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At what point do state and national campgrounds become big RV parks?

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  • At what point do state and national campgrounds become big RV parks?

    Now it is fall, and this is my favorite time to camp. I am finding that all of our state campsites that accommodate RV's are full. I didn't really understand it until I did some digging into the RV lifestyle.

    Obviously, some folks take to RV for the travel, but what is happening in a big way in the USA is that seniors are moving into RV's as a kind of affordable downgrade. Sure, I can understand that. The economy has hit seniors hard.

    What I don't like seeing, though is our public campgrounds turning into cheap rental space for RV living and that is what we are starting to see.

    National and state forest campgrounds no longer look like campgrounds. They look like parking lots for enormous buses. They take the "Forest" out of the forest. Several of the public campgrounds I like to go to are closed for the season to go through major "upgrades". "Upgrade" specifically means converting rustic tent campsites to RV accessible sites by adding 50 amp electric and concrete pads. Sorry, but 50 amp electrical hookups, concrete pads, and bilge discharge stations are not what I go to forests to see. The sight of rows of big RV rigs crowding out the scenery of our beautiful natural forests is quite frankly grotesque. This generation of seniors are the same generation that was screaming for pollution controls, air quality standards, and natural preservation. Now, it is "to helll with everybody else, I want mine first".

    What is happening is that folks who are down-sizing to living in RV's are just rotating from one park to the next to avoid the two-week rule. Our public campgrounds which were intended for campers and families are turning into RV slums for people looking for low-rent places to park their rigs. You no longer get to enjoy the peace and quiet because it is all too often drowned out by the churning of an RV generator.

    I think this comes at a great price to the intent of our state and national forests and campgrounds. I strongly believe that RV's should be in RV parks complete with asphalt and electricity and sewage bilge vacuums, etc.

    Our state and national forests should be preserved for the natural beauty for which they were designed and intended.

    Last edited by Mike; 10-19-2012, 12:21 PM.

  • #2
    Re: At what point do state and national campgrounds become big RV parks?

    think this has always been going on,
    financially dont think its very beneficial, as one knows rv living isnt that cheap,
    have always seen such full timers at campgrounds near state borders,
    where they stay at 1 side of the border for specific amount of time, then switch to the other across the border and repeat, so as not to reach the states limit of residing in that state

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    • #3
      Re: At what point do state and national campgrounds become big RV parks?

      terasec, I didn't think that campsites would be financially beneficial either until one senior told me that $20/night with electricity public campgrounds are cheaper than rent in the city he used to live and without paying real estate taxes or a mortgage or rent it is astoundingly cheap.

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      • #4
        Re: At what point do state and national campgrounds become big RV parks?

        dont know what discounts seniors get,
        can only go by rates i get, which usually start at $20/night for basic site,
        with additional costs, weekends, peak seasons, water/electric, all extra
        even at the $20/night, ($600/Month)
        still think its cheaper to get a cheap house,
        in rural places can easily find houses for $50k-$100k,
        but these that look at $600/month as a bargain might be comparing to homes they are accustomed to like +$200k homes, and not lower priced homes,
        dont mean to bash the economics of it, as i like the idea, just numbers dont add up for me,

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        • #5
          Re: At what point do state and national campgrounds become big RV parks?

          I see your math, but the economics of it aren't the important part. My concern is that our state and national parks are turning into RV parks and slums. They are robbing our natural treasures of the beauty for which they were/are preserved. Many/most of these RV rigs are as big as a mobile home. You line up ten or twenty mobile homes in row and you have a mobile home village, not a beautiful forest.

          To each his own, but if you want to go the RV route - go to an RV park. Keep the RV's out of our state and national forests. Today's RV parks are really nothing more than floating mobile home courts with a higher rotation. It reminds me of the floating junks in Hong Kong bay.

