Visiting Indiana and Experiencing Thousand Trails

Tim and I decided to join Thousand Trails in January, 2020 mainly for a discount on a seasonal site for January through March, 2021. The annual camping pass membership cost us $499 plus tax and with it we got a $500 discount on our 2021 seasonal reservation. If you aren’t familiar with Thousand Trails, it is a membership organization for campgrounds where you can camp for specific periods of time with your membership with no additional cost. There are levels of memberships with different purchase prices and rules. It is almost like buying into a time share.

We purchased the entry level membership for just the Southeast zone which gives us access to their campgrounds in just the southeast region of the country. We can book up to 60 days in advance, camp for up to 14 days at a campground and then have to be out of the system for 7 days before we can do another 14 day stay. We had planned to use it as we drove north through S. Carolina, N. Carolina and Virginia. Unfortunately, with the Covid situation, we never used it.

Since this could save us quite a bit in campground fees, I wanted to try it as we started traveling again. Unfortunately, there weren’t many campgrounds in our zone on our planned route south. We wanted to head out through Ohio to visit our daughter Kim so I checked into adding another zone. There were two campgrounds less than an hours drive to Cincinatti so we added the Midwest zone to our membership for $59 which is the cost of one night at some campgrounds. I was able to get reservations for a 14 day stay at Indian Lakes RV Campground in Batesville, IN which gave us another state to visit and isn’t far from Kim.

We highly enjoyed our stay in especially getting to spend time with Kim and her boyfriend Greg. They just bought a house so we got to see their new home and have someone else cook for us a few times. Greg had just purchased a new grill so they had us over for dinner three times. I have to say, they are better cooks than me so we had some wonderful meals. Their home has a lovely deck in the back yard which was a great space to use for entertaining. We had talked about going to a park in Cincinatti but since their yard was so nice, we just stayed there and spent quality time together.

Kim and Greg on the deck. The new grill is in the background.

Greg and Kim came over to the campground and spent a Saturday with us. We cooked lunch on our little grill and then Kim, Greg and I headed out for a hike at Brum’s Woods in Batesville. This park had multiple trails in the woods which helped keep us a little cooler since it was a hot day. We hiked a few of the trails and enjoyed the tranquility in the woods. On our way back to the campground, we stopped at Ertel Cellars Winery to finish our afternoon with a bottle of wine. What a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. Tim and I found the winery a few days earlier for lunch and thought their food and wine was very good. It was wonderful to spend time with Kim and Greg which was the best part of our two week stay.

Back to our thoughts on our first Thousand Trails camping experience. One concern I had when we joined is the first come, first served approach. Most campgrounds assign you a site based on what you booked. Here, you are told to go pick your own site. Also, not all of the sites are full hook up. Since we were staying 14 days, we definitely wanted full hook up, including a sewer and 50 amp electrical service. To give us the best opportunity to get the best site, we made sure to arrive at the park at noon. We lucked out, there were a few pull through sites with full hook up available and someone was leaving the largest and most level site so we grabbed that one.

Indian Lakes is a huge RV park with over 800 sites. Definitely the largest that we have ever stayed at. It has multiple sections spread out around the lake and ponds. While it was pretty and the site was decent, there were some negatives.

The section we were in appeared to be where they put most of the transient campers. The sites were tighter together and some were uneven and muddy. Even though our site was fairly level, it dropped lower in front of our door so flooded a bit when it rained. The other sections seemed to be mostly seasonal or annual sites. Those sites were larger and better maintained possibly because the residents did some of the work themselves. The staff in the park were certainly working hard every day but there just didn’t seem to be enough of them to keep up with the work.

For us, the number of people, golf carts, bicycles, etc. were the biggest negative. Luckily, mid week wasn’t bad as the campground emptied out after Monday but started it filling up again on Thursday. Everyone seemed to have golf carts and the entertainment was driving around the campground especially our section. I called it the golf cart parade. They came in groups from the other sections and rode up and down all the rows. They would even park and socialize behind your site. Between the golf carts and vehicles coming and going, there was constant traffic. Very noisy and distracting!

Many in our section had young children who played in the roads all day long unsupervised. Some were quite young and were on bikes and hover boards. When cars or golf carts came up the road, the kids didn’t move. It was unsafe and the parents weren’t anywhere to be seen. . On the second weekend we had a large group across from us who kept walking through our site to get to the shower and rest room. They seemed to feel it was perfectly fine to disturb their neighbors.

Our biggest complaint was that the people didn’t seem to care about others, just focused on themselves and their own fun. This isn’t necessarily a reflection of Thousand Trails but that this park is simply too large for us. We never liked parks with this many people and golf carts. We are much more comfortable in smaller and quieter parks.

Even with these negatives, we would give this park a 3 out of 5 rating. I highly enjoyed the large area to walk and spent time every day hiking to different areas and catching the lake views. Some of the sections were very quiet and peaceful especially during the week when nobody was there. The staff were friendly and helpful. It was clear that they were working hard to make it a better place.

Another view of the lake in the personal site section

There were gazebos near the water in at least 3 different sections of the RV park. Unfortunately, our section wasn’t near the water.

The swimming area on the lake. I have a feeling this and the pool were pretty crowded on the weekend.

I am not sure how this came to be, but there was a KOA campground on the same property and it was right beside our section. Another section was labeled personal sites. I think this was the annual lease area. These sites were huge and very well maintained. It was also the emptiest area during the week. Both of these were my favorite areas to walk; both were less crowded and more shaded.

The KOA section was quieter and much less crowded the entire stay.

At this point, we would not purchase one of the lifetime memberships since this is not our preferred camping setting although I think it will save us money. We need to experience it more before we would make that type of commitment. We are currently booked at 3 more Thousand Trails parks this year. It will be interesting to see how they compare.

While we were there, we took some time to explore the area. Batesville was a pretty town surrounded by farm land. We enjoyed driving the back roads surrounded by corn fields. We escaped the busy campground on the last Friday that we were there and drove south to check out Clifty Falls State Park. It was a beautiful park with trails down to multiple water falls. I highly enjoyed the drive through the park and hikes even with the many steep steps. Many of the trails were along the edge with drop offs. One led down steep steps to a raised platform over the top of one of the waterfalls. Those steps were high for my short legs so I had to really hold onto the railing going down them. This is a park that I recommend. Tim suggested a late lunch at Ertel Cellars Winery on our way home. We even ate inside the restaurant, a first for us in many months. The entrees and wine were delicious.

View from the walkway across the top of Little Clifty Falls

Overall, we enjoyed our stay in Indiana and would probably stay here again.

Ending with a beautiful sunset. This field was behind the section where we camped at Indian Lakes. I caught a few sunsets there on my evening walks.

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