We camp about 8 times a year - probably about 25-30 days a year. We have young kids and plan to be camping with them for the next 15 years and then some as retired... We want to get locked into a membership now to get the most out of it. We are most interested in sunrise resorts or KM resorts and have been told the best way to proceed is with buying a resale membership. In looking into it I am finding there are so many options (gold, silver, charter, platinum, etc... memberships, is it lifetime, yearly dues and are they fixed, additional memberships, resorts close to home banned) we just don't know where to start... We are seeing the same stuff listed for free - $800 - $6000.... What is the best way to proceed to get answers. I've been told that if we go talk to the KM spheil people it will ban us from buying resale for 2 years. Any information on the best way to proceed would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!
Ckerr said
08:38 AM Dec 22, 2012
Make sure you check into what transfer fees will be when purchasing a resale membership. I did a little work with a group a couple years ago and found out that their transfer fees could easily add up to thousands. It all depends on the terms of the original contract along with current transfer policies. It can be tough to get an answer, but be persistent.
WestWardHo said
06:05 PM Dec 22, 2012
Be sure to use the search function in the menu bar above and type in membership. It will give you lots of points of view about memberships.
campingwkids said
06:33 PM Dec 22, 2012
Thanks Carol & Kevin - its good to know about transfer fees and could account for the variation in purchase price for sure...
I did look through the search quite a bit and found most of it applied to full timers and thousand trails. I was hoping that someone who was maybe more familiar with Sunrise & KM could answer the specific questions about those memberships since there seems to be so many variations and the companies themselves won't answer anything with out making an appointment, coming into the place and trying to sell it to us themselves... It just seems so shady from that perspective, but our friends dad has a membership from 1996 and says that if you can wade through all the BS that it is worth it long term. He has answered some questions for us, but his information is from almost 20 years ago.
WestWardHo said
02:19 AM Dec 23, 2012
Please also remember that you're stuck with an annual fee as long as you live, possibly longer. Sorry we're not familiar with the memberships you mentioned.
Terry and Jo said
04:08 AM Dec 23, 2012
We have been camping in everything from tents to our current RV ever since 1976. In our case, we have generally preferred national forest campgrounds, although there are darn few amenities and no hookups. (Water was from a hand-pumped well in our favorite national forest spot.) If we wanted otherwise, we simply rented in a state park or a commercial RV park.
Now, in all honesty, the longest we have stayed vacationed each year was 2 weeks, with most being for only a week. Even if we were spend as many as 30 days a year camping, I would never spend hundreds, let alone thousands, of dollars for that short of period a year. To me, that is like owning a vacation home and having to pay someone to look after it for 11 months out of the year with no real benefit to me.
If we were traveling full-time instead of being "static" full-time, I "might" consider a campground membership. However, that would limit us to some degree as to where we wanted to go. If I want to spend time in a national park like Yellowstone, would there be a participating membership campground anywhere near by?
Now, having said all of that, a campground membership may be just the ticket for you, even if it is expensive as all get out.
Terry
campingwkids said
06:26 PM Dec 23, 2012
It sound like people here don't really recommend the campground memberships. I guess I was thinking my friends dad paid a small chunk of change in 1996 along with $250 annually since then and he now camps for $1/night (as opposed to my $35/night) and I figure I pay about $1000/yr to camp. With the membership this could change to $350-$575 annually ($1-$10/night- $250+$325 annual) and it could pay for itself in 5-10 years but be a lifetime fixed fee membership... I could totally have my numbers wrong, but I guess this was he thinking in how I was approaching this.... I appreciate everyone taking the time to answer my question!
bjoyce said
07:16 PM Dec 23, 2012
We like memberships but can't tell you where to get one cheaply since our source got out of the business. That was your original question so we did not answer.
Memberships work great if you use them. Do you want to go the same few places each camping trip? How many nights will you use the membership? I usually try to pay off the buy in over five years, so if it costs $5000 then I add $1000 (1/5th) to the dues and nightly fees to get my real nightly cost. Many also feel that they can't camp anywhere but their memberships, so their camping experiences might get stale and repetitive. Plus many membership campgrounds have older infrastructure. We tell people to expect weak 30AMP water and electric with small campsites, so be happy if you get better. By "weak 30AMP" I mean low voltage that might limit you to using only 20AMPs in real usage.
