Thousand Trails 1-Year Review: is it worth it?
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- Опубліковано 14 чер 2019
- Our 1-year Thousand Trails review is finally here, where we asked the question of whether purchasing a Thousand Trails Membership is worth it. In our Thousand Trails review, we cover different membership benefits, the pros and cons of the Thousand Trails Lifetime membership and share the best and worst things about Thousand Trails campgrounds.
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THOUSAND TRAILED MEMBERSHIP BREAKDOWN
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We're the Gray's and welcome to the Gray Adventure! Our family of four set our on our new full-time RV living adventure in February of 2018. We're exploring the US, learning about RV life and making friends along the way.
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You guys are awesome! Truly the best review on Thousand Trails! Thanks so much and Happy Trails to you!
Nice review! I didn’t know Robin Williams had a younger brother. 🤪
Omg i thought he resembled someone 😆
Thanks for sharing this! We have been using our membership now for the last month! You helped us make the decision!
Great video guys. We appreciate TT. We have two Zones with the Trails collection and it has served us well. Our favorite was Idyllwild, CA. :)
Great review. Thank you so much for all of the honest information.
Great video. I would love to see you do some campground reviews of the TT parks and State parks you stay at also. Thanks and Happy Travels!
Great Info! We have been on the fence about purchasing. I think you convinced us.
Thanks for sharing. You are a big help.
This information is excellent. Extremely informative video. Thank you
Don't forget if you have both the annual pass and the Trails collection you can in fact go directly between the two groups. Spend 14 days in TT then go directly to an Encore collection without being out of the system because they are actually two different contracts and two different entities. They do not make that very clear but TT is different than the trails collection. Try booking it in your account and you can see they allow the bookings and this is correct. So in reality you can spend 365 days a year in either the TT or Trails collection as long as no more than 14 days in a row in each unless you paid to have a membership that allows it.
Not anymore. They changed this
Every contract is different .
We’ve been wondering about this and going to ask. It would make sense that’s how it would work.
Can anyone confirm if this is true?
You two are incredible at explaining this! I have a much better understanding of how it works without getting an even more confusing sales pitch. Thank you very much for sharing your experiences.
Glad we could help.
Great review. We are SW members and have loved that area. We have looked at lifetime memberships for retirement in a couple of years, but after listening to your review, maybe we don't need the whole thing. Lots to think about. Thank you.
I'm a tech geek, I love that you include the equipment that you use.
Great info! Thanks!
Glad it was helpful!
This really helped make our decision, we are about to go full time 2-12 when our hose sells, thx for the great explanation
Glad we could help! Good luck as you start out on the road full time!
Well done guys. You mentioned that you hadn't made it up into the North West zone,,,,, you really should give it a try. My wife and I did a 6 week summer run where we went up to Birch Bay (10 miles south of the Canada border) in August to get away from the heat and worked our way down the coast ending up in Newport, Or in October. A few parks were so so, but most of the ones we stayed in were great. And as always, met lots of wonderful people.
New subscriber.... great info on TT ...thanks!
Very helpful information, thank you.
Glad we could help.
Thank you for your review. We have little to no experience in camping and have never driven an RV. We had no plans to consider going full time..... until the summer of Covid-19 ;) Suddenly our work and school requirements are all online, and we really want to use the opportunity to get out and experience the outdoors and the other parts of our country that we haven't visited yet. I can totally relate to your passion for having a plan, and we've got 8 kiddos and a husky pup to accommodate, so we have a large learning curve ahead of us! I've heard a lot of mixed reviews on Thousand Trails, so would really appreciate saving some money over the next 12 months. We absolutely appreciate your break down and specific experiences, including details we hadn't even considered yet! :) It's been a year, so if you have any updates or new park recommendations, please let us know. :) & Thanks again!
Very helpful!
Thanks for the info. This was great! wonder how pandemic is affecting things. I'm in California and worried that we might not get into some places.
What an awesome pile of useful information, thank you so much. I have a long winded question... We will be 1st time snowbird rookies this Nov/23. Trying to figure out 1000 Trails for a specific purpose. Our kids and grandkids want to do Disneyworld Fl in late Jan. they have not booked yet leaving us in a pinch as most State and private parks nearby are already booked. Any suggestions on how to get a site at TT Orlando for 2 weeks there with the same membership you had in this video?? Would we even have a prayer of getting a spot?? Thanks again for the great video. Frank Nabuurs PEI, Can. 35' Georgiaboy Pursuit
You two really have a great on camera presence and seem natural as if you’re talking to a friend sitting there and not an inanimate camera lens. Except your doing all the talking and the friend your talking to is just sitting there nodding their head the whole time. 😜
Great review. Unfortunately I had a poor expedience with organized camping. It was not a TT membership. I found that the affiliate parks did everything they could to keep other members from other parks OUT! OUR membership was permanent. Meaning you were legally bound to pay dues whether or not you used it. It was like a time share. Gave it away and saved the new owner $$.
