If you know anyone with land, tell them to build an Rv Park

[StephJohn2010]

Record Rv sales are making it very hard to fulltime rv. We recently had to buy an second home in our favorite place because the monthly sites are fully booked basically all the time. Anyone else running into trouble booking a monthly like they used to? #buildmoreRVsites

[myredracer]

I haven't followed any of the camping problems in BC parks for a while and not sure if things have improved much. We don't camp in BC because it's just not worth the hassle.

Here's one story from 2016 Unhappy campers in BC and another from 2017 here. If planning on using BC campgrounds, you might to do some googling. The gov't did talk about trying to improve the system but don't know if they have much. There is apparently a new app that will find openings when people have cancelled reservations and made a site available.

BC campgrounds are beautiful and worth trying to get into them if you can. Be aware that the cost of gas has skyrocketed here lately to over $7 US a gallon, and it ALWAYS goes up over the summer.

[DrewE]

pnichols wrote:

myredracer wrote:
n BC, getting into a provincial CG is next to impossible and there's a phone war the instant the reservation system opens up every year. There's even been scalping of reservations and dealers and tourist agencies buying big blocks of tickets. A number of years ago the gov't severely cut back funding and they sure ain't building any new CGs.

A bit off topic, but:

Boy, oh boy ... that's doesn't sound good for us making our very first trip to Alaska through Canada next year in our RV!!

Is it really that bad? We had hoped to be able to be free as a bird spontaneous on this trip and definitly NOT be a slave to a "reservation schedule". We have no problem drycamping our way on the whole trip if that's what it takes to not have to make a bunch of reservations. This is how we are still able to travel in the U.S..

Does drycamping our way through Canada and into Alaska help reduce the reservation requirements?

I suspect it might depend a lot on which parks you're trying to get into. Last year on my trip to Alaska I had no trouble at all getting spots in BC parks on the way there or back (mainly on the way back). Most were nowhere near full. I suppose the bad fire season may have had some impact on that, too.

The only campground reservations I made any length of time ahead were for Lake Louise and Denali Tek. For Lake Louise (and more generally Banff/Jasper NPs), there are overflow camping areas available in the general area that are very unlikely to fill up.

[magicbus]

pnichols wrote:
Boy, oh boy ... that's doesn't sound good for us making our very first trip to Alaska through Canada next year in our RV!!

Is it really that bad? We had hoped to be able to be free as a bird spontaneous on this trip and definitly NOT be a slave to a "reservation schedule".

We did the trip without a single reservation leaving the East Coast the third week in August and getting back late October.

You don't see many people - good

The roads are in the best shape they will ever be - good

Restaurants in the Yukon and AK are closed - who cares

You get booted from Denali due to the snow levels getting down too far but then again there are only a handful of people there so it is really nice

I would do that trip again in the off-season in a heartbeat.

Dave

[pnichols]

myredracer wrote:
n BC, getting into a provincial CG is next to impossible and there's a phone war the instant the reservation system opens up every year. There's even been scalping of reservations and dealers and tourist agencies buying big blocks of tickets. A number of years ago the gov't severely cut back funding and they sure ain't building any new CGs.

A bit off topic, but:

Boy, oh boy ... that's doesn't sound good for us making our very first trip to Alaska through Canada next year in our RV!!

Is it really that bad? We had hoped to be able to be free as a bird spontaneous on this trip and definitly NOT be a slave to a "reservation schedule". We have no problem drycamping our way on the whole trip if that's what it takes to not have to make a bunch of reservations. This is how we are still able to travel in the U.S..

Does drycamping our way through Canada and into Alaska help reduce the reservation requirements?

[myredracer]

StephJohn2010 wrote:
Anyone else running into trouble booking a monthly like they used to?

No, never been an issue for us. We have a membership in a CG network with CGs across the US. The key is to book out as far as you can according to the membership type you have, like 60 days out for example. Then stick to your plans otherwise if you try to re-book another date(s), you could very well find yourself SOL.

Sometimes you can find yourself having to change plans at the last minute due to unforeseen circumstances. Two years ago we had to cancel a reservation due to a wildfire nearby but thanks to today's internet and mobile hotspot and a lot of searching, we were able to find a site in an another CG. Cgs in desirable locations are very busy all summer long while kids are out of school. We stayed at a CG in Bakersfield in August once and it was almost empty and then a couple of days later, we were in a CG in Vegas that was about 1/2 full and was a relatively decent place too.

If we ever win the lotto, we'd build a new RV park from scratch and hire people to run it. If the win is large enough, we'd also buy up all the other nearby RV parks and shut them down. 🙂 Otherwise, you better have pretty deep pockets to build a new one. The only new ones I've seen are a small handful of casinos because they've got big bags of cash to throw around.

In BC, getting into a provincial CG is next to impossible and there's a phone war the instant the reservation system opens up every year. There's even been scalping of reservations and dealers and tourist agencies buying big blocks of tickets. A number of years ago the gov't severely cut back funding and they sure ain't building any new CGs.

