RV Park thoughts, suggestions & ideas.

[Jimbrown]

Eddie reference the horse stalls. I am talking really simple stuff here. Some stalls made from portable corral panels about $100 a panel. 12ftX12ft setting in amoung some of your trees for shade and a couple of water faucets with hoses for water. Most horse people are self contained and bring their own feed and water buckets. One horse per stall. I would put two of mine in one if I had to but you could not put strange horses in the same stall. I would be mainly looking for a clean stall for the night where the animal could get out of the trailer move around a little and rest from the trailer ride. Not talkin really valuable animals that ride in air conditioned tractor trailers and go from barn to barn. Although one of mine is worth at least $30,000. Most of us are used to staying in fair grounds and state parks so any thing better is just gravey. You might be surprised at some of the newer rigs. I probably have an easy $60,000 in my truck/trailer and the trend is to go with fancier traliers with full up RV type of accomadations that run $30,000to way over $100,000 per trailer. The horses realy do not need protection from the weather under normal circumstances. I would think $6 to $12 a night plus the regular parking fee. One thing I noticed from reading this thread is some people are talking Campground and others RV Park. To me they ae not the same. I think the trend and money is for good RV parks. I am an RVer but after 30 years in the army there ain't no way i am going camping. I want my queensize bed cold wine in the fridge and no smoke in my eyes. Here are some pics of some stalls the covered roof would be optional and not really required if you have shade trees. The first one is mine and two of those double shedrow ones would be an excellent setup for you to try.

 

[EddieWalker]

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?

Dave,

Thanks for the help on this idea. After sleeping on it and working it around in my head some, I really like it. You'd have to walk your dog on leash about a quarter mile from the overnight area to where it will be, but it's a nice walk, so that shouldn't be too bad.

The beach entry into a pool is just a term used for a sloped entry. There is no step, just a gradual slope from the deck to the bottom of the pool. In my case, the water will go from zero to four feet deep in about a 12:2 slope. Usually it's finished in pebbles, but one guy that I was talking to said we could set sand into it and it would stay. I'm not sure about that just yet. I'm also thinking about a dark plaster to give it a more lagoon look. The problem with that is the water might get too warm.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

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.

Bill,

Great ideas there. I never thought about people staying for a few weeks at a time. I kind of had it in my head that they would stay for a couple days to a week at the most.

I'm wondering if a suggestion box on activities would work? Let them be a part of planning the events and what they like. Bingo, poker, dancing, pot luck or whatever they come up with? I can see where the more involved guest become, the more likely they are to return!!!

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

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.

Rob,

I agree with you 100 percent on the garbage being a big issue. I need to make it as easy as I can for my guests without creating eye sores or ugly spots. Most parks that I've been to have a barrel or two that is always overlfowing. Dumpsters are also usually overflowing and just a bigger mess.

I like the idea of picking up the garbage bags first thing every morning and would probably use my lawn guys for that. They can't start mowing until 10 am anyway. Anything earlier is just rude. I run into the problem of where to keep the garbage. I have space near the front of the land near the storage units, but I'll have to build a fence to shield the containers. I hate the idea of anybody seeing them when they arrive.

If I located dumpters around the park, I could also shield them to hide there ugly apperance. Of course, a dumpster is still gonna be an ugly eye sore no matter what I do. I also hate the noise of the garbage trucks picking them up.

I need to spend more time figureing this out. haahaha

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[dmccarty]

Eddie,

I did not think I would have any ideas on this but last night a few popped into my head.

For kids you need the lake and/or a pool. The problem with those is the legal liability issues and the added cost such as life guards. Hot Tejas means water for kids. And they need places to play.

Have you seen the water parks where instead of a pool there is a play area with misters and squirting hoses? Having a real nice and large play area for kids will keep them amused for hours. The nice ones have a matting made out of old tires/rubber that really is soft and protects the kids. Having this kind of a play area plus one with water misters would be real nice and would have very little ongoing costs. Put up a fence to keep the little critters inside as well.

You certainly could build the play area with your skills and equipment which would save money.

It would increase costs, but having a kid sitter(s) available would also be very nice.

Tennis and basket ball courts would help for the older kids and kids at heart. That would be pretty cheap for you to build and a real nice selling point.