Many Park owners went bankrupt leaving members high and dry Want to camp? Join the Army and get paid to do it!
Hi guys! We found your information very helpful. Thank you. (BTW... not sure why anyone in their “right” mind would give you a Thumbs Down for this video... this whole YT thing has no rhyme or reason sometimes does it?). Anyway, thank you!
Glad we could help. Some people give videos a thumbs down because they don't like the information presented. It's not our fault if TT isn't perfect. 😜
I live in Northern California in a sticks and bricks but I work from home full time so I can work from my RV fulltime. I have been with TT for several years now, holding NW and SW zones. I have a lot to choose from just within 2 hours of my home in Tracy. I am now working towards moving to Phoenix area so I have to rethink my zone membership. I may swap out the NW for Texas and add in the Trails collection so I will have several parks in Arizona. I will never fulltime but when I retire in a couple of years, I will be in the RV 5+ months a year. 21 days park to park is ideal for me but since I want to stay away from California after I move to AZ, that membership may not be worth it. Thank you for such a detailed description of your experiences!!
Your story about being in the Dark reminded me of something that happened recently, I was at a Big Casino in Reno Nevada sitting at a slot machine and at about 11:00 pm and the power went out, It was pitch black I mean dark you could see your hand in front of your face!
And it took about 2 minutes until the Generator kicked in and the lights came back on but It was a weird feeling to be in Such a busy place, >it was also packed with people at the time, and be suddenly in the dark.
Very well done explaining life time vs. yearly. Takeaway “They are rv parks”. We also prefer state parks, thanks
More like a timeshare for RV campgrounds, with camp being in quotes bc there are restrictions for tents and use of cabins.
This was a great honest review. Thank you so much for sharing. I’m curious. Would you have found it valuable without the trails collection?
It really depends on where you are traveling to. In certain areas of the country the trails collection is the only option.
We got one last spring and it has paid for itself By the end of December this year.
If you use it often enough, it is definitely worth the expense.
We’ve been members for years and just went seasonal
Didn't mention I believe the lifetime memberships go beyond your own life and binds your estate/heirs to the annual payments, many times the place is packed, there are more members than available campsites and hardly any in the mid and western states:) Also as you say there are mostly RV parking lots...lol
You get what you pay for. I think a lot of people expect to pay $800-ish a year then expect amenities and services for a campground that is $5000 a year.
Thanks for the thorough breakdown. My wife and I are planning FT next summer. I do DevOps so my question is how is service in TT system that you stayed in. I use RDP and lot of command line and light web. I know we will be fine in general (will have Ver/Att and maybe TMobile) but just curious of the 19 you stayed in I heard 1 or 2 that had service issues but what about the rest. What were their speeds. You guys are great resource. My wife and I can't wait to boot my last kid, sell the house and take off. FYI our general target zones are PNW (office in Vancouver,WA), Texas (home base), Birimingham, AL (office), VA mts (family). So if you have any comments even outside TT on speed that would be great. I see a lot of bars on review sites but that is different than speed. I"m sure you have an internet video that I have probably seen but it has been a while. Thanks!
Service in the park varies quite a bit. If you have a weBoost, you can generally get a decent connection in most campground. It really depends on how close the campground it to a larger town or city. For the most part, we typically has 10 Mbps download and 2 to 3 Mbps upload speeds at campground with poor reception when using the weBoost. That could drop to less than that without it. While we do need internet for our work, we have never looked at coverage maps to decide where we would or wouldn't camp. 95% of the time there will be decent coverage and for the remaining 5% you can always drive into town 15 to 20 minutes away and get better coverage.
Mr. Batson, We do the DFR and occasionally Pad RUN with Cib plus and KK extra, as a back up for the problems that may arise. How do you manage the TT's that turn you away even with the reservations? The wife suggested Nitosa Nuoc they was sympathetic but because we were lapsed they polity turned us away .We contacted Smin-5 and they was no help!
Do you have family in Canada? Glad to hear about St Clare TT because we wanted to stop there on our way to Canada.
Do they check or require IDs for family members and guests?
