New RV Park Construction recommendations

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fbohn1

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Hello all,

I am new to the forum and looking to you for some recommendations. (admins, if this post is on the wrong forum, please move as necessary)  I have a potential business opportunity to go in on starting a new RV park in Southeast Texas. 

I have scoured the internet (and will continue to do so) for favorite (and least-favorite) features of the RV community - one of the ways I landed on this forum. I would love to get your feedback on amenities you love/hate at parks, and think would do well at new parks.  Perhaps, there is a recent post/thread of this nature you could point me to?

I look forward to hearing to hearing from you and am grateful for any and all help! Thanks!
 
Good, Strong, Useable WiFi signal at every site.

This is one of the biggest pet peeves / issues most people have.


 
captsteve said:
Good, Strong, Useable WiFi signal at every site.

This is one of the biggest pet peeves / issues most people have.

But probably one of the most expensive amenities a park could offer, and that, I believe, is why few parks have good strong wi-fi at each site, but I do agree, it would be nice if more parks made it available.

Our pet peeve would be sites that are too close together, but again, the more sites you squeeze into a park, the more potential income.
 
WiFi? Meh, no big deal either way.

Important items would be level sites with good drainage, properly installed electric and water systems, nice shade trees and privacy between sites. I could live with that.
 
What I look for in an  RV park is going to partly depend on its location, I also feel you should decide what sort of customer base you want to market towards (snow birds, contract workers, vacation travel, ...), and what point in the price market you want to aim for.  I live in SW Louisiana about 20 miles from the Texas state line, so I know our area fairly well, other than the odd overnight stay I am probably not a person you would be marketing to.

I would say the number one thing I look for in an RV park or campground is peacefulness, site spacing helps with this, but so does the clientele and environment.    By this I mean the long term resident pulling in at 3 am in his pickup truck with no mufflers can ruin everyone elses sleep, so can the saw mill 1/4 mile away with its shift change whistle and industrial noises.  I am a part timer, spending typically 50-60 days per year on the road over the last couple of years, I can think of 4 or 5 times in the last year where my peacefulness / sleep was disturbed in campgrounds by inconsiderate neighbors.  Three of those times were by long term residents with vehicles with loud exhaust, once was by someone that decided to pull into the space next to me in a tightly spaced campground and set up the  outdoor entertainment center and watch some sporting event until after 11 pm with the whole family of 7 making noise less than 10 feet from the headboard of my bed.

As to the rest, wifi is nice, but as mentioned fast wifi can cost a fortune, its not like buying $50 per month high speed home internet, as it requires wifi infratstructure inside the park, as well as boat loads of internet bandwidth delivered to the park, which may not be cheap depending on if it is in town or not.  Until a few years ago I was involved with a family business that had its distribution warehouse located about 10 miles outside a small city,  as of 2013 we were paying a bit over $800 per month for 3 mbps commercial internet, by comparison at the time 20 mbps was available at my house in town for $80 per month.  Sure this is a corner case, and lots of places can get commercial level internet for less.      The problem is people want to stream video, and even a basic SD stream can take 3-4 mbps, and an hd stream can take over 10 mbps, multiply this by 50-60 people wanting to do this at once and you get into some serious bandwidth requirements.  Also as more and more people move to bringing their own cell network 4G / 5G based MIFI internet the demand for campgrounds providing wifi may become partly a thing of the past, until I invested in my AT&T Mobley account last year, I too was concerned about campground wifi, these days I rarely even bother to connect to it, as I bring my own.

Now that I have said that, let me point you to a small campground I stayed at in east Texas a few months ago on my way to Fredericksburg, that I was very impressed with.    http://www.lakelivingstonrvpark.com/  This place gets a lot of it right, from pricing to landscaping, to friendliness,  though it has its faults, the spacing between sites is way too tight, and though what they have of public spaces is nice they could use more of them.  The place also heavily caters to the snowbird crowd.

Ike

p.s. in the end I think my advice is to offer good amenities, opt for quality, not number, to me a functional air conditioned laundry room is way more important than a swimming pool, and only put in a swimming pool if you are going to invest the resources to maintain it and keep it sparkling clean.  Common rooms, pavilions etc. seem nice, but I have almost never seen anyone use them, though I did stay at a nice little vacation destination rv park in Arkansas last week that seemed to get the socializing bit right, with Friday night outdoor movie night by the pool.

 
 
captsteve said:
Good, Strong, Useable WiFi signal at every site.

This is one of the biggest pet peeves / issues most people have.

Amen.  There are parks I will not return to because of bad wi-fi.  There are parks I always try to stay at because of great wi-fi.
 
We don?t care if WiFi is offered or not. Wide level sites. Concrete pads. Fire rings not too close to the RV. Wood for sale that doesn?t cost the same as a whole cord. Current information on the local area. Good security. A little store stocked with the essentials. Clean, serviceable bathrooms and showers. Friendly staff. If your roads are paved do not install curbs. Curbs can make it difficult to back your RV into sites. Wide roads. Nice, functional playgrounds for the kids. Enforce speed limits in the park. Enforce quiet hours. If I think of more I?ll post them later.
 