          Or, maybe, have RV sections in the national and state forests and don't mix them. Here, the RV's are parked right next to or across from tent and pop-up sites. Just use some clear field, give it a good old-fashioned Walmart parking asphalt or concrete cover, have some electrical stands sticking up like an outdoor theater, and let the RV vagabonds park there. Call it National Forest Service Social Welfare Park because it isn't camping, and it is an eyesore.
          Last edited by Mike; 10-19-2012, 12:19 PM.

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          • #6
            Re: At what point do state and national campgrounds become big RV parks?

            can understand your point,
            couple campgrounds i regularly pass on the way to my stomping grounds,
            many times pass shaking my head, thinking glad i'm not there
            who wants to pitch tent between two RV's? not my idea of camping

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            • #7
              Re: At what point do state and national campgrounds become big RV parks?

              $600 a month lot rent isn't bad. Electric, water and sewage include. Think of how much those sites in the sunbelt states get in the winter from the snow birds. My brother lives iAZ and he said the snow birds are startting to buy foreclosed homes cause it is cheaper. A bunch of this also depends on your location. $100,000 will get you a single wide mobile home here in the front range area of Colorado.
              Nights camped in 2019: 24
              Nights camped in 2018: 24

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              • #8
                Re: At what point do state and national campgrounds become big RV parks?

                This isn't camping. This is pollution. Look at these state and national park images and tell me what doesn't belong. This is the trashification of our state and national forests:

                [IMG][/IMG]

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                • #9
                  Re: At what point do state and national campgrounds become big RV parks?

                  This is how you turn a beautiful scene into a trailer park eyesore:


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                  • #10
                    Re: At what point do state and national campgrounds become big RV parks?

                    Well, I remember the National Park Service during the lean years in the 1970's. Backpackers had to be very good at mountaineering because trails weren't maintained and it was easy to get confused and get side-tracked on a deer path. Parks were run-down. Garbage cans overflowed in the parks. The parks were under-staffed, under-managed and campers didn't feel safe in campgrounds. In fact, many campgrounds were not safe and not welcoming to families.

                    I would hate to think we have to go back to those times in order to solve the RV pollution problem in our national and state parks/forests.

                    The solution seems pretty easy; Don't destroy beautiful campground areas to turn them into RV Parks. Don't mix RV campsites with tent and pop-up sites - just designate some crappy land to RV's so they can have an RV corral and preserve the beauty of the parks.

                    Campgrounds with tents mixed with RV's today remind me of non-smoking sections on airplanes in the early 1980's. You could be in a non-smoking seat, but have smokers in front of you, behind you, and beside you. The smokers liked it, but it was miserable for everybody else. I would like to hope that RV's will go away like smoking eventually did, but I don't think it will happen. Extended RV living has become the middle-rung landing point for folks (mainly seniors) falling in the economic shake-down and that probably isn't going to get better in my lifetime.

                    We need to progress with campsite layout and RV designation management as well and give the RV their own remote "pollution" section were they can park their huge eyesore vehicles and run their generators and hang their patio lights and mostly to leave the pretty part of the parks "pretty".

                    Last edited by Mike; 10-19-2012, 05:14 PM.

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                    • #11
                      Re: At what point do state and national campgrounds become big RV parks?

                      Being a gent who doesn't own a 10-foot pole, I will say this: One Man's Trash is another Man's treasure. Maybe buy a big piece of property, put concertina wire around it and NO TRESPASSING signs around it, plant plenty of granola trees and maybe a little stream through it. Set up a "sustainable" campsite and a "look, I'm greener than thou" privy and compost heap in your own little campground. There will be no one to gawk at and get upset about, and it will make the experience a pristine one indeed. Then you can put a little Ranger hat on and harass the raccoons when they get too uppity. BTW, those people in the photos look very familiar...:cool:
                      Last edited by tplife; 10-19-2012, 08:46 PM.
                      “People have such a love for the truth that when they happen to love something else, they want it to be the truth; and because they do not wish to be proven wrong, they refuse to be shown their mistake. And so, they end up hating the truth for the sake of the object which they have come to love instead of the truth.”
                      ―Augustine of Hippo, Fifth Century A.D.