I am debating the Elite membership (21 days/don’t have to get out of system) or the 14 day in 7 day out. I will mostly be in CA. My concern is the 7 days out. What do you guys do, where do you go? I’ve considered boondocking but I am a solo female and it kind of scares me. Also, I fear I wouldn’t be able to get into a state park with everything being extremely busy and booked up. What do you suggest?
We had the 7 days out option and that worked for us since nice we were never in one spot for too long.
so if I buy the cheapie ne for 570.00 do I still have to pay per night? sorry I'm a senior and little confused
You can go park to park for 4 days at each without staying out 7 days even with a camping pass correct?
If there are spots available.
Hi guys thanks for the video. One piece of advice is for the mrs, wait to talk. Seems like you often start talking before your husband has finished his piece. He waits for you, you should wait for him. Patience. LOL. Thanks again. Joseph 🤙😃👍
She does it because I never finish talking. She knows me perfectly.
All woman do it somewhat lol
Is it hard to get spots in North and South Carolina coast in early summer ?
I bought and paid in full for a membership three weeks ago, the first time I went to use it my membership # would not allow me to sign in. Since that time I have called there 800 # dozens of times and have never once received a call back. I've sent them many emails and never have received a reply. I even went to a Thousand Trails camp ground and a sales person tried to show me how to reset the password and even that did not work. The salesman was nice enough to take my info and said he would try and call them to see why I can not sign in. Three days later he still has been unable to get in touch with them.
how much did it cost you to stay at the other 7 days between TT?
My biggest concern with Thousand Trails was an inability to get into parks. Good to hear this was not a problem for you even with the limited 60 day reservation window. Like you point out the lifetime membership does require an annual maintenance fee which from my understanding can increase annually with no cap (until you're around 65 or so) and while you own the membership you're responsible for the annual maintenance fee. I believe the annual maintenance fee approaches the cost of a TT zone pass, with one zone and no encore parks. Sounds like your decision to go with the zone pass was a good one especially given your anticipated plan to full time for 1 year.
One thing I was not for sure on is how the 14 days in and 7 days out works when you stay for 5 to13 days. I just checked (campingpass.thousandtrails.com/faq) and found the answer - "if your stay exceeds four consecutive nights, you must wait for seven nights before you stay again at any resort". To maximize time in the TT system with the zone pass I need to extend my TT stays to 14 days. Considering you get electricity and water and sometimes sewer 14 days does not sound bad at all.
I think the theoretical max TT stay limit is =ROUNDDOWN(365/21,0)*14 which is 238 days so you did really well considering TT is not everywhere. One topic which would interesting is minimizing costs when jumping between TT parks. Also my understanding is many of the encore parks in Arizona are off limits until you are 55. Were you able to stay in any of these age restricted parks?
Yeah, we did managed to spend quite a few days in Thousand Trails throughout the one year. We didn't try making it to any of the age restricted parks since they were pretty far south in Texas. Our travels didn't take us way down there.
@dare d That has been my experience so far. Pathetic scam!
Hi I have a question, if someone stays 4 days and goes park to park instead of doing the 5-14 days were you have to Stat out for 7 days, Does it work the same with encore (trails collection) if you stay four days or less do you still have to stay out for 7 days?
If you were driving and you were near a TT but you had not made reservations could you just pull in and ask in person if there were any vacancies?
Anyone ever done this?
When you stayed the 150 nights what percentage of the places you stayed were Encore Resorts. By the way really nice informative video Thanks
Glad we could help. We probably stayed about 10-15% in Encore Resorts.
It could be as high as 13,000 for the RPI stuff that they also sell
You mentioned the 19 parks and you had access to all zones, how many zones did you end up using with those parks? Of the 19 how many were the encore add on parks?
We used all zones except for the north west since our schedule didn't allow us to make it up there. As for Encore parks, they accounted for 7 of the 19 that we stayed at.
@@TheGrayAdventures thank you for the response! ♡
Lifetime membership?? I'm 72! (as are a lot of RVers) and I don't even buy green bananas any more!! LOL
You should talk to the odd couple they rv full time they have a video of it on UA-cam love your home
How much is the yearly membership
Thank you very much for such value information. We are going to buy class C either slightly used winnebago trend 23L diesel or a about 6 to 8 years old winnebago navion or view. We are from San Francisco Bay Area, will be rv parttime for 5years and work in SF then fulltime rv living after that. Consider purchasing basic yearly membership...
Next time try Lake and Shore in Oceanview Nj
Definitely. Thanks for the recommendation.