[ctilsie242]

With all the new regulations that are thrown at construction, I don't see how RV parks make money, unless they are an older installation grandfathered in.

Take Wi-Fi for instance. The park could be Shangri-La in every way but that, but if people can't view their porn sites in full 5K video from the park's Wi-Fi, the park will get a one star on all reviews. Wi-Fi is extremely expensive to do right, since you have to have so many network appliances, as well as a large backhaul to an ISP, likely fiber. That's $20k/month right there, not to mention the hardware and network administration costs.

A few years ago, if I had a few acres that were a reasonable distance from a main road, I would have considered putting in a Sanistar dump station and water. However, after hearing a complaint from a business owner about someone someone take a chain to the locking foot of the dump station (they are cast aluminum) and tearing it off, coupled with other vandalism of his unmanned site, it gave me pause. He had cameras, but when the police are 30 miles away, there is a lot bad guys can do in that time.

[joelm]

We were in the planning stage for our RV park but were approached by a hotel company wanting to lease our property for several hotels. We will have no cash and no effort into the project or operations but will receive checks that are multiples of anything that we could have possibly made with an RV Park. For the next 75 years. Hard for an RV Park to complete for ground.

[DiskDoctr]

Packbacker wrote:
My family and I are in the process of building a park from scratch. We are farmers and are looking for diversification. Over the last two years we have noticed just how packed the parks are within an hour and a half from us and had a neighbor mention that we have a perfect location.

What state are you in? Region of the country makes a difference for any advice or amenities 😉

Good luck, we love new parks!

[BarneyS]

Packbacker,
Sent you a private message. Check the upper right corner of your screen and click on the red "Private Message" link.
Barney

[Packbacker]

My family and I are in the process of building a park from scratch. We are farmers and are looking for diversification. Over the last two years we have noticed just how packed the parks are within an hour and a half from us and had a neighbor mention that we have a perfect location.

We are located off a major interstate and the exit we are off of is a heavily traveled highway. While we wouldn’t be a destination park, we do have a major military base that is a 15 minute straight shot from us, a mid major city with some attractions and great restaurants 12 minutes away, nice medical facility 10 minutes away, and lots of good golf nearby.

The interstate is heavy with RVs all the time. We were hoping for a good bit of overnighters and hoping for good business from the military base via family visitors, contractors, and soldiers who are living in RVs due to moving around so much. The land we are looking at is 38 acres that we feel like could hold around 200 spots. We are looking at starting with about 100 spots, an office/store, bathhouse and laundry, a pool and playground, and a couple dog parks. We also have 10 acres we were planning on having walking and biking trails on. We hoped to build up to the 200 spots and add some cabins in the future.

The other parks we’ve been observing along the interstate have had anywhere from 75 to 140 RVs in them at any given time, even now during December and January. We feel our location is superior to these other parks we’ve observed and while knowing anything is subject to fail, we feel very good about the potential. We are looking at about a 2.5-3 million dollar budget to get started with 100 spots and possibly have money leftover to build more.

Would love to hear some feedback from those with more experience.

[ctilsie242]

I thought about a RV park myself. One thing that is important for new parks is Wi-Fi. Having antennas powerful enough to get through the Faraday cages of rigs is important, otherwise even if you offer Shangri-La on earth, you will get one star if people can't play their video game consoles or stream 4K video. Not just antennas, subnets, and a large pipe to a nearby ISP... which can be very expensive if you are located away from fiber backhauls.

Then, you have to have network security, logging, because eventually, someone will come to your RV park and do something bad, and if you can't produce logs pointing to someone, it may be that your park gets considered culpable. Things like blocking outgoing port 25, so people can't spam from your park, blocking incoming port 80 and other ports, so people can't set up servers, and so on.

If I did anything RV park related, I'd probably just have a chunk of land, fenced in, with an "Iron Ranger" fee collection box for donations to cover umbrella insurance. This would be for people I know, and would be intended for boondocking and layover.

[RoyBell]

I just talked to my RV salesman this morning (still looking for a TH). He said they are clean out of everything this year. Record sales for them. Can't wait till next year after hearing that.

[DallasSteve]

Neil Young says "Rust never sleeps." I say "Supply and demand never takes a day off." There will always be some RV park spots available, but you may have to pay more for them. That will cause demand to soften as some people will decide it's too expensive for them and they will sell their RV. As demand softens the prices will go down a little and more people will get back in. Meanwhile, supply will be working, too. When the prices go up some people will think they see an opportunity and they will build more RV parks. That will create downward pressure on prices and cause more people to get out of the RV park business. And on it goes. The sky is still not falling. I promise.

[Mr_Mark1]

I guess I'm 'old school', I like to call a RV park and talk to a person or leave a message and get a call back. In 10 yrs. of RVing, I've never booked on line.

As Westernparkowner mentioned, I have to be careful of low hanging branches would rather not have trees over the coach. Talking to a person gives me a better idea of what they have to offer.

Mark