolly (yee-haw!) we saw deer and two little foals sipping a puddle made by a leaking spigot.  That was breath-taking.  We saw several more deer as we drove around for 20 minutes like morons trying to find where the hell our RV was in this massive maze-like park.  The wild-life is neato.  Deers and bunnies everywhere!

I've gone ahead and changed our reservation so that we stay here for three weeks.  I've exhausted our gasoline budget.  Since the park is working reasonably for us we may as well stay until I get my next infusion of royalties from Amazon.  (That's my monthly pay, what I life on).

There's fruit stands all over the place. Some are major tourist attractions like Casa de Fruta. Not cheap, but we bought fruit anyway.  This haul was from a smaller stand between Stockton and Hollister.  The apricots seem huge to me.

Thousand Trails Soledad Canyon, Acton California

Hello my lovelies!!  Here is me (right) and The Mom.  We went to the pool opening ceremony party thing at the Soledad Canyon Thousand Trails.  They had a photo booth, so we took some pics.  I am hesitant to post pictures of myself due to weight gain, but I think this one is okay.

Here we are!

 So, like I said in the last post, we've come early to our next Thousand Trails camp due to the failed boondock.  I went online and got reviews of this park.  I'm glad I did because I learned that you can only get Verizon Internet in the N section, which is up a steep hill.  Reviews also stated that there were a lot of spaces with bad electric (they gave us a list of spaces to avoid) and that many of the bathrooms were closed. 

Gorgeous mountains in spitting distance all around

I parked the RV next to a bathroom only to find that it was one of the closed ones.  Boo!  However, I explored today and found an open bathroom a short walk away.  Yay!  We won't have to use our RV shower. 

I mean...our shower's not the worst thing, but we have our litter box in it so it's kind of a pain to dig everything out and clean it before use.  Then it's your typical small RV shower/tub and it's hard not to bump the plug.  If you do it closes and the little tub fills up with water.  I had trouble avoiding this so my mom will have problems too.  Then we only have a 5 gallon hot water tank that has to be heated up with our precious propane before we can shower.  It won't last long so that means Navy showers where you douse yourself wet and then turn off the water while you soap up and put on shampoo.  The you turn on the water again to rinse off.  The showerhead handle has an on/off switch to make this easier.  (You don't have to shut the water fully off and mess with the water temp each time when you turn it back on).

 I love the peaceful atmosphere and scenery of this place.  I'm not as upset over the closed bathrooms or electric issues that some people complained about in the reviews.  I tested this site's electric before setting up and all was good.  We're not hard to please.

This is not really desert.  We have loads of vegetation and wildlife.  Bobcats even!!   The views are stunning in all directions.  There was a trail I forced my mother to hike with her walker yesterday.  There were so many critters!! OMG!

Today they had a party for the new pool opening.  Its a huge pool!  We got free eats and everyone was nice.  It was fun.  RV parties are great because you can just show up and know that people will talk to you even though they don't know you.  There's no such thing as wallflowers or feeling left out.  You don't have to dress fancy.  You don't have to act fancy.  It's just down to earth fun!

Look at the trees!  I haven't seen trees like this in so long.  It was nice and cool too.  It's May here and around 60-70 during the day.  The nights get pretty cold.  Not uncomfortable though.  It's long sleeve weather.  Much nicer than the heat of Palm Springs.

The local animal shelter was there with all the dogs they felt would be good pets for Rvers.  This little guy caught our eye.  If the girl had been pushy we would have caved and adopted her.  OMG...that face!

But we don't know how to dog.  It would be a new thing for us.  Also we were worried our cats would tear her to shreds.  My cat Scrappy is called Scrappy for a reason, and it ain't just cuz she loves food scraps!

There is loads of space here and it's a beautiful park-like setting.  I mean...I LOVE THIS PLACE!!

;o;  There.  I said it.  

This is the sort of place that gets me thinking about buying one of there leased spots and sticking around.  But nay...tis too soon for such decisions.  Still, we're only 40 miles from LA.  This would be a good city to launch my screenplay writing career.  :p 

So this is our home for the next three weeks.  :)  I'm liking it so far, but I'll keep you posted!

Hello From Palm Springs

Well, the adventure has officially begun and I'm keeping to my plan of living in Thousand Trails campgrounds as we travel around.  We're at our first stop right now.