Love your videos guys!! Do you know how much longer you are planning to full time? Rest of the year, or for another year? Something I wouldn’t mind doing for a little while. Maybe a year or two. The only problem is that when I finished traveling I’d probably want to do it again. Lol
We have news regarding our travel adventures coming up in about a week.
The Gray Adventures awesome!!!! Thank you.
As much as I would like a membership, everyone I have talked about thousand trails advises you need to "work the system" quite a bit to really use it successfully. Also, it appears the price of any given membership "package" can differ from day to day and person to person. I will continue to dry camp (been at it since 1995) and wait for a simple membership that offers both transparency and treats everyone equally.
Really? We have not had any issues with our membership and found it pretty straightforward.
That being said, Thousand Trails does seem to change their membership benefits every year or two, so it is hard to figure out what you're paying for. If you have membership, you go get grandfathered in at the rate you purchased which can be a good thing if benefits decrease over the years with new memberships.
i am getting ready go full time 7/2020 i want do the trail collections what does cost each park? or is it free i am doing the 2yrs membership
If you have the membership, most parks are free. There are a few which have an extra daily charge.
@@TheGrayAdventures thank you
Just wonder if purchasing zone pass for me and then a separate one for my wife so we can stay in the parks constantly?
No, they need the make and model of your RV and all the information. Only way you could do it is if you have two RVs which swap camp grounds every few weeks.
Hi...does TT allow NICE self contained truck campers?
I believe they do. We have seen quite a good variety of camper types at TT. The only objections they have is with schoolies (school bus conversions).
I wonder: Is it possible to 'leap-frog' memberships? Say me and my travel companion both bought a TT Camping Pass, could you not use those to basically 'skip' the 7-day wait between each park? Don't know how much that would really save over just finding another site for 7 days, but I have always wondered that. Stay 14 days on one pass, then use the other pass for another 14 days, then skip back to the first pass again since the 7-days has expired.
Unfortunately it's per registered vehicle, not per member, so the answer would be no.
@@YourMajesty143 i do wonder how this works on rental RVs than. Say one party rentes an rv from a dealer for a fri-sun trip at a TT campground, and then next week someone rented the same vehicle for a thur - friday trip, and stayed at another TT campground.
Texhnically that is not 7 days between, so if its per registered vehicle that makes me wonder how they manage that.
@@landonp629 - Good question, although I'm not sure that this is cost-effective. I suppose they'd want to look at the rental agreement and you'd have to update the vehicle on each of your memberships, meaning you'd have to call in each time you switch parks. Oh wait, I just realized you said Fri to Sun & Thur to Fri. There's no need to do all the rigamarole with multiple RV rentals, since with just one RV you can switch between TT campgrounds back to back if your stay doesn't exceed 4 days. The 7 day out-of-system wait between campground-hopping only applies to stays that are 5 days to 14 days at a given site. The memberships that offers up to 21 and 28 day stays have the elite access of switching without any 7 day wait in between camp sites. They can switch easily without restrictions. You can have that option as well, but the catch is you need to leave on the 4th day.
I doubt there are many people who purchased an RV campus by membership who own don't own an RV. The chances of two people with the TT membership rending the same RV for back to back week reservations at a TT is pretty slim.
why can't two people that camp in the same rv purchase 2 membership and pay the 1000 -1200 depending on deal for both membership together and not have the 7 day time out and could even stay at the same park eternally rather then pay the 7 grand i seen listed for elite don't get it?
The membership is tied to the RV.
Were there parks that you stayed in less than 14 nights? to avoid the 7 nights out?
Yep. If our route was going to take us to two or three TT parks in a short time period, we just did 4 nights so we could move between them without a full week out of their system.
Anymore than 4 nights requires 7 days out
Have you run into a problem with parks not allowing Rv's that are 10 years and older. Also I think if you stay at a Thousand trails park for more then 4 days you can switch over a an oncore park, is that right. Thanks for a great video
We had no issues with an older trailer and often found plenty of trailers or RVs that were much older than hours. Yes, you can move park to park (including encore parks) if you move every 4 days.
Anyone have A TT membership for sale?
Do NON members ever try to camp or get memberships at the campgrounds ?
Yes, non members can camp at many of these camp grounds for regular daily or weekly fees.
What's stopping people from staying 21 nights, leaving for a night, and then coming back. Rinse and repeat to live in the same place full time for $5 a night?
