Thousand Trails is our favorite membership.  I don’t mean just when we were fulltiming for five years, but even before and after! Looking back at our stays over the years, we’ve spent over 1,000 nights in the Thousand Trails system.

We started with a Family Courtesy card on my dad and stepmom’s Elite membership back in 2011. We used that membership so often that we were gifted a National Zone Pass the year after. Once we went full-time in 2015, we “traded in” our membership for an Elite Basic membership , mainly for the longer reservation window and the ability to go directly from one park to the next.

If you don’t already know, Thousand Trails is a set of member parks that you pay an up-front fee in order to be able to camp at them for free. In general, you can stay two or three weeks at a time and then have to move on. It’s not the best option for someone who wants to stay for months at a time, but for those who want to keep rolling or occasionally stay somewhere up to about a month, it can be a great fit.

Do you want to know…

I’ll answer all of that and more below.

Camping is better with friends and many of our traveling friends use Thousand Trails.

For us, absolutely! The real question comes down to if you’ll use it or not. As I said earlier, in 10 years we’ve spent over 1,000 nights in the system. Doing a bit of simple math, we would have spent anywhere from $30,000 to $60,000 depending on what you value a night of camping at !

One thing to know about the base Thousand Trails parks is that they’re generally first come, first served when it comes to sites. A few parks assign sites here or there and some parks do it around holidays, but for the most part, you’re welcomed to the park and given a map to find a site.

Your reservation guarantees you a spot, but not specific amenities like 50-amp electric or sewer. It also doesn’t guarantee that you’ll fit, but having traveled in 42-foot and 44-foot fifth wheels, we’ve never had a problem finding a spot.

I have worked with a Thousand Trails sales rep to secure a discount for Learn To RV readers . If you’re interested in a Thousand Trails membership or have questions about it, please reach out to Craig Rouse at 336-488-0644, via Craig_Rouse@equitylifestyle.com , or by filling out this contact form . If you reach out to him directly, tell him you got his contact info from here so he can extend our exclusive discount.

There are different membership options depending on 1) how often you want to use the parks, 2) how long your stay is, and 3) if you want to be able to leave one park and go directly to another.

The membership levels can change over the years so the best thing to do is check out the website or reach out to a thousand trails rep to find out what the current plans and rates are.



On top of your membership, Thousand Trails offers a few add-ons like Trails Collection and Resort Parks International (RPI) for adding significantly more parks. I’ll talk more later about Trails Collection (and its even awesomer big sibling, Trails Collection+). Here’s a map of the Thousand Trails and Trails Collection parks.

Thousand Trails has 82 base parks spread across the country. Trails Collection adds 122 Encore parks to your membership. Most of the add-on parks are $0/night, but there is a small set of them run for $20/night.

The Trails Collection was introduced a few years back and is one of my favorite features they’ve added. It’s been great for being able to spread our wings and has been incredible for wintering in Florida. We have literally been able to bounce around Florida all year round and didn’t have to pay any nightly camping fees!

As I mentioned above, I have worked with Craig Rouse, a Thousand Trails sales rep, to secure a discount for Learn To RV readers . If you’re interested in a membership, please reach out to Craig at 336-488-0644, via Craig_Rouse@equitylifestyle.com , or by filling out this contact form.

If you reach out to him directly, tell him you got his contact info from here so he can extend our exclusive discount .