Resort or Rustic?

[david]

Grand Canyon Trailer Village is rustic? You and I have very different definitions of rustic.

David

[djsamuel]

[quote source="/post/3180/thread" timestamp="1409659221" author="@david"]



Grand Canyon Trailer Village is rustic? You and I have very different definitions of rustic.

David

[/quote]
I certainly don't consider it a resort. If boondocking is the only form of rustic, then I do have a different view.  To me a resort would have enough amenities to make it a destination in itself.  As I said, we go to Disney's Fort Wilderness frequently.  That is a resort, and as such we often spend a long weekend never leaving the campground.  We can hike, swim, use the hot tub, etc.  Trailer Village has full hookups and that is about it.  The campground does not have showers, unless one wants to walk over to Mathers Campground and spend $2 for a short shower.  Sure they are packed together, but the attraction is not the campground, it is being a half mile from the rim. 

Guess rustic is in the eye of the beholder.  The original post defined resort as full hookups and to me a campground needs much more than that to be considered a resort.

[david]

Ok, yes rustic is in the eye of the beholder. Let me then define degrees of rustic to further the discussion starting with 5 star rustic and working towards less rustic:

***** Remote, pristine, no one within hundreds of yards, and maybe miles. This can really only be found by boondocking in National Forests or BLS lands and you often need 4WD to get there and usually a low profile trailer. But to me, it is the nirvana of camping.

**** Developed campgrounds, but the sites are layed out so that you can't see your neighbor. This is rare in NFS, national or state parks.

*** Developed campgrounds, where the view of your neighbors is only on one side and the other side fronts to a creek, lake, hillside, etc. If the site is layed out properly your RV will block the view towards your neighbors and you have a mostly private site. We have camped several times this summer in state parks with that degree of rusticity in NY and Vt.

** Developed camgrounds where the view is open to your neighbors but the sites are layed out so that you back in off of the access road. You have a picnic table and a fire ring.

* Developed campgrounds where the view is open and the sites are layed out parallel to each other so you can drive through. Often no picnic table and rarely a fire ring. The GC Trailer Village meets this definition.

Notice that I said nothing about hookups in these 5 definitions. I have camped in 3 star destinations with power at the site (but installed discretely) this summer.

Then there are the RV parks with parallel sites with little or no trees in between, concrete pads to drive through, full hookups and often with a swimming pool, playground, horse shoe throwing pits, etc.

And FWIW in my experience with the 16TBS which most people would call a 20'er, I can back in to 90% of the 1-4 star campsites even though they may have been originally layed out for tents. Some campgrounds explicitly limit trailers to 20' max length. A LL 21 which is a 25' by most measures can back in to 80%. A LL 28 really gets limiting and unless you have an unusually deep site and have a good turning radius to back into, you probably need a pull through site.

David

[djsamuel]

[quote source="/post/3185/thread" timestamp="1409666887" author="@david"]

Ok, yes rustic is in the eye of the beholder. Let me then define degrees of rustic to further the discussion starting with 5 star rustic and working towards less rustic:

***** Remote, pristine, no one within hundreds of yards, and maybe miles. This can really only be found by boondocking in National Forests or BLS lands and you often need 4WD to get there and usually a low profile trailer. But to me, it is the nirvana of camping.

**** Developed campgrounds, but the sites are layed out so that you can't see your neighbor. This is rare in NFS, national or state parks.

*** Developed campgrounds, where the view of your neighbors is only on one side and the other side fronts to a creek, lake, hillside, etc. If the site is layed out properly your RV will block the view towards your neighbors and you have a mostly private site. We have camped several times this summer in state parks with that degree of rusticity in NY and Vt.

** Developed camgrounds where the view is open to your neighbors but the sites are layed out so that you back in off of the access road. You have a picnic table and a fire ring.

* Developed campgrounds where the view is open and the sites are layed out parallel to each other so you can drive through. Often no picnic table and rarely a fire ring. The GC Trailer Village meets this definition.

Notice that I said nothing about hookups in these 5 definitions. I have camped in 3 star destinations with power at the site (but installed discretely) this summer.

Then there are the RV parks with parallel sites with little or no trees in between, concrete pads to drive through, full hookups and often with a swimming pool, playground, horse shoe throwing pits, etc.

And FWIW in my experience with the 16TBS which most people would call a 20'er, I can back in to 90% of the 1-4 star campsites even though they may have been originally layed out for tents. Some campgrounds explicitly limit trailers to 20' max length. A LL 21 which is a 25' by most measures can back in to 80%. A LL 28 really gets limiting and unless you have an unusually deep site and have a good turning radius to back into, you probably need a pull through site.

