RV Park thoughts, suggestions & ideas.

[rox]

Eddie,
Better job of explainign the la fo the land! i am able to visualize most of it. The key thing was describing the triangle shaped animal preserve.

i'll sjut share with you what we did when we were campers. 10 years ago we rented a 'permenent' campsite on a yarly basis for i think the ending cost was 1,600 per year. We picked our site, the owners were on hand and supervised the placement of the trailor (I don't know how big it was it was new and it was a pretty big one, a real big one). We had water and electicity (and a clothes line I never did like because it was behind the trailor) included. No meters. The campground was open, I think late April, through the end of october. We jsut left our camper there all year, Never pulled it off the site. In the fall you would sign up for next year and if you signed up your camper stayed put. Next April you would roll in and "open up" the camper for the new season. I would say at our campground that 50% of the annual rentals were young families with kids and 50% retired.

That is how I actually prefer to rent. I just want to leave the camper as it, I want a year contract. As I recall you did pay it in installments. I think 1/3 in the fall, 1/3 in january and 1/3 when it re-opened in April. I would think it would be better to have the majority of your rentals be annual rentals. Hardly anybody camped on a monthly basis at our old campground. Once in a while there were guys working construction who would camp for a month or two, but really it was mostly annual and then the week-end campers. With annual there is less moving in and out activity, the campgound stays quieter. I do think you do know your market about people just coming for 3 or 4 months to get out of the snow. I don't have any experience long term camping in a climate like yours. Because the campground closed int he winter months you never really had anybody who actually lived "full time" at the campground.

One idea I kind of don't like is the electic meters idea. i don't know, i wouldn't like to worry about the electric bill, I would rather pay an annual campsite fee and the electric is included. That campground that BBX_tx talks about sound like the kind of place we stayed at. Long term for 10 years, annual campsite never move my stuff. you would see multi generational families with the grandparents having a site and their grown children allso having a site. I every instance these types of repeate guests were always annual guests.

Our campground did kind of put the families with younger kids in one section and the retiries in another section. it just kind of evolves that way the younger families want to be around he other youger families so they jsut pick the sites with the younger families. At your $300 a month annually that is $3,600 that is kind of steep for the younger families to pay. You also have to consider that they don't use much utilities because they are not there durig the week. That annual fee would be kind fo steep for most young families I woudl guess, but perhaps I am jsut getting shall we say more "financially conservative" the older I get. Maybe the young families really can swing that with no problem, I could be out of touch.

I do think to build that generation after generation, year in and year out guest, probably annual rentals is what does it. The minute they pull their trailor off the site becasue they only rented for 3 months, you risk the chance of them not returing.

i am sure you ahve researched this to death, and you are up on all the latest, and times ahve probably changed, jsut sharing with you my experiences.

 

[CurlyDave]

Eddie:

That's a good idea about local points of interest. How would you make that available? Store? Website? Brochure?

Mosty of the local points of interest would be happy to give you a supply of their brochures. A small literature rack in your office/store would let you display these. In return, many of the same places would display your brochure.

A quick summary you write up and put in the same literature rack is also a good idea. Do it once and from then on, just keep the rack filled and neat.

I hadn't considered allowing dogs to swim in the lake. My first thought is to not allow this. They would have to be off leash and it would just take one bad dog to cause other people trouble. I won't allow people to swim or play in the lake, so I think I'll do the same with pets.

Your choice. OTOH, an off-leash area, even if it is in the furthest corner of your property is going to keep some people coming back.

A couple of plastic bag dispensers along your walking trails and most people will pick up their own dog's poop. I have seen about 90% complaince with this kind of thing.

I would be merciless about evicting agressive or barking dogs.

All pets will be allowed, but they must be on a leash and not allowed to bark.

Think about putting this in the RV directories as "pets allowed by management discretion" or some such wording. Put in "no agressive of barking dogs, no refunds for eviction on these grounds." People will police themselves on this. You don't have the time to be the dog police and if you have the right wording the ones will pit bulls and rottweilers will just keep on rolling down the road.

Another thing to consider is some kind of gate for entrance control, especially at night. I remember one time we stayed at a park when some drunks pulled in at 2 AM, and spent the next hour loudly setting up their site. I complained to the manager, who just said "well we don't have a gate to control when people come in at night". We cut our stay short, and she gave us a refund of the money we had already paid for the first night's stay. She lost two nights rent, because the drunks pulled out the next morning and stiffed her, plus we were going to spend two days not just one, so it could have been three nights she lost.

