The cheapest way to save money on RV campgrounds is to match where you stay to how you actually travel. Do the math before buying any membership, use the ones you already own, mix in state parks, Corps of Engineers parks and boondocking, and ask about monthly rates when you’re staying a while. Skip the pricey resort parks unless you’ll really use what you’re paying for.

Village Welcome! We’re Jimmy and Lisa from FindUsCamping. Lisa is our trip planner, our budget keeper and the reason we still have money left at the end of the month. After 18+ years of RVing and 6+ years full-time on the road, these are the tricks she actually uses to keep our campground bill down.

Are RV camping memberships still worth it?

Only if you’ll use them enough nights to beat what you’d pay anyway. Prices on memberships keep climbing, so “it sounded like a good deal” isn’t a good enough reason to buy one anymore.

Here’s the gut check we use. If you’re weekend warriors and you’ll only go out four times a year for three-day weekends, that’s 12 nights. Put 12 nights up against a membership that costs around $2,000 and it just doesn’t add up. We already have our Thousand Trails membership, so for us the question is how many nights a year we need to stay to get our cost per night where we want it. If you already own one, use it. A membership sitting in a drawer saves you nothing.

A few things people forget:

• Most Thousand Trails parks have regular paid sites too. If a friend has a membership and you want to camp with them, you can often just book a site like you would anywhere else.
• A zone pass can be the sweet spot for weekend warriors. It costs a lot less per year and still opens up some great parks.
• Passport America is about half off the nightly rate at participating parks. Every park sets its own rules and blackout dates, so read the fine print. Stay four or five times and it has usually paid for itself.

We go deeper on the membership side in RV Memberships That Actually Save You Money.

Is Harvest Hosts a good deal if you have to buy something at every stop?

Yes, if you spend money you were going to spend anyway. This is Lisa’s soapbox, and it’s a tall one. The membership price has gone up, but so has what you get: more hosts, golf courses, some campgrounds and a whole new platform.

Supporting your host is encouraged, and the trick is to make that purchase do double duty:

• Restaurants: make that your night out to dinner. You were going to eat out once that week anyway.
• Wineries, breweries and distilleries: don’t drink? No problem. Buy a bottle as a birthday, anniversary or holiday gift for someone back home. It’s a gift they won’t get from anybody else.
• Farms: Lisa bought alpaca scarves and mittens at one stop and crossed half her Christmas list off. Jimmy’s favorite is the meat farms, because we were going to buy meat at the grocery store anyway, and this is fresher.
• Dairy farms: cheese, milk, chocolate milk and ice cream. Groceries you needed, from someone you’re happy to support.

You’re also paying for the experience. You’re sleeping at the winery, on the farm, at the distillery, learning how they make what they make. And some Harvest Hosts locations even have hookups for an extra fee. If you’re weighing the recent changes, read our take on whether to renew Harvest Hosts.

How can you save on RV camping without any membership?

Mix in public land, state parks, Corps of Engineers parks and work camping, and only pay resort prices when the resort is the point. Here’s the list Lisa actually works from:

1. Pick parks for who’s traveling. Parks packed with kids’ activities are great when the grandkids are with us and worth every penny then. When it’s just the two of us, we don’t need to pay extra for a tie-dye station.
2. Boondock on public land out West. There’s plenty of BLM land, and the views beat any campground. Some spots need a pass (daily, weekly, monthly or seasonal), some don’t.
3. Look at state parks back East. Boondocking is a lot scarcer on the East Coast, but state parks are usually a cheaper option. In Virginia, many have water and electric but no sewer, so plan on the dump station.
4. Try a Corps of Engineers park. Ours have run about the same price as state parks, most are right on the water, and the sites have tended to be bigger. As one Corps worker told us, they’re “a little bit better.”
5. Ask about work camping. Many state parks, national parks and private parks have camp hosts. Every deal is different: some trade a free site for your hours, some add minimum wage, some have you cover electric.
6. Always ask for the monthly rate. We didn’t realize how good these could be until a campground told us we could stay the whole month, everything included, for about $900.
7. Think about owning a spot. Some folks buy a site in a campground, and some campgrounds let you rent it out when you’re gone (others don’t, so ask before you buy). Friends of ours bought a little land and put in their own full hookup site.

Is boondocking really free?

The site might be free, but the power isn’t. People love to say “we just run the generator, it costs us nothing.” Well, the generator wasn’t free, and neither is the fuel. When we run ours hard with the AC going, it burns about a gallon an hour. Do that math at today’s gas prices and it adds up fast.

Solar costs money up front too, so if you’ve invested in it, use it. If you’re good at living off-grid and don’t lean on the generator much, boondocking can be the best value in RVing. Our moochdocking vs. boondocking guide walks through the basics.

How do you find cheap campgrounds you’ll actually like?

Use a planning tool, then read the reviews the smart way. Our go-to is RV Life and RV Trip Wizard. You can set it to pop up membership parks or any campground along your route, along with prices, ratings and cell signal reports from other RVers.

Then check the dates on those reviews. We stayed at Cajun Country Campground in Port Allen, Louisiana, just outside Baton Rouge, for $40 a night: full hookups, a long pull-through with a concrete pad, a friendly staff and a clean park. Lisa was nervous because the reviews were hit or miss, but most of the bad ones were three to five years old. Owners change, managers change, and a six-year-old review might be about a totally different campground.

Read the best and the worst reviews and ask if they’re about things you care about. We don’t use the bathhouse, so a dirty shower isn’t a dealbreaker for us. Big sites and easy parking? That we care about. At 46 feet, our rig rules out some state and national park sites, so length is always on our checklist too.

Quick answers

What’s the cheapest way to camp in an RV?
Boondocking on public land, if you’re set up for it. Next come state parks, Corps of Engineers parks and work camping.

Is Thousand Trails worth it for weekend campers?
Usually not at full price if you only camp a dozen nights a year. A zone pass is often a better fit.

How much does Passport America save?
Roughly half off the nightly rate at participating parks, with each park setting its own rules and blackout dates.

Are monthly campground rates cheaper?
Often a lot cheaper per night. We’ve been offered a full month, everything included, for about $900.

Do Corps of Engineers parks cost more than state parks?
In our experience they cost about the same, and many sit right on the water.

Come save money with the village

We share the deals we find, the parks we love and the lessons we learn the hard way. Grab our newsletter, join the FindUsCamping Villagers group on Facebook, and come camp with us at a FindUsCamping campout. Got a money-saving trick of your own? Tell us in the comments on the video. Lisa is always taking notes.