David
[/quote]
This is a good summary.  I like the star rating, including the classification of Trailer Village.  This also allows for campgrounds that while not 2 - 5 star rustic, certainly are not resorts. 

[pinstriper]

I also find the taxonomy useful. Most of my camping is **. Sewer and TV are nice to haves. The obstacle we will have to deal with at some point for what I think of as "rustic" is unlevel pads and lack of electric/water. I would feel more adventurous with a second battery and more confidence in being able to prepare and maintain safe water quality in my fresh tank, but really, we normally carry a gallon of home bottled per day for drinking and cooking, and could get by with only using the tank for flushing. That handles any long weekend.

[tinkeringtechie]

I'm not sure I'd agree with that as the rustic scale. I've been at full hookup sites in rv parks that were 4 star on that scale. It seems more like the privacy scale. Here's my suggested rustic scale:

For each item below you get a point, add them all up and the lower your points the more rustic it is.

[ul type="disc"][li]You're staying at a "site" (not just the side of a forest road)[/li][li]The site can be reserved[/li][li]The site has a picnic table or firepit[/li][li]The site has running water within walking distance[/li][li]There are trash cans within walking distance[/li][li]There's a dump station within a mile[/li][li]There are recreational opportunities nearby (ranger programs, visitor center, playground)[/li][li]The site has electrical hookups[/li][li]The site has water hookups[/li][li]The site has sewer hookups[/li][li]The site is paved[/li][li]The site has cable tv or telephone hookups[/li][li]The campground has a pool[/li][li]You check in at a "front desk"[/li][li]A guy in a golf cart guides you to your site[/li][/ul][div]
On this scale we like to stay at campgrounds that are 7-10 (more on the 7 side though). Feel free to add items to the list.[/div]

[leslie]

DH and I are having this discussion now. Camp Driveway is not available to us, so all of our shakedown time will be in campgrounds. Once we get the camper organized, I want to boondock. My husband doesn't. Compromise is the word...

[david]

[p]Last Sunday we camped at Chittenden Brook Campground, a US Forest Service facility in northern Vermont. It definitely rates 4 stars on my list. None of the adjacent campsites are visible from this site. The picture is from the back of the site looking up to the access road. To the back behind the trees about 100' is Chittenden Brook where I caught a 5" trout. Sleeping with the brook bubbling in the background is heavenly. It is one of the prettiest sites I have camped in east of the Mississippi.[/p][p]
[/p][p]David[/p][p]
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[djsamuel]

[quote source="/post/3493/thread" timestamp="1410369610" author="@david"][p]Last Sunday we camped at Chittenden Brook Campground, a US Forest Service facility in northern Vermont. It definitely rates 4 stars on my list. None of the adjacent campsites are visible from this site. The picture is from the back of the site looking up to the access road. To the back behind the trees about 100' is Chittenden Brook where I caught a 5" trout. Sleeping with the brook bubbling in the background is heavenly. It is one of the prettiest sites I have camped in east of the Mississippi.[/p][p]
[/p][p]David[/p][p]
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[/p][/quote]Looks nice!  Funny thing is, I forgot what web site I was on and immediately thought, "Hey!  He's got a Camplite." 

[leslie]

David, you are boondocking there, right? Looks great. I am going to show this to my husband. He is looking at resorts. I am looking at these wonderful pictures of an RV in a natural setting, no other RV in sight.

What is the road like into the campsite?

[david]

leslie:

The entrance road is gravel and about 3 miles long off of paved hwy 73. It is steep in one spot and I had to shift to 4 wheel drive because the front wheels started spinning going up. I probably could have made it in 2 wheel if I had started up the slope with more speed. But if I only had 2 wheel drive and couldn't make it up, it would have been a long back up to get to a turn around. That probably puts off a lot of people.

David

[walt3]

We usually stay in state parks. Most have water and electric. I am currently planning an solar panel/battery system for the winter for lights and charging the phones. Have to have AC 80% of the time in Texas! So most of the time have to have shore power!

[david]

Larry:

I grew up in Texas and our family camped in the hill country before air conditioning was invented (or so it seemed). In October there are lots of places you can camp without A/C: Pedernales Falls CG, Lost Maples CG, Garner State Park- an oldie but goodie, Bastrop State Park.

David

[revteedub]

I prefer trees, some space between sites, and a clean bath house. Full hookups are not needed.  So I guess I fall into the "rustic" definition although we've found a rustic atmosphere in some RV resorts and resort type atmosphere in some state parks.