We’ve stayed at a lot of campgrounds in our eleven years of fulltime RV travel, some really nice places, and some not so nice. There are campgrounds that we return to on a regular basis, and others where one stop was more than enough.

RVers often ask us what our personal favorite campgrounds are. Sometimes I feel like that would be akin to telling you where my favorite fishing hole is. What if the word gets out and pretty soon the place is so full that they don’t have room for me?

But what the heck, there’s always Wal-Mart if my favorite campsite is not available, so here are my Top Ten favorites, and why. Please be aware that the reasons I like a campground may not be important to you, just as the things you look for may not meet my needs.

Elkhart Campground, Elkhart, Indiana – No question about it, this is our favorite campground in the entire country. It is centrally located to a lot of places we regularly frequent, Elkhart is the capital of the RV industry, the campground is clean and well maintained, the RV sites are wide, the interior roads are all good, and owners Bob and Gita Patel treat us like family. 

Escapees Rainbow Plantation, Summerdale, Alabama – I don’t think we’ve ever been to an RV park with roomier sites than this Escapees Club RV park. We like the Alabama Gulf Coast area, the small towns in the area are all friendly and clean, and the park itself has a lot of great amenities and activities.

Tra-Tel RV Park, Tucson, Arizona – There is nothing fancy about this small RV park, the spaces are tight, and you get noise from nearby Interstate 10 and the railroad tracks on the other side of the highway. However, it’s clean, the staff is very friendly, they have a nice pool, and for us, location is everything. Tra-Tel is a comfortable, convenient place to stay when we visit our family in Tucson.

Escapees Sumter Oaks RV Park, Bushnell, Florida -  I would say that this is our favorite campground in the state of Florida. We love the giant live oak trees that shade the park, they have a great indoor pool, a fine rec room, and because it’s an Escapees park, it’s always friendly. Miss Terry loves wandering through the nearby huge Webster Flea Market looking for bargains.

Escapees Raccoon Valley, Heiskell, Tennessee -  This is a regular stop for us, and another favorite Escapees Club RV park, because we love the area. The campground is just a mile or so from Interstate 75, and close to Knoxville, but has a rural feel to it. Twice a week local bluegrass musicians come to the park and hold free jam sessions. We haven’t been to Raccoon Valley since the recent remodel, and we’re looking forward to seeing the improvements.

Thousand Trails Verde Valley Preserve, Camp Verde, Arizona – Again, location means a lot. We stay at this large Thousand Trails campground often when it’s too hot to be in Phoenix or Tucson, but still too cold to go to our old hometown in Arizona’s White Mountains. There is a lot to see and do in the Verde Valley, from exploring historic ghost towns and ancient Indian ruins, to riding a vintage steam train.

Country Roads RV Park, Lake Delton, Wisconsin – Our friends Terry and Terri Michael, owners of Country Roads, bill this campground as a place for adults, and if you want a super clean, quiet location that is just minutes from all of the hustle and bustle in Wisconsin Dells, you’ll like it too. Amenities include a pool, very nice RV sites, and a welcome that will make you feel like you just came back home after a long absence.

Escapees Turkey Creek Village, Hollister, Missouri – Located on the shore of Lake Taneycomo, just minutes from all of the shows and attractions in Branson, we have stopped at Turkey Creek many times, and look forward to getting back again. The RV sites are nice, the area has more to see and do than you could get done in an entire season, and the local folks are all very friendly.

Hershey Thousand Trails, Lebanon, Pennsylvania – We’ve only stayed here once, and we’re looking forward to going back for two weeks in September after our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally. The campground is a short drive from Hershey if you need a chocolate fix, it has a lot of great amenities, and this is another part of the county that we really enjoy spending time in. The love the green, rolling countryside around the campground.

 Fisherman’s Landing, Muskegon, Michigan – I have to admit that I have a love/hate relationship with this city owned campground. The sites are fine, and it is a great place to stay when we visit my cousin Berni and her husband Rocky, not to mention that there is a lot to see and do in the area, and we can launch our kayaks right from the campground. However, the downside is that on summer weekends there always seems to be at least one large group of rowdy campers who disturb everybody else, and management never seems to be aware of it.  Still, we go back every year, so I guess the good outweighs the bad.

Okay, now I’ve told you mine, so don’t hold back on the rest of us. What are some of your favorite campgrounds, and why?

Thought For The Day – One man’s religion is another man’s belly laugh.

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How do you travel? Do you make a beeline for your destination by the quickest possible route, or do you casually meander along until you get there? Do you plan your stops ahead of time so you know where you’ll be every night, or do you worry about where you’ll spend the night when you get tired of driving for the day? Do you go from membership park to membership park, getting the most out of your annual dues?

Are you a planner who gets almost as much enjoyment in anticipation of your journeys, or do you like to be surprised by what you find along the way?

It’s only February, but we are already thinking about our summer travels. With a great big old country out there to explore, it’s hard to decide where to go next.

For several years our summer travels were dictated by our teaching schedule with Life on Wheels. We traveled a lot of miles, but it was always to the same places, and usually along the same routes. While I love teaching, the same old routine had stopped being fun. We’re ready to do something different.

Our Winnebago gives us the ability to travel some routes that we were not comfortable tackling in our bus conversion, and there are a lot of places in the Rocky Mountain west that we’d like to explore. So we may spend some time in Colorado and Wyoming. I’ve never been to Yellowstone and some of the other western National Parks.

Or we may go to the Pacific Northwest. We love the Oregon and Washington coast, and we haven’t been there in a long time. Then again, we really want to go to the big Winnebago Grand National Rally in Forest City, Iowa in July, so that would cut short a trip to the Northwest. Hmmm…. Branson? We haven’t been there in a long time. Our options are open, and our schedule is set in Jello. That’s the way we like it.

Our favorite mode of travel is to have some general idea of where we’re going, but no concrete plans on where or when we’ll be at any given time. We seldom make advance reservations, unless we’re going to be in a high traffic area where it might be hard to get a campsite otherwise.

I do a lot of internet research on areas where we’ll be traveling, and put together a list of places we’d like to see. We also get a lot of tips from our readers, and whenever we cross a state line, we try to stop at the State Welcome Center and pick up tourism brochures to give us more ideas.

When we’re going from Point A to Point B, we don’t stop in RV parks every night. I can’t see paying somebody $20 to $30 or more just for a place to park overnight. That’s why we have a self-contained RV. Between WalMarts, truck stops, city parks that allow free camping, casinos, Elks and Moose lodges, and VFW posts, we can always find a place to stop for the night. A few times we have taken readers up on their offer to park in their driveway for a night or two. If we do stop overnight at an RV park, it is usually a Passport America campground.

Once we arrive at a place where we want to spend a few days, we find a comfortable campground to settle into, and make day trips in a 75 to 100 mile radius to explore the region, in our van.

That’s the method that seems to work for us, but there is no one right way to live the RV lifestyle. It’s all abut what works best for you. So, how do you travel?

Thought For The Day – Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.

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