Full-Time RV Memberships that Make this Lifestyle Cheaper
Our RV Memberships
We have been full-time RVing for over four years now. Over that period, we have joined a few RV Memberships for campgrounds and workamping. The only memberships we use for campgrounds are Thousand Trails , the Trails Collection with Thousand Trails, RPI, and Passport America . We also joined Workamper News for fun workamping jobs.
Thousand Trails
The first membership we purchased was a used Thousand Trails Elite membership from Campground Membership Outlet . We purchased this membership before we had even sold our house. Our used Elite membership cost less than $5000. We can book four months in advance for our Thousand Trails campgrounds, and we can stay up to three weeks. We pay approximately $1000 in membership dues every year for our Elite membership and our second membership – the Trails Collection. The Trails Collection, or Encore campgrounds, are additional campgrounds with Thousand Trails sites. These may cost $20 per night, but most are also free after the annual membership. We can book these two months in advance and stay for up to two weeks. There are two Encore sites in the Florida Keys!
When we purchased our Thousand Trails membership, we had the chance to also purchase an RPI annual membership. This membership costs less than $200 per year. There are many RPI campgrounds in areas that do not have Thousand Trails. Most of the campsites in RPI cost us $10 per night. We used these campgrounds a lot the first year when we were traveling between Thousand Trails campgrounds.
Passport America
However, even with these two memberships, sometimes we still do not have cheap campgrounds in some areas. This is where our Passport America membership comes into play. We used this membership for the first time at Glacier National Park. Our campground was six miles from the West Glacier entrance. It was amazing. So, during Christmas a couple of years ago, when Passport America ran a sale for a lifetime membership for under $300, we purchased it. This membership helped us out a lot in Michigan and Wisconsin, where we did not have many Thousand Trail campgrounds. We have already used it this year also. Right in the middle of our planned trip, we decided to change our trip and go north for cooler weather. We landed a campground close to our area for half the price with Passport America.
The Passport America membership can be a little more confusing because the campgrounds within this program are still individually owned. Most of the time you get half off the nightly rate. However, depending on the campground, there may be limitations. For example, some do not give discounts on weekends. So, you do have read the details on the campground. We really like to call the campground personally and talk to someone there.
Workamper News
The only other membership we have purchased after four years of traveling is Workamper News. We like learning new hobbies and we like buying toys for our hobbies. But we retired early and must watch our spending. So, after two couples we met while traveling recommended Workamper News.com to us for workamping jobs, we signed up to try it. Again, around Christmas, Workamper News offered us a discounted membership term, so we jumped on it. We have found both of our RVing jobs on Workamper News. One was the Beet Harvest in Minnesota that we worked a couple of weeks. However, our favorite is houskeeping in Florida at a beautiful resort for five months over the winter. We had a blast kayaking and snorkeling on our days off! To us, the Workamper News membership is an opportunity to overwinter without moving, make new friends, learn new skills, and pay for our toys. We have had a great time at both of our workamping jobs and are glad we tried them.
We love our memberships. All of them have helped us save money on our RVing Adventuring and maintain our budget. We plan on continuing to use these for the rest of our RVing life.
Why We Love Our Personal Google Map
Because we travel full-time and plan our adventures and campgrounds, we need a quick way to see locations. So, we created our personal Google Map.
Our map has been a travel changer for us. We insert adventures and places we want to do and see into our map. These include places all over the world that we learn about from different resources. Because we are members of Thousand Trails and RPI, we also include our campground memberships in our map. We have added some grocery stores too. Jessica also loves Aldi and Walmart, so if we are traveling extensively in an area, we add these to our map.
We are always adding to our map. Although we still create spreadsheets when traveling, our Google Map helps us organize our piles of notes into a great visualization. Also we can link our YouTube videos to our Google Map. When we travel through the area again, we can remember what we have already done or the campground that we stayed at and if we want to do or stay there again. If we stay in a Thousand Trails campground with our travel trailer, we can choose which one we want to book based on how close our activities are to the campground.
It is very easy to create a personal Google Map. If you travel or explore often, a map can make it much easier to plan your next exciting adventure. It is also very easy to duplicate the base map for a specific trip and determine a travel route. For example, we are currently planning a trip to Alaska. I simply copied our main map, removed the grocery section, and put in our travel route to Anchorage. It still includes all the activities we want to do, doesn’t affect the original map, and makes the planning of the trip to Alaska so much easier.
We would recommend creating a personal Google Map to anyone who loves exploring or traveling. It is exciting to see all the adventures in an area and to plan your travel.