We Said We’d Never Buy a Thousand Trails Membership. Here’s What Changed Our Minds
We tried Thousand Trails membership five years ago and hated it. Here’s the story and why we decided to give it another shot.
We Hated Thousand Trails. Then We Tried It Again. Here’s What Was Different.
By Mary
Five years ago, my husband Tim and I tried Thousand Trails. We bought a Camping Pass, used it a handful of times, and walked away unimpressed.
The parks didn’t wow us, the reservations were a headache, and the one that really stung, we were promised full hookups at a park and showed up to something very different from what we expected.
We said we’d never buy one again.
Want the full breakdown of all four Thousand Trails membership tiers, including what the Camping Pass can and can’t do, before you decide? Read our complete comparison post: Thousand Trails Memberships Comparison
Key Takeaways
- ā The Camping Pass is the most limited tier in the Thousand Trails system. It’s not a representative experience of what the membership can actually be.
- ā Encore parks only allot a set number of sites to Thousand Trails members; you can see open sites and still be locked out. This hits hardest when your booking window is only 30 days.
- ā Short stays are the wrong way to use Thousand Trails. Settling in for longer stays is where the value actually shows up.
- ā The tier you buy determines what parks you can get, when you can book them, and whether you can chain Florida stays together without a 7-day gap.
- ā Adventure’s 180-day booking window means full hookup sites are actually bookable, instead of taking whatever’s left after everyone else has already reserved.
- ā If you tried Thousand Trails years ago and walked away frustrated, the first question to ask is what tier you had, because the Camping Pass and Adventure are functionally different products.
- ā You don’t always get every day you want in one reservation. Check back and add days as availability opens. The 180-day window gives you the runway to do that.
Fast forward to today: we just finished our second stay on our Thousand Trails Adventure membership. We’re wrapping up at Forest Lake. It’s been a great stay, and I’m sitting here thinking about how close we came to never giving this another shot.
So what changed? That’s what this post is about.
Why We Hated It the First Time
To understand why we eventually came around, you have to understand why we left in the first place.
We bought a Camping Pass, the entry-level option, thinking it was a smart way to try the network without a big commitment. In theory, that sounds reasonable. In practice, we ran into every limitation the Camping Pass has, usually all at once.
We couldn’t get the reservations we wanted
A 30-day booking window sounds fine until you realize everyone else in the system has been booking for 60, 120, or even 180 days out. By the time our window opened, the parks we wanted were picked over. We ended up settling more than once.
The parks didn’t impress us
Some were fine. Some felt dated and underwhelming. When you’re paying for a membership and then struggling to even get into a decent park, the value proposition starts looking pretty thin.
And then there was the hookup situation
We showed up at a park expecting full hookups, water, electric, sewer, because that’s what we’d been led to believe we’d have. What we got was not that. After nine years of full-timing, we know what we need, and a bait-and-switch on hookups is not something we take lightly.
And we couldn’t get into the parks we actually wanted
The Florida Keys were on our list. We couldn’t book them. Not because they were completely full, but because we didn’t understand something that nobody explained to us: Encore parks only allot a certain number of sites to Thousand Trails members.
The rest of the park operates as a regular paid campground. So you can look at a park map, see available sites, and still be told nothing is open for your membership. With a 30-day window, we were the last ones in line for an already-limited pool of spots.
The member allotment at the parks we wanted was gone long before our window opened. The Keys stayed on the wish list.
We left that experience convinced that Thousand Trails was overhyped, oversold, and not worth our time or money. Case closed.
What Was the Deciding Factor
Last year, Tim’s cousin gave us a Thousand Trails camping pass that they received with their new RV purchase. Since they already owned the Adventure membership, they didn’t need it.
We didn’t go in with high hopes. Honestly, we probably went in a little skeptical, ready to have our original opinion confirmed.
It wasn’t confirmed.
The difference wasn’t the parks. The parks were similar to what we’d experienced before, some better, some the same. The difference was how we used it.
Instead of short stops, our old habit of a night or two here, a night or two there, we settled in for a longer stay. And that changed everything about how the membership felt.
