Montana Owners Club - Keystone Montana 5th Wheel Forum - View Single Post

sreigle · 08-18-2005, 09:08 AM

We've found a couple of ways to economize that actually turned out to be positives, at least for us. This has to do with our getting past the first year or so of fulltiming and realizing we don't really need to be on the move so often. At first we stayed in one place a couple of days, maybe four or five. A week was a long time to stay in one place. The rare two-week stay was almost too long.

But now we find staying longer allows us to explore an area more thoroughly and see some beautiful and interesting things most tourists don't know exist. PLUS, it's a whole lot cheaper to stay for a week or a month. Most often the weekly rate is equal to 6 days. The monthly rate can be a whole lot cheaper than that. For example, this park is $21/night plus tax (and this is a very decent park). But we're here for a month and are paying $350 plus tax. That's for full hookups and includes all utilities. This is a 31-day month so that works out to 11.29/night. We're on 30 amp but it's $25 more for 50 amp. And we're in a resort area, 20 miles from the west entrance to Yellowstone National Park. I know of a park in Kansas that is 20/night, 120/week, 225/month plus elec on the monthly rate. We don't really care for that park but it gives you an example.

We are really enjoying the longer stays in our destination areas. We still overnight while on the road and sometimes park for 2 or 3 nights so we can do laundry or just have a day off from driving. But more and more we're staying a month. Sometimes 2 months if we feel we need more time in that area. When we started fulltiming I could not fathom staying in one place that long. I was in a big hurry to see all these great things I'd read about in school books all those years. My fulltiming uncle told me that would change and he was right.

Another thing is to join discount providers like Passport America, Escapees, Good Sam. As much as I hate to say it I find KOA prices way too high for what we get, in most cases, even with their discount card, which we have. Just my opinion though. Passport America is 50% off although usually limited in number of nights and sometimes limited by date. Escapees is 15% off for participating parks and much better than that for their own parks (still don't fully understand this one). We've been using PA for several years and are on our first year using Escapees. We usually save our annual PA membership fee back in the first month of the year. I think we'll save also on Escapees but school's still out on that. I tend to go with PA first since it's the bigger discount and many parks offer both PA and Escapees discounts. Both discounts are off the daily rate, not the weekly or monthly rates. We've had some that offer the discount no matter how long you stay. You naturally can get only one of the discounts at a time. We've found some very, very nice parks take PA or Escapees and also some real pits, just like a random sampling of rv parks.

Good Sam is another. 10% off the daily fee at many rv parks.

08-18-2005, 09:08 AM	#18
sreigle Montana Master Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Oceanside Posts: 20,028 M.O.C. #20	We've found a couple of ways to economize that actually turned out to be positives, at least for us. This has to do with our getting past the first year or so of fulltiming and realizing we don't really need to be on the move so often. At first we stayed in one place a couple of days, maybe four or five. A week was a long time to stay in one place. The rare two-week stay was almost too long. But now we find staying longer allows us to explore an area more thoroughly and see some beautiful and interesting things most tourists don't know exist. PLUS, it's a whole lot cheaper to stay for a week or a month. Most often the weekly rate is equal to 6 days. The monthly rate can be a whole lot cheaper than that. For example, this park is $21/night plus tax (and this is a very decent park). But we're here for a month and are paying $350 plus tax. That's for full hookups and includes all utilities. This is a 31-day month so that works out to 11.29/night. We're on 30 amp but it's $25 more for 50 amp. And we're in a resort area, 20 miles from the west entrance to Yellowstone National Park. I know of a park in Kansas that is 20/night, 120/week, 225/month plus elec on the monthly rate. We don't really care for that park but it gives you an example. We are really enjoying the longer stays in our destination areas. We still overnight while on the road and sometimes park for 2 or 3 nights so we can do laundry or just have a day off from driving. But more and more we're staying a month. Sometimes 2 months if we feel we need more time in that area. When we started fulltiming I could not fathom staying in one place that long. I was in a big hurry to see all these great things I'd read about in school books all those years. My fulltiming uncle told me that would change and he was right. Another thing is to join discount providers like Passport America, Escapees, Good Sam. As much as I hate to say it I find KOA prices way too high for what we get, in most cases, even with their discount card, which we have. Just my opinion though. Passport America is 50% off although usually limited in number of nights and sometimes limited by date. Escapees is 15% off for participating parks and much better than that for their own parks (still don't fully understand this one). We've been using PA for several years and are on our first year using Escapees. We usually save our annual PA membership fee back in the first month of the year. I think we'll save also on Escapees but school's still out on that. I tend to go with PA first since it's the bigger discount and many parks offer both PA and Escapees discounts. Both discounts are off the daily rate, not the weekly or monthly rates. We've had some that offer the discount no matter how long you stay. You naturally can get only one of the discounts at a time. We've found some very, very nice parks take PA or Escapees and also some real pits, just like a random sampling of rv parks. Good Sam is another. 10% off the daily fee at many rv parks.