My Observation About RV Parks

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Four months on the road in the bus this Summer has changed my attitude about the best way for us to own and use a motorcoach. We have used a motorcoach to travel the country for more than twenty years and enjoyed the ability to spontaneously travel from place to place without having to pre-plan and reserve a space in a RV park several days and weeks in advance. We traveled everywhere. There’s hardly a place in the continental U.S that we haven’t visited. That feeling of being footloose and fancy free without the need to plan ahead for a place to spend the night was great. We could travel all day, stop at our leisure, explore along the way, then look up a RV park in Woodall’s book near our location, drive there and find plenty of uncongested spaces available to park the rig for the night or longer if we decided to stay for a while. That is no longer possible.

Starting a few years ago it became necessary to call a RV park early in the morning near where you think you will be when it comes time to stop for the night. That basically removed the possibility to explore along the way or make unscheduled stops to visit discovered attractions because we had already reserved a space somewhere and had to pay in advance when making the reservation. Most RV parks require a 24-hour notice to cancel a reservation or you don’t get your money back. True, daily reservations are still possible at many parks but many will require your reservation days and even weeks in advance. This is especially true in the prime travel season. Prime travel season in the northern U.S is June through September and November through April in the southern U.S. The large number of Snowbirds heading south for the Winter fill up most of the available spaces. RV park rates increase substantially during those peak times.

Most RV Parks that we visited this Summer were always filled-up, noisy, crowded, congested and overpriced for what they offered. Instances of late night arrivals and neighbors cranking up and leaving at 6:AM was not unusual. Smelly loose sewer connections as they dumped happened often. Combine that with trying to squeeze on spaces that were not constructed to comfortably accommodate a 45’ Prevost, having to constantly monitor the park’s reducing electrical voltage as the park filled up, poor wifi and TV reception and neighbor RVs parked so close that the slides almost touch each other have caused me to avoid as many stays as possible at RV parks and has changed my mind about owning our own RV lot.

So, we were fortunate to find a solution to the problem and enjoyed the last six weeks of this summer on our own lot which we purchased in a Motorcoach Resort in Montana. We are looking forward to next Summer and enjoying our own large space with all its amenities including a spacious covered patio, outdoor kitchen, storage shed and lots of privacy. All the conveniences of home.

I’m happy not to have to deal with finding places to stay or all the other issues associated with RV travel. We may leave our lot and visit other destination RV Resorts for a week or so but no more traveling from RV park to RV park for us. We just don’t find that fun anymore.