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Welcome To Our Campground Reviews Main Page

These reviews are more to give some sort of structure and history to our travels than anything else. In addition to the journals of our trips, this page forces us to actually study our location instead of just parking, sleeping, and moving on. If others get some benefit from our observations, great!

Our disclaimer is that these are our opinions only and the reviews are based on what is important to us. Our criteria may be completely different than yours, so read the reviews with that in mind.

This page simply sets forth some "Review Criteria" and provides links to the actual reviews below the explanation.

You may link to the reviews by state or by year or by using our Campground Reviews Map. The state by state listings show the campgrounds from most recent (and therefore, most relevant) to the oldest. The pages that are year by year list the campgrounds from top to bottom in exactly the order we visited them. The Campground Map allows you see all of our campgrounds, zoom in, zoom out, and link to individual reviews. We hope you like having three ways to navigate to the reviews.

The following description is taken from RV-Dreams.com. It is pretty inclusive and a good framework for choosing and evaluating where you stay.

Our Criteria

Our review criteria is similar to our selection criteria, so let's look at how we decide upon a campground.

Location - First and foremost is where the campground is located in relation to our intended route. We don't mind venturing off our main route an hour for a campground that meets other criteria, but I doubt that we will ever make a particular campground our destination.

Setting - We look for campgrounds with more natural settings. We will always shy away from popular overnight campgrounds along an interstate and we will try to avoid concrete RV parking lots with no trees or character. Peace, quiet, natural surroundings, and space between sites are VERY important to us.

Guidebook Consensus - We have learned to never rely on a single opinion (and boy, is that ever true in the RV world), so we carry five reference books and spend a lot of time researching on the internet when selecting a campground. Since we plan to stay at least 4 days or more in most spots, we do not want to get somewhere and need to move. As we gain experience in selecting campgrounds, we rely less and less on guidebooks. However, we will use them to support a decision or help choose between a couple of possibilites.

Big Rig Friendly - Out of necessity with our rig being forty feet long and thirteen feet high with four slideouts, the campground has to have large enough sites and clearance. Pull-through spaces are nice for convenience, but often are not the best sites. So the existence of pull-throughs is a factor (just in case there is not enough room to get the monster backed in anywhere), but not a requirement by any means.

Hook-Ups - This was a bigger issue for us when we started out than we originally thought. However, as we have learned our holding tank capacities, full hook-ups have become less and less a factor. Electric hook-ups are still very important to us, but water hook-ups are not that big a deal as long as we can fill our 100 gallon fresh water tank. Sewer hook-ups are a great convenience, but not necessary either. We will forgo water hook-ups and sewers when our options of places to stay is limited or the location and natural beauty are over-riding factors or if we are staying a week or less. We prefer to not have to use bathhouses, but we want natural settings so much, we have no problem with bathhouses. Because we have our own satellite dish for internet access and TV, cable, Wi-Fi, and other internet hook-ups are non-factors. We do need a clear view of the southern sky, but that is usually more of a site selection issue than campground selection (although we do ask when we call).

Laundry Facilities - Since we do not have a washer/dryer in the rig and we stay in each location a week or more (usually), laundry facilities are a factor. A nearby laundry will do, but we much prefer the convenience within the campground.

Price & Discounts - Since we have included $25 per day in our budget for campgrounds, we will rarely go over that. If we do, it will be because there are no other alternatives or because our plans include a free or half-price stay somewhere else to offset the higher fees. We look for Good Sam discounts, Escapees discounts, and Passport America half price rates. We also look for weekly and monthly rates. However, we will not compromise our other criteria just to take advantage of the discounts. Price and discounts are simply deciding factors between multiple options.

Other Deciding Factors - When we are choosing campgrounds and we are having a tough time choosing, we determine which choice has the more inviting website or which choice is friendliest when we call. We know these are not exactly rational deciding factors, but they usually tell us something about the management of the facility and rarely are we disappointed when making a final decision this way.