Oldgator73 said:
We don?t care if WiFi is offered or not. Wide level sites. Concrete pads. Fire rings not too close to the RV. Wood for sale that doesn?t cost the same as a whole cord. Current information on the local area. Good security. A little store stocked with the essentials. Clean, serviceable bathrooms and showers. Friendly staff. If your roads are paved do not install curbs. Curbs can make it difficult to back your RV into sites. Wide roads. Nice, functional playgrounds for the kids. Enforce speed limits in the park. Enforce quiet hours.
catblaster said:
  Location, location, location....trees and shade
HappyWanderer said:
WiFi? Meh, no big deal either way.

Important items would be level sites with good drainage, properly installed electric and water systems, nice shade trees and privacy between sites. I could live with that.

:)) :)) . I'd return a hundred times to a clean, pretty, spacious campground with even a teeny bit of privacy before I'd return to one for the wifi. In fact, when I check in and they give me the wifi code, I very rarely even bother to log-in.
 
Also, there are three issues with WiFi: Signal Strength, system capacity for devices, and bandwidth

The strongest signal in the world won't help you when 120 RV's, each with 2.5 kids in it, all fire up FortNight at the same time, or all start downloading 4k Netflix videos.

To set up a system that would work well under a real worst-case "the park is full" situation would, indeed, be expensive and technically challenging.
 
WiFi, please don't advertise "free" wifi, only to find out it's free for the snail pace speeds with faster connections at a price.  I don't mind paying if I want the faster speed, just be honest up front if there is a structured wifi speed/price.  Pull through's  are a must and wide turns, nothing worse than pulling a toad and barely making the turn.  Here is my pet peeve, you need a long pull through for 45 feet of motorhome plus another good length for the toad.  They guys in the next spots on the other side of the road all have cars/trucks parked behind their motorhomes with just barely enough room to get out.  I have had to have my copilot spot for me in front and on the sides while trying to get out in the morning. This is the fault of the management. Wider roads please. Keep the place nice, I have seen all manner of homesteads from those that have decided to stay a while.  If you're going to put in grass, which is nice, please keep it up, bare dirt is not any fun. 
 
Free wi-fi is never free. I carry a hot spot for wi-fi so all I want the park to have is a good cell signal.
I am not in a CG specially a resort CG to surf the net.
What I need
A) Good level site
B) Water, sewer and electric in the right place and operating correctly
C) Sites that are far enough apart so that if my neighbor opens his slide he is not sitting next to me
D) Enough room to get my awning out.
E) Store for essentials either on property or nearby.
F) Clean grounds

What I like
1) a nice heated pool
2) clean laundry facility
3) activities to bring people together
4) separate dog area
5) friendly patient staff
 
captsteve said:
Good, Strong, Useable WiFi signal at every site.

This is one of the biggest pet peeves / issues most people have.

As one of the administrators of RVParkReviews.com I can attest to the fact that this is the single largest source of complaints about RV parks.  OTOH, as a full-timer, I use my own cellular connections and rarely even bother to check the park's wifi.
 
Yeah, I get a kick out of those reviews: "Yellowstone was okay, but we'd never go back because there was no WiFi."
 
WiFi is a tough one. Unless you have a corporate level trunk, you're not gonna please everyone. But a good high end router, with sufficient repeaters will work.
Having good Cell signal is all I want. I have been working on how to provide my own internet access.

Shade, and quiet are what I covet. along with level pad and drinkable water. Oh, and reliable power.
 
As you can see by the comments when it comes to wifi you get 3 types of people, people that don't care about being in contact with the world, people that make good wifi their primary concern, and people that bring their own internet connection through 4G LTE cell connection.
 
Wi-fi is nice to have but not a deal breaker for me. I want a clean, well maintained park that is easy to get in and out of, grass, and decent spacing between level sites. As with any business friendly, courteous staff go a long way in earning my patronage. I really appreciate a sani dump at the site and properly positioned water and power hookup. One park in Washington state had the post servicing two sites so it was on the wrong side for one of the occupants. The dump was a 90 degree elbow a foot off the ground, what was the purpose of that? Another had a very grumpy person at the desk, maybe she was having a bad day but don't take it out on me. She handed me a seven page list of rules, four of them pertaining to pets.  ::)
 
One of the nicest and most relaxing places I stayed was 17 miles back in the Okefenokee swamp. ...No WIFI, no cell phone service, no cable...great staff, full of trees, plenty of wildlife and QUIET...it was so dark at night you could see the milky way !!
 
For us, a clean and well maintained campground is important.  Bath/shower houses and laundry facilities that are clean and where everything works are a big indicator to us of how the rest of the place is handled.  Also, a courteous, friendly staff can make us overlook a lot of other issues.  Remember that the person who checks a guest in can make a great or terrible first impression. 

Level sites are, of course also important.  In terms of site spacing, we realize that FHU sites are likely going to be close.  Bothers us when non FHU sites are packed in like sardines.
 
Get on one or two of the RV park review sites and search different campgrounds at random. See what folks praise and what what they complain about. Make a checklist of both.
 

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