As with many decisions that must be made in life there is no one size fits all answer for everyone when it comes to RV parks and campgrounds, and this is certainly true of the membership campground. Membership campgrounds have started to become very popular recently as the RVing lifestyle continues to be adopted by more and more people.In essence, an RV membership campground is easiest understood as being kind of like an RV timeshare, but the biggest difference is that with a resort timeshare you can only stay at your home resort during a preset time each year, whereas with a membership campground you can stay whenever it is available throughout the year.

However there is usually a time limit for how long you may stay at any one time, and how often you may stay during the year.There are three major companies that are offering campground memberships and they are Coat To Coast Resorts, Thousand Trails, and NACO. Each has it's own collection of campgrounds to choose from and they have different requirements and costs as well. It's beyond the scope of this article to compare them, but gathering sales information from all three is a good way to start the comparison process on your own.But the big question is whether or not a membership campground is a good choice for you? Well, they could be, but that is a decision that you must make after weighing both the advantages and disadvantages of membership campground ownership. The advantages are that if you like to travel a lot, you can lower your nightly campground costs significantly over the long term by having a membership, and you can often enjoy a high level of amenities, facilities and hookups when you do travel.

The downside is that ownership is not necessarily cheap up front. They can range up to $10,000 or so, although they are easily financed to fit more into your monthly budget. And they tend to work out best for committed long term RVers rather than just novices to the RV lifestyle.

Before signing anything though ask as many questions as you can about it. Read the contract carefully, don't just sign away on the spur of the moment because you feel pressured to do so. Think about exactly how you plan on using your RV each year and then break down the costs of the contract, the financing interest, the annual dues and other costs into a yearly and monthly cost to determine if it will indeed be a good financial decision for the way that you plan on using your motorhome or RV. Make sure too that the home campground is solvent and will be available for use as often as you will require.If you take your time, without being hurried and look over all the issues involved it can help you determine whether an RV membership campground will work best for you or not.

By: Jim Johnson