You do have to be certain to allow emergency egress, but one of those spring loaded spike strips should work.

You need to establish and enforce quiet hours. 11 PM to 7 AM is pretty standard.

Lastly, on your swimming pool. Keeping it to 4' max depth is a great idea. Consider making it T-shaped, put a net across the top of the T, and let kids play water volley ball in that part of the pool. They love this, and the stem of the T can be your parent/adult quiet area. The kids can be rambunctious without being too annoying, and the parents can watch them without getting hit with the ball.

 

[EddieWalker]

"Anybody have some ideas on scary signs to keep people out of the lake?"

How about "Sewage treatment lagoon, non-potable water, look out for brown trout". HA!

I'll admit to being of the younger RV crowd. My parents never had one and I packed mules and camped in the woods growing up. I bought an RV and really enjoy the RV recreation as compared to hotels and disney land with my kids and friends.

So I am a truck and trailer type RVer, no big mohome for me. I have been to at least a dozen parks to develop a liking for a few things. We lounge around outside of the RV in chairs letting our young offspring play together while we drink, eat, converse, and be merry.

The first concern is that the line for checking in should never be allowed to extend out onto the public street. I have sat on the street blocking traffic along with a line of RVs behind me while waiting to be checked in, leave plenty of back up room.

The spots need to be seperated by a good distance, the 50 foot on center figure you mentioned is decent so long as the 50 feet is landscaped so that it isn't mistaken by your neighbor to be their "yard". Ever have a football thud into the side of your RV?

Behind each row of RVs should be green space of sufficient width to recreate. The next row should not be right the heck behind you. Again, landscaping goes a long ways.

My favorite parks used cloverleaf layouts so that there were central areas and perimeter areas and the parking lot feeling was lessened.

Angle the spots so that I can back in without jacking my RV to a 90 degree angle.

We all should understand the difference between camping and RVing. They are NOT the same and while I expect to see, hear, and coexist with other campers at a park I do want to be able to escape somewhat so more space is better.

Nobody likes to camp next to the dumpster. They stink and are frequented by folks coming from all directions to throw their trash out at all hours. Noisy dumpster lids and noisy bottle smashing. Likewise the bathroom structures should not be immediately beside camping stalls. Same problem with traffic noise, lights, rifraf.

Generators. If you have hookups to every site then this is not problem. If you have sites without hookups then a strict policy needs to be set and policed. I like sites with hookups for this reason, much quieter.

Speedbumps. I don't like driving over them but I find them very necessary in a dense RV park environment to slow down the hooligans making beer runs.

Irrigation. The best parks have soft grass because they water it. They also water on particular days and post this info so that you can pull in your gear.

I like the availability of coin operated (or even free) showers. It is much more pleasant to wash up in a full sized shower than in the typical RV shower. Less mess, moisture, etc.

Ice machines, or some form of available ice to keep our bourbon cold. A convenience store would be a fine place for ice and other essentials like coffee.

I can't think of much else. In my case I camp in the RV for a week or so and then go home so my needs are going to be different than the full time RVer and also different than the tenter. I don't mind driving home in a bug covered RV since these guts are the mark of an accomplished RV.

Highbeam,

I went to a brand new RV Park in the Texas Hill Country a few years ago. There was an RV checking in and it was blocking the entrance. There was no way around and no place for me to wait except in the street. That was just one RV!!! I can't imagine what it must be like there on a Friday evening.

My driveway is 800 feet long to the first turn, than another 200 feet to a gazebo that will sit along the fence of the front pasture. When it's busy, I'll have somebody in the gazebo doing express check ins. I'll have the reservations and available sites there and when they show up, I'll send them on there way with instruction to come back to pay and sign in when they get set up.

For normal operations, there will be a middle lane in front of the store. It will be 20 feet wide so there won't be any danger of steping out of an RV into traffic. People will still be able to get by, but a very large RV with a two vehicle will have plenty of room for easy parking. I'll have room for two of these parking spaces.

Between each site should be trees. If they are not there now, they will be. Here trees grow like weeds. Sweet gum, oaks and pines are all very aggresive and will take over a pasture in just a few years. One of my biggest concerns will be pruning trees!! hahaha

The grass here in East Texas is different than what you're prabably familiar with. It's green all spring, summer and fall and only turns brown in winter after a few freezes. It's very rare to have spinklers here for grass. Even without rain for months at a time, the grass is still green.

