7 Best RV Review Sites You Should Not Miss

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There are a lot of places to travel in this country and a lot of different ways of getting there. Maybe you’re in the market for an RV, or an upgrade to your current vacation vehicle system, but aren’t sure where to begin. Or maybe you’re looking for the best destination for an upcoming RV trip. Or maybe you’re on the hunt for the most RV-friendly campsites in a certain state or region. Whatever the case, be sure to check out this detail-rich list of the seven best RV review sites before heading out on your next adventure.

RV PARK REVIEWS

A division of RV Life, RV Park Reviews boasts 17,371 searchable campgrounds on their website featuring 345,183 reviews. Those are impressive numbers. The website centers around an easy to use map of the United States, where you can quickly search by state (by clicking on the state in question), and then narrow your search by city. The site then breaks down campgrounds even further with lists of “Featured” campgrounds, “Highly Rated” campgrounds, and “Popular” campgrounds in the searchable area.

If you have an idea of where you’re headed, you can navigate the map yourself, zooming in and out of particular areas once you’ve selected a state. When using the map, the available RV camping locations update for you in real time. Clicking on an RV park itself will provide even greater detail, including a link to the park’s website, a list of all amenities, nearby recreation opportunities, cost summary (their symbolic rating system goes from $ to $$$$), and other features (including hook-up details and if sites are pet-friendly or not) alongside site-specific reviews.

From individual RV park pages, you can even ask fellow and previous campers about the campground in question or add your own review. If you don’t like the amenities or reviews you’re seeing within a selected park’s page, those pages also showcase nearby alternate options, so you can quickly find another place to park it. Headed up to Canada or down to Mexico? You can also search RV campgrounds in those countries by utilizing the “Change Country” feature on the top left of the map portion of the main page. RV Park Reviews is also available through the RV Life App for iPhones, iPads, and Android devices, which means you can more easily search, review, and book campgrounds while you’re on the road.

CAMPENDIUM

Campendium’s homepage is set up a lot like Airbnb’s, asking visitors the simple but important question, “Where do you want to camp?” via a front-and-center search box in the middle of the page. Going that route, users can begin typing the city, state, or zip code they’re planning to visit and Campendium will start offering applicable search results. Users can also enter the names of National Parks, National Forests, State Parks, or the campground name itself to begin receiving search results.

There is also a “Use My Location” option within that main search box, which offers nearby RV-friendly campgrounds based on the user’s current geographic location. Once you’ve selected a location, you can refine your options based on a variety of keywords and factors, including sorting search results by distance, the highest rating, or most reviews. If you’re not sure where you want to camp, Campendium’s homepage offers plenty of alternate options for searching and finding ideal campgrounds and RV parks. Visitors can browse parks and campgrounds via recently uploaded user photos and/or by “Recent Campground Reviews.” Using their navigation menu options at the top of the page (RV Parks; Free Camping; National Parks; National Forests; State Parks; and Blog), visitors can also quickly gain access to curated lists based on those options by clicking any of them.

Their Free Camping page includes reminders to bring essentials like water for drinking and washing, garbage bags, animal-safe containers to store food, and bathroom necessities, and also includes a link to important, mindful Leave No Trace principles. Campendium’s blog page, featuring posts with titles like, “All the Best Camping in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado” is a bonus source of additional resources and first-person accounts, including camping guides, 5-star campground reviews, and videos.

RV PARKY

Similar to Campendium, RV Parky asks visitors to their site “Where do you want to go?” via another front-and-center search box on their homepage. You can enter a “city, zip, address or place” to get started. Once you do, the website takes you to a detailed map, where you can view nearby, statewide, and regional campground and RV park options. From there, you can also further refine your search parameters via a variety of helpful links and sorting tools.

From the regional and state-specific maps, you can also see lists of nearby campgrounds and parks, each of which showcases comprehensive details about individual campgrounds and parks once you click on one, including sharing specific price ranges, addresses, and user reviews. For each individual campground and/or park listing, there are options to call the campground, add photos, leave a review, and/or “favorite” the listing. There’s even a spot for users to update campground prices if those have changed since the original listing.

Two features of RV Parky’s map interface that set it apart from many others: 1. There’s an “Add to Trip” option at the top left of each individual campground/park listing, which allows users to create a trip and then add specific campgrounds to it. (Great for keeping a detailed itinerary organized!); 2. In addition to highlighting RV parks, campgrounds, and various resorts, the map also points out rest areas where RVs can park/camp overnight. From RV Parky’s homepage, you can also view the most recent user reviews for various campgrounds throughout the country and view four “Featured RV Parks.” There’s also an option to download the RV Park app for iPhone or Android devices, in addition to options to “Login” or “Sign up” for an RV Parky user/reviewer account.

