RV Park thoughts, suggestions & ideas.

[rox]

I bet this is going to be a real fun thred!
I have always been afraid walking n a campground at night without lights. Ideal I think along the roads are low lights, on posts say about 3' to 4' high. It provides lighting but it is low lighting.

Okay so lets dream a little here. How about a Lazy River? Eddie I know you have a great deal fo experience digging, I jsut love those man made lazy rivers where you plop into your intner tube and drift along the currents in a big loop. Plenty of water jets spray at you and challenges to avoid, perhaps some low rapids. Yup lazy rivers are great family fun. Giet big truck tire inner tubes and the whole family sits on one innertube.

For a pool I also love a swim up bar at one end of the pool. Even if you dont' serve any alchohol, people can bring their own beer or whatever and sit in the pool and their hsuband can be on the other side of the bartop/countertop and be the bartender. Swim up bars are fun.

See this link
http://www.fowlie.ca/old/et/images/aug2001/pic12.jpg
Just go to Google and search on pictures ,and Google "Swim Up Bar."

I also like a place to string a laundry line.
A restaurant that serves breakfast 24/7 is really welcome. Love to go out to breakfast when camping.

I also vote for wireless internet. You could rent the modem cards that slide inside the laptops for thsoe people who don't have wireless built into their laptops. Plus it doesn't ahave to be free you know. You could have that be a seperate business, have a local business partener who is an expert in computer networking, have him invest $$ and split profit with you. In other words, don't get involved in the Internet, provide that as a business opportunity and take a cut of the profit. Hav ethe other guy provide the hardware & expertice and maintence. Any problems you jsut call him/her. You sell the network log in to the campers. Sure do think wireless is the way to go. you might even get your local phone company to be your business partner for the internet protion. Ask at your phone company for the business development manager.

I think trails that are off leash trails for the dogs are a great idea. People love to walk their dog along an approved trail. Within the campground they can be on leashes, but I think a special trail area for them is welcomed.

I'll add this to the thread so you have your ideas and suggestions in one thread. design your buildings so that you can rent out the restaurant to a restaurant operator. Even if you intend to run it yourself, design it so that it can be run as a seperate business and have a seperate entrance, loading and storage etc. This way if you get tired of the restaurant business, you can lease it out.

Something like a corn maze might be fun. I know that is not doable by you in texas but perhaps someone on the boards can come up with an idea based off the concept. i like to do tings with my family that we can all do together and mazes are fun.

If you have tornados then an underground shelter big enough to hold your population of campers. I know you are not thrilled with basements but for safety if you have high storms, and I'm in a camper and there ae tornado warnings, I want to be able to go to a shelter. Somehow you might be able to have the shelter serve another purpose as well.

Love water sprots when camping. And oh before i forget, definately a kiddie pool. The best ones I ever saw were form our public park system in Milwaukee. they were just like a saucer. You walked in with 1' of water and it gradually very gradually got deeper to about pehaps 1 fot to 15". A fountin in the middle lightly spraying out water makes it fun. the kids run under the fountain/sprinkler. the moms and dads sit on the edge of the pool with their fanny's jsut at the water line, their legs sticking towards the center and watch the kiddies.

If it is really really hot by you, how about some msiters set up by the sand volley ball park. And badmitton to, we palyed a lot of badmitten when camping. I ahe to admit this but we ahd a lot of arguments if the birdie was in our out so I always had to stake down a rope to have hard boundries. it would be great to have a badmitton court with boundries installed. i woudl ahve rather walked to a badmitton court rather than take up and put down our court every week-end.

oh another idea, a way to sting patio lights. Could incorporate with a way to ahng clothes. We loved having our campsite set upw tih patio lights. What I did was take 10 gallong buckets filled with cement and stuck an aluminum pole in the middle. I then strung the lights on these movable poles. It would have been great to have something permenent that we could have just attached to.

That is what I can think fo for right now. If I think of more I'll add to the thread.

 

[RobS]

Lots of great ideas coming at you Eddie. From what you describe, this will be a top notch park. A couple of details we have appreciated over the years are campsite trash pickup, along with plenty of trash cans located throughout. Another nice touch we've experienced is daily newspaper delivery. We had this at an upscale RV resort and it's an option at some Yogi-Bear parks.

Depending on your layout, walkways here and there to eliminate the need to cut through other peoples' sites would be good. Hayrides, kids activities and a good website work well too.

 

[rox]

If you don't ahve paved sites right away then a huge supply of paving stones/blocks. People will want to lay down pavers to make a nice clean space right along side their campers. Those pavers are heavy to haul in your car and it would be great if you just sold them right at the campground.

 

[rox]

Eddie, i thought of another idea. Dirt Bike tails with plenty of hills. This is a good one for you as it is another earth moving project and doesn't involve buying anything other than diesel fuel and of course your time.

My nephew would spend literally all week end riding his dirtbike on the dirtbike trails and dunes.

 

[RobertN]

We have done a little RV type camping, when we had our cabover campers.. A couple idea's.

Cut the lights. We were at a place that had an overhead light next to our site. Kept our site too bright, and shone in the window even with the curtian pulled. Make you lighting non-intrusive. Lights should not shine at you or in your face. Nothing worse than walking in relative dark, with a yard light or building light glaring in your face. Lights should glow, and light the path, not your eyeballs.

Have something for kids to do. Rental bikes, horseshoes, put-put golf(KOA here has a short, nicely done course), fishing, nature trail, nightly campfire circle, games etc.