I love how easy it is to park the trailer in the Thousand Trails campgrounds.  There always seems to be pull-through spots, which makes my life so much easier.  I parked right by the bathrooms/laundry for easy access for showers and laundry.

Although the huge campground is easy to maneuver my huge-ass RV in, it's not actually in Palm Springs, but in the Palm Desert in an area of vacant sand beside a busy highway and railroad and under a busy flight path.  Thousand Trails buys land cheap.  Any and all attractions require a drive, but it's not as long a drive as in its Menifee campground.  This area is a lot nicer than Temecula.

My main gripe with this campground is not Thousand Trails fault.  DON'T COME TO PALM SPRINGS IN MAY.  It's already way too hot to be here.  Everyone except for me seemed to know this because the campground is practically empty.  We get over 100 degrees every day and the AC in the RV is going almost constantly during the day. 

We're pretty much stuck in the tin-can unless we want a pricey excursion into the city--and every excursion is pricey here.  It's a very upscale 'old rich' area.  All the restaurants are trendy with gimmicks and hella expensive.  Grocery shopping was a mixed bag.  I was shocked at how cheap the meat was ($.99/lb for picnic ham) but equally dismayed at how expensive the vegetables were ($2.00 for a head of iceberg lettuce).  Thankfully my old standby is all over the place here:  99 Cent Only Store!  Yes, the blueberries were more than $.99 at $1.69, but that's still cheap for a pint of blueberries!  We stocked up on fruits, vegetables, and dehydrated seaweed (something really good for me since I'm vitamin deficient due to the lack of a large intestine and eating seaweed seems to help with a lot of skin problems I have).

Gas is a dollar more a gallon here than in Nevada.  $3.69 was the cheapest I found.  That's still okay for the California desert, sadly.  I've seen it go over $5.00/gallon.

My goal of losing weight at the Treasure Resort in Pahrump was a total bust.  I failed.  I'm still as fat as I was when I checked in.  I was too stressed with the house sale drama to lose weight.  I'm so dejected about that.  My mom and I agreed we'd continue our efforts.  So  we went to the fitness center here to keep up our daily exercise routine.

It was a tiny equipment room with cheapo Walmart machines that were falling apart.  The main weight machine had an 'Out of Order' sign on it. Besides that was just two stationary bikes and a treadmill that kept stopping and starting.  -_- Lame.  My backup is this stepper thing that I brought with me:



That's not exactly what I have but it's the same principle.  (If you can't see the picture above disable your ad blocker, it's an Amazon link).  I did it for 20 minutes with 3 pound weights and managed to get a good sweat, but it was tedious and difficult.  :/  I prefer to put on my skates and skate around at dusk when it cools down a little.  I skate while holding on to a three wheeled walker because I'm clumsy.

Even though I'm in a ritzy area, the fact is that I can still live cheap if I want to.  I got two weeks of RV parking for $18.  Yes.  $18.  With my Thousand Trails membership of $600/year the campgrounds only cost me $3/night.  The first 30 days are free, so I still had some free days to apply to this stay.  I don't have to pay for anything else.  No cost for trash, electricity, or water.

My budget is getting blown on food and outings, however.  After the long drive here I wanted a good dinner so we went to a seafood place and were gouged out the rear-end.  $75!!!  Aaaeeeiiii!  What was I thinking?  After that we knew to stick with Mexican food or cheap-ish cafes.  We've eaten out two more times since we got here and managed to keep each meal to under $40.  Yeah.  That's got to end.  We can't live the high life if we want to thrive for long.

So the fridge is stocked with food for the next two weeks.  We're going to be good and stop eating out.  Well--we probably will need to eat out a few more times, but we'll keep it cheap.

This is the first time we've camped since the house was sold.  My mother and I both had a panic attack the first night.  We have no safety net!  We need a place for this RV to live at all times!  It's our only home!  ::breathes into paper bag::  Before I always thought of my house in Pahrump, with all my furniture still there and the water and the electric still on.  It was always the place I could go back to if things didn't work out.  Now it's no longer my home and new people are living there.  Eeee!

Well, I think we'll be okay.  Even with all the eating out we're obsessive savers and both have healthy emergency funds.

Like I described in a prior post, Thousand Trails is 14 days in 7 days out.  The morning of May 15th I have to leave, and I can't go to another Thousand Trails campground for 7 days.  Right now I *think* we're going to boondock for 7 days.