RV BUDDY

 

RV Buddy is full of plenty of RV parks and reviews and is a great tool for finding a great campground. Not only does RVBuddy divide the United States into six distinct geographical such as the Southeastern region (from the homepage, you simply hover your cursor over the region where you’re intending to go and a drop-down menu will reveal the states in that region), but also has distinct pages for each and every state. You can go to the individual state pages from the region pages, the homepage drop-down menus, or from a search. Each state’s individual page is complete with several different RV parks and campgrounds along with their respective reviews.

Another helpful feature of the site is their Reviews by Route section. If you just don’t know where you’ll be heading use the Reviews by Route section to navigate to specific highways or interstates. You can, of course, submit your own reviews the help grow the site even larger. And, as the the number for reviews grows, so too will the quality of the site. RV Buddy is already one of the more versatile and easy-to-navigate review sites out there, and more users can only make it better.

GOOD SAM CLUB

 

Not only is Good Sam Club perhaps the largest membership-based RV site out there but it both offers a tremendous number of reviews and numerous benefits and savings for its members. While Good Sam doesn’t offer as many camping locations in its database as some of the other sites, it does offer a quality guarantee; RV campgrounds have to pass a test in order to even be considered for inclusion in the database.

Additionally, membership in the Good Sam Club offers perks many other sites cannot, including savings or discounts at Camping World, Overton’s, Gander Outdoors, Good Sam Parks, and Pilot Flying J locations. With the app, you can add points of interest and camping destinations to your route easily, as well as calculate estimates of fuel costs and travel time, as well as use filters to see low clearance areas, tunnels, or avoid tolls. So don’t think of the fact that a membership is required for the Good Sam Club as a negative.

Instead, think of all of the extras that membership includes, such as those aforementioned fuel discounts (5 cents per gallon on gas and 8 cents per gallon on diesel) at Pilot Flying J’s, 10% off at Camping World, and the Good Sam’s Trip Planner app.

ALLSTAYS

Like RV Park Reviews and RV Life, AllStays has both free and paid versions. What helps AllStays stand out is the sheer variety of apps and information the site offers, including the following:

  • AllStays Camp & RV (With over 60,000 campgrounds and points of interest, the base AllStays app is in and of itself pretty incredible, including a wide range of free camping options as well as the standard camping information and multiple filter layer);
  • AllStays Truck & Travel (The longest-running truck app, the Truck & Travel app offers tons of exclusive parking areas perfect for when you’re not looking to camp but just need somewhere to sleep for a night or two, full of tips that are perfect not just for semi-truck drivers, but also RVers);
  • AllStays Overnight Parking WalMart (Not only does this app offer a full directory of Walmarts across the country (where you can generally stay overnight at least one night for free), but also offers up other parking lots where you may be able to spend the night, in addition to other’s reports and reviews so you can determine in advance whether it might be a good sleep spot for you;
  • AllStays Camp and Military RV (Includes 200 military camps for those who have served);
  • AllStays Rest Stops Plus (When you need to know where the closest rest stops are, this is a great app. In addition to listing amenities and services at each rest stop, it also includes hours, what side of the road to expect the rest stop on, and more); and
  • AllStays RV Dumps (When you need to find a dump station, you can’t just wait until you stumble into one. And with this app, it’s easy to find the dump station you need).

That’s a ton of great information, all of which you can readily use while RVing. Of course, not all of the apps are free, so you may need to do some research to determine which review arms of AllStays are the best fit for you and your travel needs and budget.

RV TRIP WIZARD

Not only is RV Trip Wizard a great way to save money—as it tracks the money you’ll spend in advance based on how you tailor your usage of the site and/or app and its extensive database of fuel, campground, and other prices around the country—it’s also incredibly customizable. Tailor your usage to match your preferences and you’ll see only the information you want, whether that’s free camping or full-service resorts.

Because RV Trip Wizard includes all of the campgrounds covered by most of the other review sites and apps (such as Good Sam or Passport America), you don’t need multiple ways to browse your options when deciding where to stay. Similarly, you can tailor your preferences to take advantage of bigger discounts; if you have both Passport America and Escapees RV Club memberships, for instance, you can prioritize searching for the former before the latter if you so desire, as the former offers bigger discounts.

Additionally, RV Trip Wizard’s drag-and-drop interface makes it incredibly easy to visualize (think of moving checkpoints in Google Maps, for instance), and it easily integrates across a wide range of devices, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and more, as well as with your GPS unit. And if you want paper documentation, you can do that, too; RV Trip Wizard allows you to print trip summaries including such information as contacts information for your planned stops, mileage between stops, and even cost estimates for each leg of your trip.

What really makes RV Trip Wizard stand out, however, is all the extras it offers, often combining the best features of other apps. For instance, its expansive directory includes RV-friendly parking lots (such as casinos and Walmarts), more than 16,000 golf courses, more than 12,000 bike trails, and more than 8,000 pet hospitals.