Later,
Dan

 

[RobertN]

Eddie reference the horse stalls. I am talking really simple stuff here. Some stalls made from portable corral panels about $100 a panel. 12ftX12ft setting in amoung some of your trees for shade and a couple of water faucets with hoses for water. Most horse people are self contained and bring their own feed and water buckets.

I have wondered about this for a while... What are the health implications for the horse? Are there any concerns about taking your horse in to a stall that someone elses horse of unknown condition was in? Or is it not a big deal? When you go to the fair, do you have to clean or sanitize first?

There is a horse friendly hotel between Fairfield and Vallejo on Interstate-80(between Sacramento and the greater San Francisco Bay Area).

 

[CurlyDave]

Eddie:

You'd have to walk your dog on leash about a quarter mile from the overnight area to where it will be, but it's a nice walk, so that shouldn't be too bad.

That would be fine with us, and I think it would put your park in the top 1% of all the ones we have ever been to. You would be amazed at how retired people with dogs will re-arrange their lives to take care of the dogs. A lot of the RV people will go for the smaller breeds, but we see quite a few labs too.

I'm also thinking about a dark plaster to give it a more lagoon look. The problem with that is the water might get too warm.

We don't have that problem in Northern CA and Southern OR.

Can you mix the light and dark plaster in the same pool? I can imagine about 50-50 in a free-form pattern coming out really nice. Or, if you have a logo for your park, put that on the bottom of the pool -- maybe at your sloped entrance.

You have to be careful there. I have a feeling you are going to want to sell the whole park someday, and retire a multi-millionaire. Be sure the next owner will want the same logo.

It is not too early to think about staff -- if you do half the things I see here, you will need several people to help keep the place going. I'm sure you have read about the workamping folks over at RV.net.

I really want to come visit you, hopefully before your park opens, but after would work also. The only problem is that DW is tired of RVs, after living in ours 4 days every two weeks while the house is under construction. At some point in the next few years, I want to take a couple of months and go back east. DW and I both have family in North Carolina. I will make sure you are on the route.

 

[EddieWalker]

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.

Alan,

You and Alan are right about the garbage. It's an issue that I'll have to be on top of. One thought I have right now is to put the dumpsters over in my long term area. If I put a fence, or wall around them, they won't be too ugly, long term sites will want lots of garbage anyway, and it will give me a good location to dump the bags from the overnight sites. A garbage truck can pick up the dumpsters without disturbing the overnight sites an hopefully the long term guests will be at work then.

Every aproach I come up with somebody loses. My big money is in the overnight guests. They are number one. Cabins will also be a big profit center, then the long term sites kind of come in last. They will pay the bills, but not really make any real money or add equity to the property. When the place sells, the price will be based on what the overnight sites bring in.

The bathrooms is something that I've put allot of effort into. They are the number one complaint by a very large margin. I'm putting in two buildings for bathrooms that will have a laundromat at one end and a 24x24 meeting room on the other end. The meeting room will look out into the wildlife preserve.

Between those two rooms will be the bathrooms. In the middle of the bathrooms will be a utility room. It will hold the water heaters, cleaning gear and supplies. I could easily put a spicket in there for a hose. That way it would stay there permanently and always be ready for use. Thanks, that's a great idea.

The name of the park is Wild Kingdom RV Park, LLC. It's theme will be just like you said, but more worldwide. Africa, India, Alaska and the Rocky Mtns all kind of rolled into one. If I see something that I feel is outdoors and wildlife related, than it's part of the theme!! Steph and I like to go to zoos to take pictures of the way they have decerated the buildings. We went to the Ft. Worth Zoo awhile ago and I only took a few pics of the animals, but hundreds of the buildings, railings, fences, tables, lighting and everything else that I thought was interesting. I also spend allot of time online searching for pictures of pools, buildings and playgrounds that I can use. It realy is allot of fun planing it all out, but very time consuming. Especially when you realize you need to change something. hahaha

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[CurlyDave]

The bathrooms is something that I've put allot of effort into. They are the number one complaint by a very large margin.

The park we really liked along the Rogue River (RiverPark, in Grants Pass, OR) had combination locks on the bathrooms. They were really simple ones, a round plate with five mechanical buttons, three of which had to be pressed in order.