Boondocking is looking to be a lot harder than I thought it would.  All the free camp sites seem to be for tents and cars only.  There's very few spots that seem appropriate for my giant beast of an RV.  I can't be driving down narrow roads or dirt roads.  I can't go too far off pavement.  I need big open level spaces.

My plan right now is this place:  http://freecampsites.net/#!7444&query=sitedetails  It's between here and my next Thousand Trails campground.  I hope it's not too hard to get into and that there's a place for me to put this big rig.  Also I hope it won't be too hot since we'll be living off solar and won't have AC.  Eee...I'm very nervous!!

I really want to boondock when I can because it will save me money, and that will give me more money to pay off the RV.  We lost all the proceeds from the house due to a nightmare I would rather not discuss.  It's my fault.  We were supposed to be debt free for this adventure, but still owe $30,000+ on the RV.

So I've made a plan to pay it off in 2 years.  I'm determined.  I've already sent the first fat payment this month.  If I can just accomplish this then we will be no worse off in two years and free to live as cheap as we can.

In July I have a lean month with low royalties from my writing.  I'm trying to recover this month by writing my new Aliens' Bride story.  I'm really working hard to make this an exceptional novel that will bring me a good income for May.  I hope its a big hit.  Here's a cover teaser:

  

Colorado River Adventures Part 2

UPDATE-Please be sure to read my Part 3 before you book a sales meeting.

Hello from Laughlin, NV!  We are spending the night here before heading back to Pahrump.  This morning we went to Lake Havasu to attend a sales presentation for Colorado River Adventures.

I was seriously dreading a high-pressure sales pitch.

But it turned out to be nothing like that.  Also, much of the negative stuff I've read online about didn't seem to apply.  It was a pleasant experience, and I'm glad I checked it out!  If I decide that camping memberships are the best thing for us (which is too early to tell right now) I will get the CRA membership rather than upgrade Thousand Trails.  Thousand Trails was a much easier decision since we have a 'teaser' membership that's super-cheap.  CRA is much more comprehensive and has a lump-sum buy-in required.

I read a great deal of negative stuff online about CRA.  I thought I had plenty of ammunition preloaded that would allow me to turn down the membership.  However, the stuff online is either no longer applicable, or do not apply to CRA memberships originating from Arizona.

Arizona has the strictest Time-Share regulations in the country.

This is what the nice sales manager told me.  He admitted that memberships that are made in other states, like California, have little to no regulations, so they're different.  I have a feeling that the negative things I heard about CRA are from these low regulation states like California, but who knows?  I can only talk about the experience I had at the Arizona Lake Havasu Springs Resort.  I do not believe he was lying in the things he told me because we would have had to sign something in the end, and I obviously would have read it with great scrutiny.  I believe he was being honest with me.  (The woman at the front desk was very nice, too!)

You probably want to get your membership in Arizona.

Again, I can't say if it's worth the drive if you're in California or elsewhere, but I'm telling you that the membership that was described to me was not this nightmare thing described on another web site.

You do have to go to a sales presentation at a resort and sign up in person.  I tried to get details over the phone with the main sales office, but they wouldn't budge on this.

The good thing about going in person is that you get some free gifts so long as you meet their criteria:

1. You can't have attended a CRA presentation previously.
2. You and your significant other must make at least $40,000 combined.
3. Both decision makers have to attend the sales meeting.

The gifts I got were an android tablet, a $100 gas rebate (I will report later about whether or not they honor this), a one year free membership to the Lake Havasu resort (with caveats), and a free hotel stay at some vacation spot for 2 nights.  The choices were Bahamas, Denver, and a few other choice places.

The android tablet is awesome!  It was brand new in original sealed packaging and works fine.  The gas rebate is a bit of a hassle.  I need to collect receipts from Shell stations and mail it in.  I do plan on taking advantage of it.  I suggest that if you're driving down to the Havasu resort stop at Shell stations on the way to fill up.  Only fill up $25 at a time (you need four receipts of $25 or more and only $25 is reimbursed per receipt) and get your four receipts.  Maybe you can redeem this during your stay at the resort.

The free membership is good for one year at the Havasu Springs Resort.  It provides up to 20 days of camping.  A stay is 5 days maximum.  Only 5 stays are allowed.  One night constitutes a stay.  You can't stay on weekends.  Seven days out are required between visits.  These caveats are what I'd heard on a different site, and were expected.  I'll still get a 5 day stay sometime next winter.  I'm making a point to get back to the resort in our travels.