But even with green grass, you NEVER walk in it bare foot or lay down in it. Fire ants will tear you up. It's very dangerous just to wear flip flobs here. hahahaha

I want to open up an area along the side of each pad for the picnic table, fire ring and enough room for a few lawn chairs. Any thoughts on how much space you'd want? The pads will be 12 wide and I was thinking another 12 feet would be plenty of space.

Speed bumps... I'm not sure on them. If I have to I will, but I'd really rather not.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Eddie,
Better job of explainign the la fo the land! i am able to visualize most of it. The key thing was describing the triangle shaped animal preserve.

i'll sjut share with you what we did when we were campers. 10 years ago we rented a 'permenent' campsite on a yarly basis for i think the ending cost was 1,600 per year. We picked our site, the owners were on hand and supervised the placement of the trailor (I don't know how big it was it was new and it was a pretty big one, a real big one). We had water and electicity (and a clothes line I never did like because it was behind the trailor) included. No meters. The campground was open, I think late April, through the end of october. We jsut left our camper there all year, Never pulled it off the site. In the fall you would sign up for next year and if you signed up your camper stayed put. Next April you would roll in and "open up" the camper for the new season. I would say at our campground that 50% of the annual rentals were young families with kids and 50% retired.

That is how I actually prefer to rent. I just want to leave the camper as it, I want a year contract. As I recall you did pay it in installments. I think 1/3 in the fall, 1/3 in january and 1/3 when it re-opened in April. I would think it would be better to have the majority of your rentals be annual rentals. Hardly anybody camped on a monthly basis at our old campground. Once in a while there were guys working construction who would camp for a month or two, but really it was mostly annual and then the week-end campers. With annual there is less moving in and out activity, the campgound stays quieter. I do think you do know your market about people just coming for 3 or 4 months to get out of the snow. I don't have any experience long term camping in a climate like yours. Because the campground closed int he winter months you never really had anybody who actually lived "full time" at the campground.

One idea I kind of don't like is the electic meters idea. i don't know, i wouldn't like to worry about the electric bill, I would rather pay an annual campsite fee and the electric is included. That campground that BBX_tx talks about sound like the kind of place we stayed at. Long term for 10 years, annual campsite never move my stuff. you would see multi generational families with the grandparents having a site and their grown children allso having a site. I every instance these types of repeate guests were always annual guests.

Our campground did kind of put the families with younger kids in one section and the retiries in another section. it just kind of evolves that way the younger families want to be around he other youger families so they jsut pick the sites with the younger families. At your $300 a month annually that is $3,600 that is kind of steep for the younger families to pay. You also have to consider that they don't use much utilities because they are not there durig the week. That annual fee would be kind fo steep for most young families I woudl guess, but perhaps I am jsut getting shall we say more "financially conservative" the older I get. Maybe the young families really can swing that with no problem, I could be out of touch.

I do think to build that generation after generation, year in and year out guest, probably annual rentals is what does it. The minute they pull their trailor off the site becasue they only rented for 3 months, you risk the chance of them not returing.

i am sure you ahve researched this to death, and you are up on all the latest, and times ahve probably changed, jsut sharing with you my experiences.

Hi Rox,

Electric meters have a few positives to them. Tests have proven that sites with a meter use less electricity than site without them. It's also very common for people to run electric heaters when they don't have to pay for the electricity, but will buy propane when they are responsible for electric usage. You just can't stop waste when people don't have to pay. Not everyone does it, but enough do to make it mandatory.

I also agree with you that $300 a month is too much money for a place to leave your RV. I wouldn't do it myself, so I don't expet others to do so . If it happens, I'll be happy for it, but it's not in any of my pro-formas.

Here there is a big market for permanent sites. I could do just that and fill up the park. There are plenty of places that have done this , or a large percentage of there sites are full of permanents. The RV Park that Bird linked to earlier is like that. They have something like 140 sites and over 100 of them are monthly rentals with people that live there full time.

It's true that I could make a good living just catering to that market, but there is a limit to it. Those sites will pay my bills, but not put much money in my pccket. Overnight sites and cabins will be where the money is.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Eddie:

That's a good idea about local points of interest. How would you make that available? Store? Website? Brochure?

Mosty of the local points of interest would be happy to give you a supply of their brochures. A small literature rack in your office/store would let you display these. In return, many of the same places would display your brochure.

A quick summary you write up and put in the same literature rack is also a good idea. Do it once and from then on, just keep the rack filled and neat.

