Question:
Does anyone have any experience with this camping club? It purports to
provide you a 50% discount on all its affiliated campgrounds off the
regular price for $44 per year.
Do they deliver? Are there any catches? When you call for a
reservation or go into a camp, do they end up saying that all our
Passport America spaces are already gone?
Answer:
We recently spent ~2 months in the Canadian maritime provinces. Typically,
campground fees were ~$20(CN)/night; PA membership brought it down to
$10(CN)/night, which translated to ~$6.60(US) per night. Quite a deal for
our (originally) $40/year membership. As with any membership, there are
restrictions. For example, some of the campgrounds we stayed at wouldn't
have given the discount if we were there in the middle of the summer. Oh
well . . . so what (for us).
We used the book they gave us when we joined . . . not the website. And we
enjoyed every campsite we stayed in.
Assuming that you meant to write "convinced," rather than "unconvinced" in
the second sentence above . . . we ran into one place which was listed in
the book whose owner insisted that he didn't join PA, and his place was
mistakenly listed.
Every PA-listed campground we stayed at was at least the equivalent of
almost any campground we've stayed at in the states. And we stayed at PA
campgrounds in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.
Nope. (1) Bicycles would be useless to us. We have two terriers and don't
like to leave 'em behind, 'cause they might bother folks. So they travel
in our toad almost every place we go. In fact, we had our toad specially
outfitted so it's cooler in hot weather. White, aftermarket sunroof and
window tint. (2) We like to walk for exercise. And, while in the
campground, we walk a lot, including areas convenient to the campground.
(3) I don't like mixing it up with a bicycle on a highway with vehicle
traffic. I'd feel much more comfortable riding a motorcycle, like I used
to. But that's no longer an option for me, by choice.
And our newly purchased all-wheel-drive Subaru Forester toad came in MIGHTY
handy for those hundreds of miles of off-road traveling we did while in the
maritimes, too. I can safely say that we'll never own another
front-wheel-drive or rear-wheel-drive toad again.
We have used our Passport American all over the US and we have been quite
pleased. I find it more "consistent" than Coast to Coast, which has been a
BIG disappointment to us.
I've seen from both their website and their directory that Campgrounds
are free to post any "restrictions" they desire; i.e. Not allowing
discounts during peak season weekends, charging a little extra if
you're planning on using an AC, cash or check only, etc., but I've
used my discount three times now and it paid for itself after the
second weekend. All others now are lagniappe!
We use our Passport America membership as often as possible, and have
been very pleased. We are travelling, and have not stayed anywhere more
than two days since we left home over a month ago. Of 5 campgrounds we
used, 4 have been Passport America. I am happy with the quality of the
campgrounds and the sites we have been assigned. I do follow the
recommendations of Passport America and CALL AHEAD to make reservations
and confirm Passport America rates. These rates are often a few
dollars higher than half the normal rate, usually because the electricity
charge is not discounted, but I have saved more than my annual dues in
the four uses I have made, and I would certainly renew my Passport
America membership.
I'm sure my math is getting a bit rusty (like everything else), but 30 days
at 2 nights per stay equals about 15 campgrounds. What did I lose in the
translation, or did you just keep rotating amongst those five? :-)