They gave guests the combination when they checked in. And, they never changed it in the two years we stayed there (a week or two at a time, not all two years continuous). I still remember it.

The deal was it put up just enough of a barrier to keep outsiders out, and the guests took better care of them. I never saw a single trashed bathroom at that park, while I have seen many at others.

 

[EddieWalker]

Eddie reference the horse stalls. I am talking really simple stuff here. Some stalls made from portable corral panels about $100 a panel. 12ftX12ft setting in amoung some of your trees for shade and a couple of water faucets with hoses for water. Most horse people are self contained and bring their own feed and water buckets. One horse per stall. I would put two of mine in one if I had to but you could not put strange horses in the same stall. I would be mainly looking for a clean stall for the night where the animal could get out of the trailer move around a little and rest from the trailer ride. Not talkin really valuable animals that ride in air conditioned tractor trailers and go from barn to barn. Although one of mine is worth at least $30,000. Most of us are used to staying in fair grounds and state parks so any thing better is just gravey. You might be surprised at some of the newer rigs. I probably have an easy $60,000 in my truck/trailer and the trend is to go with fancier traliers with full up RV type of accomadations that run $30,000to way over $100,000 per trailer. The horses realy do not need protection from the weather under normal circumstances. I would think $6 to $12 a night plus the regular parking fee. One thing I noticed from reading this thread is some people are talking Campground and others RV Park. To me they ae not the same. I think the trend and money is for good RV parks. I am an RVer but after 30 years in the army there ain't no way i am going camping. I want my queensize bed cold wine in the fridge and no smoke in my eyes. Here are some pics of some stalls the covered roof would be optional and not really required if you have shade trees. The first one is mine and two of those double shedrow ones would be an excellent setup for you to try.

Thank you for the pictures!! They really helped me to understand what you were describing. I did a google seach for horse hotels and found that there are a few here in Texas with the closest one being five miles from here. It's a working ranch that offers the service, but there wasn't very much information on it.

I can build some 12x12 stalls pretty easy and even put a roof over it just like in your pictures. The four stall one with the covered roof really looked nice.

My biggest concern is that it won't be right next to the RV sites. If you were to come here, I'd rent you a site, but then you'd have to walk your horse to where the stalls are at. And as of right now, I'm not sure where that will be!!! I have a few ideas, but there is allot of land to clear before I will know for sure. Would it be a problem for you to leave your horse in a stall and not be able to see it from your RV site?

I could put a latch on the stall to allow you to lock it if you wanted.

As to your question about campgrounds and RV Parks is a good one. The trend that I'm seeing in new parks is to call them RV Resorts. In comparing what I'm doing to what allot of these so called "resorts" have to offer, I think I'll be allot better than they are. Of course, I'm biased, but to see what some of these so called resorts have to offer is just amazing to me.

They are also turning away business in order to maintain there lofty image. Riges more than 5 or ten years old are not allowed. Some have to pass an inpsection. No pop ups, car or toy haulers, no pickup campers and the list goes on. They are also turning away business for pets being over 40 pounds, or more than two pets. No tent camping and no long term spaces.

I chose to call my place an RV Park because that's my number one market. RV's. I have space for tent campers where it's just not practical to put RV sites. They will offer extra income for a very minimal expense. They will also turn into RV owners one day and more than likely become lifelong customers.

Cabins are the realy big growth sector. They are always sold with a huge demand for them. I'm starting out with four cabins with the pads and utilities in place for 12. I'm also clearing an area for 20-22 more cabins just in case. hahaha

My thinking is to offer the very best pull thru RV sites available. Make it a rural, camping type experience that you'd find in a State Park or National Park, but offer the service and finish of a commercial operation.

There is an RV Resort that is being built in Tyler right now that is doing allot of things wrong. He's building on land he's always owned that just happens to sit under the flight path of planes taking off from the airport. His entrance is terrible and almost impossible to find. We drive past it in a car all the time and miss it. He's about a dozen roads off the Interstate. Who wants to try and find it with that many turns and roads to find? Especially at night when your tired from driving all day? He paved his roads and pads in blacktop, but made the turns so tight that we had trouble getting aroudn in Steph's Explorer. I don't see how an RV could make those turns. The list goes on and on with him still building, anything is possible.

Thank you,
Eddie