I hadn't considered allowing dogs to swim in the lake. My first thought is to not allow this. They would have to be off leash and it would just take one bad dog to cause other people trouble. I won't allow people to swim or play in the lake, so I think I'll do the same with pets.

Your choice. OTOH, an off-leash area, even if it is in the furthest corner of your property is going to keep some people coming back.

A couple of plastic bag dispensers along your walking trails and most people will pick up their own dog's poop. I have seen about 90% complaince with this kind of thing.

I would be merciless about evicting agressive or barking dogs.

All pets will be allowed, but they must be on a leash and not allowed to bark. TYhink about putting this in the RV directories as "pets allowed by management discretion" or some such wording. Put in "no agressive of barking dogs, no refunds for eviction on these grounds." People will police themselves on this. You don't have the time to be the dog police and if you have the right wording the ones will pit bulls and rottweilers will just keep on rolling down the road.

Another thing to consider is some kind of gate for entrance control, especially at night. I remember one time we stayed at a park when some drunks pulled in at 2 AM, and spent the next hour loudly setting up their site. I complained to the manager, who just said "well we don't have a gate to control when people come in at night". We cut our stay short, and she gave us a refund of the money we had already paid for the first night's stay. She lost two nights rent, because the drunks pulled out the next morning and stiffed her, plus we were going to spend two days not just one, so it could have been three nights she lost.

You do have to be certain to allow emergency egress, but one of those spring loaded spike strips should work.

You need to establish and enforce quiet hours. 11 PM to 7 AM is pretty standard.

Lastly, on your swimming pool. Keeping it to 4' max depth is a great idea. Consider making it T-shaped, put a net across the top of the T, and let kids play water volley ball in that part of the pool. They love this, and the stem of the T can be your parent/adult quiet area. The kids can be rambunctious without being too annoying, and the parents can watch them without getting hit with the ball.

Dave.

I understand what you mean now about the brochures. That should be something I have in the store. I'm also thinking about maybe pointing out historic landmarks and points of interest that people might like to see that are just there. No brochures or any sort of staff, just a landmark or something like that. Something to work on. hahaha

There is one area of my land that might be an acre is size that I have no use for. Its right next to the highway on one side, next to the storage units on another side and the creek is on a third side, plus it's in the 100 year floodplane. It's pretty thick, but wouldn't take much to clear with the dozer. If I put a fence around it, do you think that would be a alright next to the highway with all the road noise?

What would you consider an ideal open run area? Lots of grass? Shady open areas with lots of trees?

Should there be two seperate areas for large and small dogs?

I can run water there easy enough and have a few spickets with spring loaded valves on them for the dogs to drink. Owners would have to bring there own bowls, or would it be better to have a water trough for all of them to drink out of?

What about fencing? How tall and what type. Cyclone?

Thanks, I'm starting to get an idea here. hahhaha

Eddie

 

[CurlyDave]

There is one area of my land that might be an acre is size that I have no use for. Its right next to the highway on one side, next to the storage units on another side and the creek is on a third side, plus it's in the 100 year floodplane. It's pretty thick, but wouldn't take much to clear with the dozer. If I put a fence around it, do you think that would be a alright next to the highway with all the road noise?

In all my life, I have never heard a dog complain about a lack of scenic beauty in a dog run. Nor an owner. For the most part, we are delighted to find anyplace where a dog can run off leash. Road noise is not an issue either.

In the Bay Area, there are a number of "dog parks" which are always fenced with about a 4 foot chain-link fence. Even though the dogs can easily jump this, they never do if the owners are there.

A small dog area and a large dog area would be the life of luxury. No need for a special water trough. Any plastic bowl, maybe $3 at a pet store will do. Just put the water tap in a spot where it won't make a mudhole when it spills many times in quick succession.

An off-leash spot for dogs will keep barking down too. Ours will bark when they are full of energy and bored, if we run them and let them chase a ball for 20 minutes they will sleep or lie quietly for hours.

Shade and trees, at least in one spot would be nice if you can do it, especially in the Texas heat.

- - - - -

How are you going to do a "beach entrance" to your swimming pool? I have visions of sand which would soon track all over the place. Or do you just mean a shallow concrete ramp as an entrance?