Lake Havasu Resort is GORGEOUS.  It's right on the water, and the water is turquoise with a beautiful mountain back drop.  I saw a nice pier that you can fish off of.  There were boats on the calm waters, hundreds of docks in the water, and a launching ramp.  There were 500 RV spaces with many pull-thrus.  Some looked a little small, but it was not as another site described.  I saw many Class As side by side with their slides out with reasonable space around them. There were loads of other amenities, like clubhouses, pools, and a restaurant. 

The camp attracted an affluent crowd.  I did not see the scuzzy long-term residents another site reviewing CRA mentioned.  There were a mix of all kinds of RVs.  There was also just boats parked in spots.  I'm not sure how it all works.

Bottomline:  Lake Havasu Springs is an AWESOME park, and we will be staying there in the future.

We will take advantage of that free membership we got next winter.  It's the end of March and it's already getting too hot to be down this south.  The weather has been unseasonably warm this year.

Okay, now I'd like to go over what I heard, and what the reality is.

1.  I heard that once you sign up it was like buying a time-share.  You were stuck with the quarterly maintenance fees forever until you managed to sell the thing.  FALSE:  You can cancel your membership with CRA at any time, but because there's a significant buy-in you probably want to try to sell your membership.  There are also different membership plans, the cheapest being a 6 year membership for a $7,000 initial buy-in.  After the six years it expires unless you put the $7,000 toward an upgraded life-time membership, which is $9,000 (only $2,000 when bought as an upgrade). 

2.  I heard that you only have 8 measly campgrounds with this membership.  FALSE:  CRA is now part of GoodSam's Coast to Coast program, which means you get Coast to Coast resorts too.  There were a shit-ton of them.  More than what Thousand Trails offers with their Encore Resort program.  You get free stays at 100+ campgrounds, plus other benefits through the comprehensive Coast to Coast program.  I kind of zoned-out during the video, but it includes discounted condo rentals in places like Maui, cheaper airline tickets, and...geez, I forget.  But basically there were so many benefits that even if you didn't have an RV they had a decent enough sales pitch to get you to sign up.  There are cabins at all the CRA resorts (the 8 core resorts) that you get a special discount rental rate.

The campground membership offered is similar to Thousand Trails in that it's 14 days in with 7 days out, however, for $95 you can buy your out days so that you can stay at the campground continuously for up to 6 months.  If I try to pull a stunt where I use my ReadyCampGo membership to buy my out days and stay at a Thousand Trails resort continuously it will be $20/night or $140 to pull this off.  CRA is cheaper in that respect, but also in the fact that I would have to pay a few hundred bucks for the additional ReadyCampGo membership each year.

Thousand Trails also charges $3/night for your 'in' nights and CRA doesn't.

3.  I heard that CRA has quarterly maintenance fees of $210.  FALSE:  In my Arizona originating campground membership it's an annual fee of under $600 (I forget the exact amount) which is comparable to what I pay for Thousand Trails.

4.  I heard you had to sign an agreement that said you wouldn't buy a CRA membership from anyone but them in order to get your free gifts.  FALSE.  The salesman came out with the android and certificates right from the start.  GOOD GOING!  I thought I was going to have to pitch a fit to get my gifts!  Seriously, the sales manager at the Havasu resort was awesome and never made me feel pressured.  When we said no they let us have our presents and leave.  No resells.  No locking us in a room until we agreed to sign up.  It was not like that!  This was a pleasant experience.

Now, I must say that we arrived early because we'd spent the night in Laughlin.  (Great city, btw.)  We asked if we could be in the earlier sales presentation, however it was still hours before that.  Rather than have us wait the sales manager helped us himself.  :)  That was seriously nice of him!  But he was the manager, not a commissioned sales-person.  From the nice experience he gave me and my mother I feel that he doesn't allow any shenanigans on his watch.

5.  I heard that if you wanted out of your CRA membership you had to sell it (not true) and that the company would make it as difficult as possible for you to do that, charging $1,000 transfer fees and the like.  FALSE.  The sales manager said he facilitated the sales of used memberships and the fee was 5% (possibly 6%, I'm not sure).  The fact that he said that he would call us if a used membership with a lower buy-in came for sale gave some credence to this.

