Frustrated To The Max!

Ok..so I got the TM last year...all excited about this new camping season...started researching new places to visit...UGH!!

Keep your printed books of campgrounds...useless. I go to the web (and yes I've visited all the sites recommended on here). The Internet is successful because it's a VISUAL medium. I could scream in frustration at the number of campground/RV web sites that either feature and "aerial" view of the campground, or a lame distant shot of the campsites. Furthermore, your lucky if you can get a campground map (which is usually a kiddie looking map).

Do I sound frustrated? YES. I'm NOT spending gas money to go on faith, arrive to find that I've been stuck near the dumpster or the kiddie playground.

There has GOT to be a web site that has good reviews of campsites.

HELP!

I have found Google Earth to very useful in at least seeing what the campground looks like...

[Virginia Deacon]

We TrailManor owners have been to a LOT of different campgrounds, so you might try a search here or ask about a specific campground. It might save you some frustration and help you prepare for your visits.

Appearance isn't everything. Been to at least one campground that looked great and turned out to be "the campground from Hell." Nearly every time, we've used the campground guides - realizing that the campgrounds also advertise in the guides (NOT totally unbiased reviews). When we can, we rely on others opinions/reviews.

Happy Camping!

I discovered that you have to really read how these guides rate these campgrounds. We use several of these along with internet research. If it appears to come up as a decent place in most of the sources, it usually is. Most of them use weighted averages of some type which can be misleading if a few of the rating metrics get really high marks. Most don't give you the individual scores.

Finally, I like the guides that specifically rate "site privacy". If you couple that with well maintained facilities, you usually always have a decent place. Keep in mind though that the places that rate the highest on privacy are usually National and State parks.

I think that over time you'll develop a way to search for locations using these resources that will yield consistent results and hopefully they'll be consistently good ;-)

Phil

On our recent trip across country, we used www.rvparkreviews.com to get an idea of what the campgrounds might be like. It was generally pretty close, but it's not foolproof as we learned in our final 2 nights. But in 2 1/2 weeks, that's still not a bad batting average. I figure it's only as good as the ratings people enter into the system, so I've tried to be good about rating the campgrounds we've visited.

Given that you're in the DC area, one campground we stayed at that we really liked was www.lurayresort.com over by Luray Caverns. We also stayed in Bull Run Regional Park (my sister lives in Clifton) which was OK but not quite as nice. I liked the setting of Luray RV Resort better, but then it's hard to have an ugly view when you're in the Shenandoah's. It was a nice basecamp for the caverns (and Skyline Drive, although we didn't have the time to explore like we wanted).

We mostly stay in forest service campgrounds. I have never found any resource for reviewing those. But, the forest service does do a pretty good job of documenting:

max length of site
is it reserveable
is there water
toilets: vault, flush or none

On the rare occasion that we stay somewhere with hook ups, I also have used rvparkreviews.

Also do a search at rv.net

Originally Posted by markandanne

On our recent trip across country, we used www.rvparkreviews.com to get an idea of what the campgrounds might be like. It was generally pretty close, but it's not foolproof as we learned in our final 2 nights.

I'll second that - we use that website quite a bit and find we like it better than our Trailer Life campground book. Not all campgrounds may be listed there but quite a few are. We especially like the fact that you can see what an individual reviewer has posted about other campgrounds. We've found that there are some of the posters on that site who are never happy no matter what so we can take those reviews with a grain of salt.

We used it for a 4-week trip this past February - worked really well for us.

Bob