Depending on your membership package, if you need to leave after 21 nights, they won't let you make a reservation until you've been out for seven days. Most TT campgrounds do offer seasonal sites for those looking to stay in one place for a longer period of time. We like to move around :)
@@TheGrayAdventures Interesting. I ask because I'd rather buy an RV or a tiny house and "camp" for cheap instead of wasting money on renting. If I had a remote job, I would love to move around all the time XD
@@KeithTreason - You're not guaranteed to get 21 days though. Often they're so booked that you can only stay 7 or 14 days at best. State parks are much nicer and there are plenty of BLM sites that are free. For $44/yr, you can also use Passport America to get half off various campgrounds in their network (at $20 to $25/ night you can recoup your investment in 2 nights) or Boondockers Welcome! which allows you to stay on private property. Harvest Hosts allows you to stay at wineries, breweries/distilleries, farms, golf resorts, country clubs, museums, etc. but it's a bit more costly depending on the host. KOAs & COEs, are a few other campground options. Good Sam is another membership with the biggest network of campgrounds, but you only get 10% off. Also, they spam your mail like crazy which drives up your mail pickup fees, but you do get discounts on fuel, propane, & outdoor supplies. At $29/yr, you could recoup your investment on gas savings alone. RPI is also a timeshare like Thousand Trails, but instead of a campground, they're a resort park. You can pay anywhere from $10 to $15 a night for up to 14 days, however their reservation system is hell. Other timeshare/membership options are AOR, FMCA, Coast to Coast, Happy Camper Club, Fulltime Families, The Lifestyle Equity Group, etc. If you want more free options, you can always look into staying in parking lots like Walmart or Cracker Barrel. Even places that offer free or low cost water/dump stations/propane like at Cabela's or Tractor Supply. Allstays is a great app to find free parking or overnight rest areas, among dozens of other apps. There's also Workamping where you volunteer in exchange for a free campsite or cheaper rates, sometimes you get upgrades to amenities or discounts off of nearby excursions. Even Amazon is getting into the game where they'll hire you seasonally to work at their distribution factories in exchange for a camp area with free hook-ups. Hope this helps :)
@@YourMajesty143 It really does. Thanks for all the amazing tips! I'm going to see if any of these are located in my area.
@@KeithTreason - Oh so you're staying put, but just in a van or RV? Well that's easy enough, and probably alot cheaper. What state are you in?
i can't believe you don't use your own bathroom, when i started camping many years ago i would use the public toilets and showers but cold water, dirty bathrooms made me rethink that.
Our RV bathroom and shower are really small. The girls used them and I had no issues using campground bathrooms.
I hope you leave reviews online when you come across these really bad campgrounds
What's the fun in that? We leave 5 start reviews, hoping we can trick others into staying there as well 😋
why are you using nasty showers when you have a private one in your rig???
The shower in our trailer is extremely small. Rachel and the girls use it mainly, but I prefer to use the bathhouse showers whenever possible.
oh, ok
Prices can be as high as 8000.
13k
That lifetime membership reminds me of a time share. Yuck!
It is, but isn't at the same time. If you're planning on using it all the time, it is definitely worth it, especially for this living on the road full-time in a budget.
Only problem is your not paying 5 dollars a night your paying a lot more. I’d be pissed if I ended up in a dumpy park for the kind of money you pay
It's all a game of numbers. The more you stay, the less you pay.
Michigan has nothing compared to San Fran! That is the nastiest place on earth! Went last year and the human feces was on the street, on the sidewalks, and even at the local park. California has literally gone to crap... My personal observation seen with my own eyes...
Are you talking about the city itself or the TT campground?
@@TheGrayAdventures The city and the entire state for that matter. I use to love going to California but I will never step foot in that liberal cesspool ever again...
@@timallbritton3716 I have to agree. I have watched people literally pull their pants down and go to the bathroom (#2) using a traffic light to balance themselves, and strip down naked and use a fountain to take a bath.
Would never do TT again waste of my money!!!
How do? More context helps others reading make a better educated decision. Thanks!
Seems like they don't like retired people
to the male.....Please observes your overuse of the word ACTUALLY
It's how I talk when I'm overthinking. We all have our little quirks that we wish we could change.
On the road for 16 months?? Well that sure describes the average person !! NOT!! What is this supposed to eguate to, the 1 out of 720,000 people that travel a big share of their lives?
Most the people who watch our channel are traveling full time or thinking about it. The latest stats show that there are over 1 million people who live in an RV full time in the US. That's 1 in 300. Not a bad demographic.
Please stop talking over each other. It is inconsiderate, and shows a lack of respect to each other and us the viewers. Try a script of who is going to say what and when.
Sorry, we just get excited. There's no lack of respect here.