Okay, at the end of the presentation there was one little shenanigan, where he said that if we didn't sign up today we would not be allowed to sign up for two years.  God bless them, they have to make sales, but we both know if I call him in a month and say we've decided we want the membership they're going to give it to us.  He respected us enough not to belabor the point.

I think if you're in the market for a campground membership that CRA is worth considering.  

I have a feeling your experience will be different in California, so as I say, you might want to trek to Arizona to buy.  I'm not getting paid anything for this referral.  When people treat me nice I don't have a problem spreading the word.  I also feel that some positive press is needed for CRA to balance the negative stuff I encountered that turned out not to be true.

I feel kind of bad right now because the salesman gave me his card but it must have slipped into a crumb crack in the SUV or something.  UGH.  I was going to post his information so you could contact him directly.  If I find his card in the future I will post this.  In the meantime, if you want to pursue a membership you can contact them through their site.

Colorado River Adventures

We decided to check out another campground membership program since Thousand Trails seems worth the money.

This Saturday 3/28/15 we will be going to a Colorado River Adventures sales pitch at Lake Havasu.

The lack of details beforehand make me think this is too expensive for us.  Thousand Trails was an easy sell, and didn't require the Time-Share like lures.  But, meh, we'll check it out.  We've agreed not to make any decisions that day no matter the pressure.  I should be getting a free Android Tablet out of the deal.

I will report here on what happens.  I have a feeling people sign a nondisclosure agreement or something because details online are hard to find! 

UPDATE!  READ MY FULL REPORT!

Using Thousand Trails with Ready Camp Go

The clock is ticking down for me, my mom, and our three cats.  We close on our house sale April 10th.  At that point we'll have no home except for our luxury palace on wheels.

It's Go Time!

I read a lot of blogs where the full-time RVers do tons of boondocking on free BLM lands and pay next to nothing for camping each year.  Some of these campgrounds look pretty sweet.  I'm surprised that there are so many lakes with free camping around them. 

Most, however, look like the vacant stretches of scrub brush I currently see stretching around my house.  I could probably manage to camp in such places sometimes...but I think it would be depressing long term.

I want some luxury and amenities!!

My best camping experience so far was last July when we went to Morro Bay to try out our old trailer.  It was by the ocean in a quaint little town with delicious oysters!  I had fun fishing off the pier and catching baby halibuts that got gently thrown back.  The other campers were so friendly! 

I would love to camp full-time on the California coast, but these places are expensive even off-season.  I'm too frugal for $1,100 worth of RV rent per month! 

$325 is well within my budget, however.  And that's how we're starting out.  We've booked a month at a very awesome RV park in town to tie off all the loose ends before wandering far afield.

What about after that?!

I just know I'm not resourceful enough to find free boondocks we actually will enjoy 365 days a year.  Also, part of the reason I'm getting out of Pahrump is because I'm too isolated here.  I want to occasionally be around other humans (preferably friendly ones).

So...last September we decided to buy a membership with Thousand Trails.  WAIT!  Don't rush out and buy yours yet.  This isn't quite a recommendation yet.  Read on!

Thousand Trails is a campground membership where you pay an annual fee in order to be able to camp at campgrounds in two of their 'zones.'  The zones we picked cover the whole southern half of the United States, from California to Florida.  Here's the skinny on Thousand Trails:

1. For $600/year you gain access to campgrounds in two of their Zones.  They always seem to have the 'Two Zones for One Annual Fee' promotion going, so don't feel rushed to sign up.
   
2. You can only stay 14 consecutive days at a Thousand Trails campground.  Then you must get out of their system for 7 days before starting a new stay. 
   
3. The first 30 days you camp is no charge.  You then pay $3/night.
   
4. If you stay four days or less and then move immediately to a different Thousand Trails campground you don't have to stay out of their system for 7 days.
   
5. If you give them a hard sell when you are buying your membership they may sweeten the pot with a free gold membership to ReadyCampGo, which will give you 60 days at any Thousand Trails or Encore resort for $20/day.

If the 14 on 7 out caveat had been presented to me up front I probably wouldn't have bought the membership.  I thought this was solution to my full-time camping needs.  Alas, no.  The membership will require a lot of moves in and out with my unwieldy massive travel trailer. 