I know more than one full-timer who spent big bucks for memberships and felt that they needed to "get their moneys worth" so they stayed at the memberships and overnighted at Wal-Mart. After a couple years they complained it wasn't fun and they were not seeing new things. We average under $20 a night with our memberships, accounting for buy-in, but we stay in public and commercial campgrounds also.
I don't know about K&M but Sunrise has multiple memberships based on when and where the original was bought. We have a more recent Sunrise so we can use the Arizona campgrounds, many can not. In reality we stay at the one in Bullhead City AZ, the one in Ilwaco WA and occasionally at the ones in Moses Lake WA and Copalis Beach WA. We have stayed at a couple others and did not find they worked for us. The only K&M we tried was the one in Sequim and it had small campsites with weak 30AMP full hookups.
ew9266 said
12:11 AM Jan 24, 2013
I own two memberships at the same resort that allows me to camp for 28 days at a time for the cost of the annual maint. fee $630.00 a year for each membership. I didn't pay anything for these memberships, I purchased them from people that no longer wanted them. I am full time and use this site as my home base. We spend at least 4 or 5 months at our home base every year. Some years we have spent 10 months at the home base, it all depends on what we are doing. These are life time memberships and over time the maint. fees do increase. This is without a doubt the cheapest way for us to live with any certainty as to where we can always hang our hat. I don't know anywhere you can live for $100.00 a month including electric, water, etc.
We also have a membership at another resort that I regret purchasing. We paid $1,000.00 for the membership and we pay a $350.00 annual maint. fee. This gives me 2 weeks free camping and then we must leave for 1 week and can return for an additional 2 weeks and so on. I found out I can't even sell this without remaining tied to the original contract, meaning should the person whom purchases the membership default it comes back to me. The company did offer me a buy out for $17K that would resolve my membership. Be careful should you decide to purchase a membership and be sure you will use what you purchase.
My advise to you is if you have a local resort (within 200 miles) of where you live that you and the family really like and you feel comfortable with and will use often, then a membership is worth while. Most resorts offer an additional membership package when you purchase the original membership; a group resort company such as Coast to Coast. These companies have their own maint. fees but allows you to travel and receive deep discounts at participating resorts, most charge around $10.00 a night.
Lot to think about, so don't rush into anything like I did. If it sounds to good to be true it normally comes with the small print legal clauses like the one I have. Good luck, I wish I would have camped more and worked less when I was younger and my kids were around.
jt said
08:36 PM Jan 26, 2013
YOUR BEST DEAL IS THOUSAND TRAIL. I ALSO HAVE COAST TO COAST, RPI AND MY NATIONAL PARK PASS.
JT
Fergizmo said
07:04 PM Feb 6, 2013
We bought our K&M from the K&M people and realize we paid too much. I wish we had found a re-saler. You can find them using Google. We did buy our Thousand Trails membership 'used' from Dan Monaghan. He runs a re-sale site. He can be found on ebay. We met him at a Good Sam Rally. We love our memberships, but they are only worth it if you use them.
We camp about 8 times a year - probably about 25-30 days a year. We have young kids and plan to be camping with them for the next 15 years and then some as retired... We want to get locked into a membership now to get the most out of it. We are most interested in sunrise resorts or KM resorts and have been told the best way to proceed is with buying a resale membership. In looking into it I am finding there are so many options (gold, silver, charter, platinum, etc... memberships, is it lifetime, yearly dues and are they fixed, additional memberships, resorts close to home banned) we just don't know where to start... We are seeing the same stuff listed for free - $800 - $6000.... What is the best way to proceed to get answers. I've been told that if we go talk to the KM spheil people it will ban us from buying resale for 2 years. Any information on the best way to proceed would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!
I did look through the search quite a bit and found most of it applied to full timers and thousand trails. I was hoping that someone who was maybe more familiar with Sunrise & KM could answer the specific questions about those memberships since there seems to be so many variations and the companies themselves won't answer anything with out making an appointment, coming into the place and trying to sell it to us themselves... It just seems so shady from that perspective, but our friends dad has a membership from 1996 and says that if you can wade through all the BS that it is worth it long term. He has answered some questions for us, but his information is from almost 20 years ago.