We also happened to use it over a holiday weekend. You know what full hookup sites at a decent campground cost over a holiday weekend? A lot. We were camped comfortably, with full hookups, in a nice park, and paying nothing for the stay. The savings were real and immediate and hard to argue with.
That was the crack in the door. We didn’t run out and buy a membership that week. But the conversation shifted from “never again” to “hm, maybe we were using it wrong.”
What We Actually Did Wrong the First Time
Looking back, the Camping Pass was the wrong product for how we travel. That’s not entirely on Thousand Trails, but it’s also not something their sales process goes out of its way to make clear.
Here’s what the Camping Pass doesn’t give you:
- A booking window that’s long enough to actually get the parks you want
- The ability to stay 21 days (you’re capped at 14)
- Extension weeks if you want to stay longer
- Holiday reservations
- Any access to Trails Collection Plus
For full-timers in a large rig who need full hookups and actually want to stay somewhere more than two nights, the Camping Pass is not the right tool. We were using the wrong tool and blaming the whole system.
The hookup situation was partly that, too. Lower tiers with shorter booking windows mean you’re often taking whatever’s left. The members with longer windows booked the full-hookup sites months ago. We were showing up with a short window and expecting to land premium sites. That’s not how it works.
Why Are There Empty Sites At 1000 Trails Parks When It Says It’s Full
And the Encore allotment issue made it worse. We didn’t know, and nobody told us, that Encore parks only make a portion of their sites available to Thousand Trails members. The rest go to paid guests.
So even when a park looked available online, the member-allotted spots were already gone. At a popular park like Clerbrook in Florida, which I later learned had dropped its member allotment from 140 sites down to 90, that’s a real ceiling on what’s actually bookable.
A short booking window competing for a shrinking pool of member sites is a losing combination.
Why We Finally Pulled the Trigger on Adventure
After we started using the pass last summer, we started paying more attention. We talked to other full-timers who were using the membership well. We did our research. And we kept doing the math.
We’ve been full-timing for nine years and know what campgrounds cost. We know what a holiday weekend at a decent RV park costs, and we know what it costs to winter somewhere warm versus scrambling for last-minute availability in November.
The Adventure membership made sense for us for a few specific reasons:
The 180-day booking window.
In a Jayco Seneca Super C, site selection matters. I need to know if a site can actually accommodate our rig before I commit to a park. With 180 days of advance booking, I have time to research, confirm, and lock in sites that work for us, not just whatever’s left when a 30-day window opens.
Trails Collection Plus.
This one is huge for anyone planning to winter in Florida, which we do. Florida has very few Thousand Trails-branded parks. The bulk of the network there runs through Trails Collection/Encore properties.
Without TC+, you can’t move directly from one Encore park to another; there’s a mandatory 7-day gap. With TC+, you chain them together seamlessly. For a Florida winter itinerary, this isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the whole game.
Two holiday reservations.
We learned this lesson the hard way in the Camping Pass days. With Adventure, we can book Memorial Day and Fourth of July at the same time, instead of waiting to check into one before we can even touch the other. Our summer calendar gets locked in early, not scrambled together in May.
Full hookups are actually bookable.
This sounds obvious, but it was the thing that burned us the first time. With a 180-day window, I’m booking full-hookup sites before most other members can even see that availability. We have not had a hookup issue since we upgraded.
Where We Are Now
We just finished our second Adventure membership stay at Forest Lake. It’s a nice park, genuinely nice, not “nice for a discount membership” nice. Tim and Harley have been happy, which is the real measure of a good stay in this rig.
One thing I want to share that surprised me about how the booking process actually works in practice: at both Green Mountain and Forest Lake, we couldn’t always get all the days we wanted in a single reservation.
Availability opens up over time, so we’d book what we could get and then add days as more spots became available. That’s a very different experience from the Camping Pass days, where we were locked out entirely.
With a 180-day window, we have the runway to be patient, check back, add days when they open, build the stay we actually want rather than scrambling for whatever’s left.
The Florida Keys are still on our list. We couldn’t get in with the Camping Pass five years ago, or even last year, for that matter, but now we’re hoping to try for this upcoming year on the Adventure membership.