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                      • #12
                        Re: At what point do state and national campgrounds become big RV parks?

                        Originally posted by tplife View Post
                        Being a gent who doesn't own a 10-foot pole, I will say this: One Man's Trash is another Man's treasure. Maybe buy a big piece of property, put concertina wire around it and NO TRESPASSING signs around it, plant plenty of granola trees and maybe a little stream through it. Set up a "sustainable" campsite and a "look, I'm greener than thou" privy and compost heap in your own little campground. There will be no one to gawk at and get upset about, and it will make the experience a pristine one indeed. Then you can put a little Ranger hat on and harass the raccoons when they get too uppity. BTW, those people in the photos look very familiar...:cool:
                        I am not saying that Rv's are trash or treasure, but I am sure that everybody who bothers to visit a camping forum believes our national and state parks to be treasures. When you pave those parks with asphalt and replace trees with electrical hook-up poles and fill the parks with mobile homes that you can neither see around, over, or through, that is a loss of our wilderness treasures.

                        I believe there is a place for RV's and probably even a necessity for them: KOA campgrounds - yes. Private RV campgrounds - yes. relatives driveways - yes. But their place is not in the campgrounds of our state or national parks and forests.
                        Last edited by Mike; 10-19-2012, 09:05 PM.

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                        • #13
                          Re: At what point do state and national campgrounds become big RV parks?

                          Sebastian inlet state park in Florida is a perfect example of a RV park, sure they allow tents but i dont want to be pitching mine in a 40 foot drive way with hard gravel and no shade at all.

                          Curry hammock state park in the Florida keys in another RV loop..
                          Proud owner of the Kodiak canvas 10 x 14 deluxe flex bow tent..

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                          • #14
                            Re: At what point do state and national campgrounds become big RV parks?

                            Very interesting topic. I have mixed feelings about it, but it's a great subject to ponder. I came to the forums today to say that I need to quit camping. I can't go another week-end with loss of sleep due to partyers, kids running wild and screaming thru all hours of the night, super-bright lanterns shining in my tent all night, and everything else we have on that list of pet peeves we have going ...

                            There's a state park that I love. My first visit this year was last night. A lot has changed in a year. RVs are now allowed in the tent-only loop. With the availability of less-expensive tents, screen rooms, camp kitchens, etc, people unpack a boat-load of gear (from cars, vans, and trucks too - not just RVs). No one keeps their stuff in the designated spot - they can't -- there's too much of it. In no way does it look like we're out in the wilderness, enjoying nature. People are basically taking all the gear of a 2nd home and just living outdoors for a few days. There's no longer greenery between the camping spots - it's been trampled down by people not staying on the trails or by spreading out all over the forest. Every state park I visited this year has been the same. It's very sad to see the damage being done, the land can not recover sufficiently from one year to the next.

                            On the other hand ... I'm glad all the people-intensive damage is relegated to a small part of the state park.

                            Last comment - I used to dream of a retirement in an RV. My mortgage is 25 years old, in a low-income neighborhood, and it's more than $600 plus free electricity, water, and sewage. That lifestyle would've been a bargain and a dream. I doubt that I'll be doing that in the future though, because there's less and less resemblance between camping and enjoying nature.
                            Total nights sleeping outdoors in 2013: 28

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                            • #15
                              Re: At what point do state and national campgrounds become big RV parks?

                              i think what has happened is that State and National parks have just become low-rent opportunities for retired folks who are seling their homes and downsizing to RVs. That was never the intention of our parks, but it is what has been happening over the past decade and seems to be where we are heading in a big way.

                              Six of our prettiest state parks have been closed for "electrification projects". They are putting in 50 amp service because many of the RV crowd pull so much electricity.

                              Personally, I think it is a real shame and a downgrade to our parks.

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