 

[BB_TX]

Eddie - Another thing I forgot to remember about the campground we go to. They have theme weeks thru the season. They have an entertainment barn with dance floor and in early June and again in Sept, they have square dance week. People from all over come in and stay those weeks.
They have a chili cookoff week. And other theme weeks that I don't remember.
They also have unknown (but pretty good) entertainment acts such as country bands, bluegrass bands, etc come in and play in a different entertainment barn with a small stage.
Golf is also big. They have an old school bus they call the Fun Valley Golf Cart. Each week they have a golf outting loading up all the players in the bus and take them to a different area course, usually for a scrambles tournament.
All these are geared toward getting return business and getting people to stay a while. Since a lot of people stay from a couple weeks, to a month, to the whole season, it is almost like a small community that returns each year.
Of course the scenery is beautiful there (just east of Wolf Creek Pass) and the summer weather is ideal.

 

[RobS]

OK Eddie, more thoughts on the garbage. It's kind of a pet peeve of mine I guess. My favorite resorts have all had garbage pick up. It's daily, and normally there isn't more than a grocery bag for a day's worth of RV camping. Usually you get one bag at check in but you're on your own after that, though maybe the office will hand out more (never asked). Pick up is normally by golf cart pulling a small cart behind (Work-camper job). I still like plenty of trash cans around too, for candy wrappers and such. A couple of things I don't like is dumpsters near camp sites, and having to walk a long way to a dumpster to pitch your trash. Oh yeah, recycling would be a nice touch but that could be "optional" for the campers. Most of us inclined to recycle will also walk to do it.

Not much bugs me more in a campground than litter. It's easy to control but speaks volumes about the place if it's not under control. For most people, if the place is tidy they will do their part to keep it that way.

 

[AlanB]

Eddie, I think Rob S hit it on how to do Garbage. I help out occasionally at TTC events Trials Training Center | Motorcycle Schools, Trials Riding, Off-road Adventuring, Lodging - Home and sometimes end up on cleanup there.

Do it often, make it easy to do (golf cart with trailer) insure all trash is bagged (we did it this way in a retirement village I worked in as well) and have plenty of places for folks to put thier trash. My thought would be that you do quick daily runs of the park with the golf cart pulling the trailer, it lets you look over the grounds, take a look at what happened through the night etc. and pick up the garbage. I am not sure how you guys handle the garbage there but I could see just parking the trailer out back with the construction equipment till full, then making a dump run, or digging / setting up an overdump and dump the trailer into either dumpsters or your dump truck for a dump run on occasion.

One of the things we stress here at work is that we make it easier to do the right thing then the wrong thing. If it is easier to do what is right, folks will normally do it.

As to the bathrooms, and cleaning, I would have some form of closet / locker right there in the area that held my cleaning supplies, paper products etc. Inside there would also be my big water hose with big hose bib and nozzle. The whole kit and caboodle would be securely locked behind a door so there was no guest access and nothing to be fiddled with by bored kids. BUT there would be very easy access to get to my cleaning stuff. The floors would be very sloped so stuff ran well into the drains.

You may already be doing this, but I would have a "Theme" that the park was going with. With the animals mentioned etc. it strikes me as an "African" theme, I would have my service vehicles painted like zebras or such and just kind of carry that theme through the park. Your scavenger hunt etc. the Hayride would be a Safari,,,, I think you get the idea I am driving at.

 

[Bird]

OK Eddie, more thoughts on the garbage. It's kind of a pet peeve of mine I guess. My favorite resorts have all had garbage pick up. It's daily, and normally there isn't more than a grocery bag for a day's worth of RV camping. Usually you get one bag at check in but you're on your own after that, though maybe the office will hand out more (never asked). Pick up is normally by golf cart pulling a small cart behind (Work-camper job). I still like plenty of trash cans around too, for candy wrappers and such. A couple of things I don't like is dumpsters near camp sites, and having to walk a long way to a dumpster to pitch your trash. Oh yeah, recycling would be a nice touch but that could be "optional" for the campers. Most of us inclined to recycle will also walk to do it.

Not much bugs me more in a campground than litter. It's easy to control but speaks volumes about the place if it's not under control. For most people, if the place is tidy they will do their part to keep it that way.

You guys keep on and we'll have Eddie building something like the place we worked the summer of '92 in Virginia. Of course, that place had a few more acres than Eddie has, their own water wells (3 of them), bar and restaurant, 4 swimming pools, 2 stores, recreation hall, laundries, showers and restrooms, and a thousand campsites, plus the storage lot. But, yes, we had one guy patrolling the grounds all day on a golf cart picking up the garbage, and as you said, customers were given a garbage bag when they checked in. We had a Bluegrass Festival one weekend, we had Bingo and hay rides every night, and a number of other festivities.