I figured I'd do 14 days at a Thousand Trails campground, boondock 7 days, and then check into another Thousand Trails campground.  Maybe?  I could probably put up with scrub brush for 7 days a month, right?  When I look closer at my Thousand Trails and Ready Camp Go memberships I'm hoping there's a better way to do things, which will require fewer moves.

I'm hoping I have a useable hack for Thousand Trails

Maybe I can stay my 14 days, and then book the next 7 days at the SAME CAMPGROUND with Ready Camp Go.  These could be my 7 days 'out'?  It would be $140 for 7 days, but that's within my campground budget (it would be $212/mo with the $3/day fee on the 'in' days).  Then I could go to a different Thousand Trails campground or perhaps even stay at the same campground for another 14 days.  This would cause me to only have to move every 35 days. 

I don't know if I could get away with this.  TT has lots of upgraded memberships they want to sell that give you longer times at the campgrounds.  I'll give it a try and let you know how it goes.

If this system works I would have 60 days a year to put towards 'out' days.  I think if I wanted to live at Thousand Trails resorts exclusively, and if my hack worked, I would probably need more 'out' days.  This means $299/year for a Platinum Ready Camp Go membership.  Plus $600 for Thousand Trails.  Plus the $20/mo for out days.  Plus $3/mo for in days.

I don't know...maybe I'd be better just doing monthly stays at campgrounds and boondocking occasionally?  I guess I just don't want to stay at shitty campgrounds, you know?  I didn't pick this life to save money.  The cheapest thing I could have done was stay in my house, which I'd already paid off in full.  I'm traveling for adventure, spirit reinvigoration, and to meet new people. 

On our way to Morro Bay we spent the night at a shitty campground for $20.  It had some creepy people, who obviously lived there forever, and one nice guy who seemed to like living there forever with the other creepy people.  (I was happy to meet him!)  Anyway, I would never want to live in such a campground forever, no matter how cheap it was.  It was in the middle of scrub brush desert, in an ass-crack of a little methville town with nothing but an overpriced gas station for miles.  P. U.!

On the other hand...we have stayed at one Thousand Trails campground and had a negative experience there also.  BUT WAIT!  It wasn't Thousand Trails fault!  The staff was nice.  The space we got was huge, in shade trees, and with a picnic table.  The problem was that it rained the whole time and we were stuck in our old tiny trailer being miserable.  My mother caught a nasty cold.

I picked this campground in Menifee California because there was supposedly fishing on site in the canals.  We stayed during the winter and the canals were empty of fish at the time.  It was still kind of fun to try.  But the days were short and sunny weather was sparse.  I was bummed.

Like I said, most of the problems with the Menifee Campground wasn't Thousand Trails Fault

...But I still wouldn't camp there again.  Well, maybe if we really got devoted to TT we'd end up there on the way to somewhere else, but I wouldn't make an effort to be there.  I had some problems which I seriously hope are the exception and not the rule.

People were not friendly.

Sorry.  It needed to be said.  By and large people stayed in their RVs watching TV and had no interest in socializing.  These were retired full-timers who seemed to resent having to live in crowded RV parks.  They wanted as much privacy as they could get in a place that smooshes you all together.  I got the cold shoulder a lot.  (I kind of worried that it was my old cheapie RV turning them off.  It was probably the cheapest RV in a sea of Class As and 5th Wheels and we might have been too poor for them to want to associate with?)

When I went to the 'adult' rec center the pool players found the interruption of my presence annoying and yelled at my mother to close the door.  @_@  Seriously people?  How rude!

In the 'all-ages' rec center we met a nicer older woman and also attended a really nice church service.  That was cool.  It was also not as beat up as the 'adult' center.

The other problem with Menifee--it's a puny town with only one good restaurant.  For most things you had to fight through traffic to get to Temecula and...TEMECULA SUCKS.  What a crowded, obnoxious place!!  The restaurants were terrible.  Grocery shopping was annoying.  Traffic traffic traffic!!  Plus it's expensive. 

If I never visit Temecula again it will be too soon!

If every Thousand Trails campground is as snooty, clannish, and poorly located as this one we will not be renewing our membership this coming September.  We're going to give it a solid chance, and I really hope it works out, but I'm not going to be married to it if it doesn't give me the life experience I'm looking for in this Full-Timing adventure.

So stay tuned to future posts to see how we end up rating our Thousand Trails membership!