We have been camping in everything from tents to our current RV ever since 1976. In our case, we have generally preferred national forest campgrounds, although there are darn few amenities and no hookups. (Water was from a hand-pumped well in our favorite national forest spot.) If we wanted otherwise, we simply rented in a state park or a commercial RV park.
Now, in all honesty, the longest we have stayed vacationed each year was 2 weeks, with most being for only a week. Even if we were spend as many as 30 days a year camping, I would never spend hundreds, let alone thousands, of dollars for that short of period a year. To me, that is like owning a vacation home and having to pay someone to look after it for 11 months out of the year with no real benefit to me.
If we were traveling full-time instead of being "static" full-time, I "might" consider a campground membership. However, that would limit us to some degree as to where we wanted to go. If I want to spend time in a national park like Yellowstone, would there be a participating membership campground anywhere near by?
Now, having said all of that, a campground membership may be just the ticket for you, even if it is expensive as all get out.
Terry
Memberships work great if you use them. Do you want to go the same few places each camping trip? How many nights will you use the membership? I usually try to pay off the buy in over five years, so if it costs $5000 then I add $1000 (1/5th) to the dues and nightly fees to get my real nightly cost. Many also feel that they can't camp anywhere but their memberships, so their camping experiences might get stale and repetitive. Plus many membership campgrounds have older infrastructure. We tell people to expect weak 30AMP water and electric with small campsites, so be happy if you get better. By "weak 30AMP" I mean low voltage that might limit you to using only 20AMPs in real usage.
I know more than one full-timer who spent big bucks for memberships and felt that they needed to "get their moneys worth" so they stayed at the memberships and overnighted at Wal-Mart. After a couple years they complained it wasn't fun and they were not seeing new things. We average under $20 a night with our memberships, accounting for buy-in, but we stay in public and commercial campgrounds also.
I don't know about K&M but Sunrise has multiple memberships based on when and where the original was bought. We have a more recent Sunrise so we can use the Arizona campgrounds, many can not. In reality we stay at the one in Bullhead City AZ, the one in Ilwaco WA and occasionally at the ones in Moses Lake WA and Copalis Beach WA. We have stayed at a couple others and did not find they worked for us. The only K&M we tried was the one in Sequim and it had small campsites with weak 30AMP full hookups.
I own two memberships at the same resort that allows me to camp for 28 days at a time for the cost of the annual maint. fee $630.00 a year for each membership. I didn't pay anything for these memberships, I purchased them from people that no longer wanted them. I am full time and use this site as my home base. We spend at least 4 or 5 months at our home base every year. Some years we have spent 10 months at the home base, it all depends on what we are doing. These are life time memberships and over time the maint. fees do increase. This is without a doubt the cheapest way for us to live with any certainty as to where we can always hang our hat. I don't know anywhere you can live for $100.00 a month including electric, water, etc.
We also have a membership at another resort that I regret purchasing. We paid $1,000.00 for the membership and we pay a $350.00 annual maint. fee. This gives me 2 weeks free camping and then we must leave for 1 week and can return for an additional 2 weeks and so on. I found out I can't even sell this without remaining tied to the original contract, meaning should the person whom purchases the membership default it comes back to me. The company did offer me a buy out for $17K that would resolve my membership. Be careful should you decide to purchase a membership and be sure you will use what you purchase.
My advise to you is if you have a local resort (within 200 miles) of where you live that you and the family really like and you feel comfortable with and will use often, then a membership is worth while. Most resorts offer an additional membership package when you purchase the original membership; a group resort company such as Coast to Coast. These companies have their own maint. fees but allows you to travel and receive deep discounts at participating resorts, most charge around $10.00 a night.
Lot to think about, so don't rush into anything like I did. If it sounds to good to be true it normally comes with the small print legal clauses like the one I have. Good luck, I wish I would have camped more and worked less when I was younger and my kids were around.
YOUR BEST DEAL IS THOUSAND TRAIL. I ALSO HAVE COAST TO COAST, RPI AND MY NATIONAL PARK PASS.
JT