That’s the whole story in one example: same destination, same dream, completely different odds.
What I can tell you after two stays: this is not the same experience as the Camping Pass. The tier matters enormously. The booking strategy matters enormously. And staying longer, actually settling in instead of treating it like a quick overnight, is what makes the value real.
We were wrong about Thousand Trails. Or more accurately, we were right about the wrong version of it.
What This Means If You’re On the Fence
If you tried Thousand Trails years ago and wrote it off, I’d ask you to consider two things before you close the door permanently:
What tier did you have?
If it were a Camping Pass, you experienced the most limited version of the network with the least booking power. That’s not the same product as an Adventure membership. The comparison isn’t even close.
How did you use it?
Short stays, hunting for last-minute availability, expecting resort amenities at discount prices, that’s a recipe for disappointment regardless of the membership level. Longer stays, planned well in advance, with realistic expectations of what the parks are, that’s where the value lives.
Five years ago, we had the wrong tier and the wrong approach. Now we have the right tier and nine years of full-timing experience to use it properly.
The difference is night and day.
Affiliate disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase a Thousand Trails membership through my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products and services I personally use.
Save This Post and Pin It For Later to Your RV Memberships Board
Frequently Asked Questions
For full-timers who plan ahead and camp frequently, Adventure is almost always worth it. The 180-day booking window, Trails Collection Plus, and two holiday reservations solve the problems that make lower tiers frustrating. The key is using it strategically, longer stays, booked well in advance, rather than treating it like a last-minute campground finder.
They are functionally different products. The Camping Pass gives you a 30-day booking window, 14-day max stays, no holiday reservations, and no Trails Collection Plus. Adventure gives you a 180-day booking window, 21-day stays at both TT and Encore parks, two holiday reservations, high-use extension weeks, and Trails Collection Plus, which lets you chain Encore stays back to back without a mandatory 7-day gap. If you tried Thousand Trails with a Camping Pass and hated it, you haven’t experienced what Adventure actually is.
Encore and Trails Collection parks only allot a set number of sites to Thousand Trails members. The rest of the park operates as a regular paid campground. So even when the park shows open availability, the member allotment may already be fully booked. The shorter your booking window, the more often you run into this problem, because members with longer windows already claimed those spots months earlier.
It can be, but it depends entirely on your booking window. Full hookup sites at popular parks go fast. With a short Camping Pass window, you’re often left with whatever sites remain after members with 120, 150, and 180-day windows have already booked. With an Adventure membership and a 180-day window, full hookup sites are bookable before most other members can even see the availability. We haven’t had a hookup issue since upgrading.
Yes, and for full-timers, Florida is actually one of the strongest use cases for the membership. Florida has only three core Thousand Trails parks, so a Florida winter itinerary runs almost entirely through the Trails Collection/Encore network. Without Trails Collection Plus (Adventure only), you can’t move directly between Encore parks, and there’s a mandatory 7-day gap between stays. With Adventure and TC+, you can chain Encore stays back to back, which is what makes a Florida winter itinerary actually work inside the system.
You can’t always book every day you want in a single reservation; availability opens up over time as the booking window advances. The way to handle it is to book what’s available when your window opens, then check back regularly and add days as more spots open up. With a 180-day Adventure window, you have enough runway to be patient and build the stay you actually want rather than scrambling for whatever’s left.
Three things matter most. First, the tier you buy determines everything; the Camping Pass and Adventure are not comparable products. Second, Encore Parks caps the number of sites available to members, so a longer booking window directly affects what you can actually get. Third, the membership rewards longer stays and advance planning. If you go in expecting spontaneous overnight stops at luxury parks, you’ll be disappointed. If you go in understanding it’s a discount camping system that rewards planners, it can be an incredible value.
Yes, but site selection matters more with a larger rig. Many TT and Encore parks were built decades ago when rigs were smaller, so not every site accommodates a Class A or Super C. The longer your booking window, the more time you have to research specific sites, confirm dimensions, and lock in one that actually fits your rig. For big rig owners, this is another strong reason to choose Adventure; the 180-day window gives you the most time to find the right site before it’s gone.