Once a week have a greeting/snacks in the clubhouse. People meet, talk, remember your establishment later...

Level pads... leveling of an RV should be minimal.

Tent sites should be level, have a nice table, and seperate enough to have a little privacy.

Sponsor Boy Scout and Girl Scout campouts. Good way to get lots of people in. Check out other organizations like that.

Have a weekly cookoff; ie chili or something.

 

[Dozernut]

We like shade, enough space where the rv's are not packed in like sardines, with enough room to put up a screen house, a walking trail, clean and supplied shower/restrooms. Make the roads wide enough to maneuver, no sharp bends in the road with trees close to the edge of the road or low branches to snag the rubber roof of your rv. Limit the gas scooters running up and down the roads, not a curmudgeon but a half dozen kids and or adults riding a couple hours past your site tends to get tiresome. A well stocked small store with firewood available, raccoon proof garbage cans and last but not least a friendly staff.

 

[meledward23]

with an 8 acre high fence wildlife preserve.

I am no expert to fence building, but I am thinking an 8 acre high fence is a unique item.

Otherwise I have nothing to contribute as I am a tent man myself.

 

[BB_TX]

I am no expert to fence building, but I am thinking an 8 acre high fence is a unique item.
.

Not in Texas. Driving thru the prime deer hunting areas of Texas you will see high fences every where. There are deer breeders who spend huge sums of money to high fence sometimes thousands of acres and more huge sums to breed trophy quality deer similar to breeding show quality cattle and horses. Then charge huge sums for "hunters" (if you want to call them that) to come in and shoot those deer.

 

[BillG_in_TX]

Something like a corn maze might be fun. I know that is not doable by you in texas but perhaps someone on the boards can come up with an idea based off the concept. i like to do tings with my family that we can all do together and mazes are fun.

Rox - Who says you can't create a corn maze in Texas! Check out this one near our property in Burnet County: Maze

Eddie - They have lots of fun things going on at Sweet Berry Farm -- hmm hmm good!, but may be more labor intensive than you want. Of course, your place could turn into a regular Knotts Berry Farm - Texas style!

 

[rox]

Robert I am in agreement about the lights. Shield them in such a way so that the illuminate the roads but not the camp sites, and keep them low tothe ground, but ahve plenty of them. It is spooky to walk in the dark, say you are coming back from the rec hall at night, or the office. I don't like it when the lights are to far apart, it scares me.

I don't know much about it, but how about paint ball. I have never done it but it sounds like fun and i know if I were at a campground and they had one I would for sure do it. Plus you could build a lot of team recreation around paint ball teams. This could even bring in local people who are not camping for extra revenue. Again this might be real far fethed, like i said I never did paint ball but some day I would love to try. This might be another idea where you lease the space and let someone local build and run it and you just take a cut depending on what type of investment a paint ball park it. Just an idea to think about.

As you can see I am more inclinded to let others develope and run seperate businesses, restaurant, the bar at the swim up bar, paintball, Internet; and you just become a landlord, collect the rent and focus on the RV park. Let oters put in these infastructures and you don't ahve to lay out the cash but it really enhances your RV park and hopefully occupancy. You might design the restaurant to be at the back of the swim up bar, that type of thing. Less headach and you are making revenue, steady revenue you can use to make that mortgage payment. When structuring the rentals for these types of businesses there is no need to have a flat monthly rental. You can structure the rental contract so that they pay more in the high season and less in the low season. This would be an attactive plan for them as well as for you. This way when they are making a lot of money in the higher season you are geting it while it is fresh in their hands, when they are in thier low season you are not so worried about them having to come up with the rent because it is lower. Plsu have the rental contracts so that if they default on their rent they forfit all improvements, and it all goes to you.

Somewhere on this message board is no doubt an expert in this area, and if you do decide to move towards renting small business space they can help you put together a good lease structure. thsi si a profession all by itself that takes a lot of experience and expertice to get right. If done right the landlord has a real sweet deal.

Same thing with Recreation. There are a lot of young people who graduate from college with a recreation degree. Let them start a small Recreation Business. Something like they have to provide XX amount of free activities, and after that they can develope their own paid activites and they kep 80% of the revenue and you keep 20%. Young people just out of college might really jump at an opportunity to build their own recreation business. you rpovide the minimum, and let them invest in materials relevant to recreation. Like maybe those paddle boats, that oculd be part of recreation that you provide small busiess space for, and they buy the paddle boats. Or horses, there could be revenue stream for a small recreation business.

Over time I would say that you wil enjoy more the upkeep and expansion of the park and not the day to day face time with the public, selling candy bars, if you know what I mean. I would even consider renting out the store and not running it, lesae it and take rent. There are a lot of actvities, recreation, restaurant, store that can really eat up our time and be actually quite aggrivating. You couldnt do everything yourself anyway, you would have to hire people, instead of a restuarant manager and a store manager, let others own the business, own all the headaches and you jsut sit back and collect the rent?

If you did not have tomake the capital investment in infasturcture for a restauarnt a store and recreation materials the amount you would need to borrow at the bank would be much less. Wild guess here but what if your rents covered your smaller mortgage (mortgage only needed to develope the sites, the shell fo a restaurant, and the shell fo a store, and the pool) and the revenue form the actual site rental was all yours, less your operating expenses? now that would be pretty sweet.

Before i forget, when you get you bank loan you also can aske for a payment structure that has higher payment in your high seson and lower payments in your low season AND in one calendar year it does not cost you more in interest than level payents. they can do laon structures like that, you jut gotta ask.