A recreational vehicle park (RV park) or caravan park is a place where people with

recreational vehicle A recreational vehicle, often abbreviated as RV, is a motor vehicle or trailer that includes living quarters designed for accommodation. Types of RVs include motorhomes, campervans, coaches, caravans (also known as travel trailers and ca ...

s can stay overnight, or longer, in allotted spaces known as "sites" or "campsites". They are also referred to as

campground Campsite, campground, and camping pitch are all related terms regarding a place used for camping (an overnight stay in an outdoor area). The usage differs between British English and American English. In British English, a ''campsite'' is an ...

s, though a true campground also provides facilities for

tent A tent is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over or attached to a frame of poles or a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using g ...

camping Camping is a form of outdoor recreation or outdoor education involving overnight stays with a basic temporary shelter such as a tent. Camping can also include a recreational vehicle, sheltered cabins, a permanent tent, a shelter such as a Bivy bag ...

; many facilities calling themselves "RV parks" also offer tent camping or cabins with limited facilities.

Services

Allocated space (pitch/site) facilities may include: * AC power connection. (Usually rated by capacity such as 15, 20, 30 or 50

ampere The ampere ( , ; symbol: A), often shortened to amp,SI supports only the use of symbols and deprecates the use of abbreviations for units. is the unit of electric current in the International System of Units (SI). One ampere is equal to 1 c ...

s.) *

Drinking water Drinking water or potable water is water that is safe for ingestion, either when drunk directly in liquid form or consumed indirectly through food preparation. It is often (but not always) supplied through taps, in which case it is also calle ...

connection * Sewer connection * Television connection (relevant to local area standards) * Telephone connection (rare outside North America) *

Hotspot (Wi-Fi) A hotspot is a physical location where people can obtain Internet access, typically using Wi-Fi technology, via a wireless local-area network (WLAN) using a router connected to an Internet service provider. Public hotspots may be created by ...

Park facilities may include: *

Barbecue Barbecue or barbeque (often shortened to BBQ worldwide; barbie or barby in Australia and New Zealand) is a term used with significant regional and national variations to describe various cooking methods that employ live fire and smoke to coo ...

area * Bathhouses *

Convenience store A convenience store, convenience shop, bakkal, bodega, corner store, corner shop, superette or mini-mart is a small retail store that stocks a range of everyday items such as convenience food, groceries, beverages, tobacco products, lotter ...

* Dump station *

Exercise equipment Exercise equipment is any apparatus or device used during physical activity to enhance the strength or conditioning effects of that exercise by providing either fixed or adjustable amounts of resistance, or to otherwise enhance the experience or ...

* Gift shop *

Golf Course A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a teeing ground, tee box, a #Fairway and rough, fairway, the #Fairway and rough, rough and other hazard (golf), hazards, and ...

s * Hot tubs *

Laundry Laundry is the washing of clothing and other textiles, and, more broadly, their drying and ironing as well. Laundry has been part of history since humans began to wear clothes, so the methods by which different cultures have dealt with this u ...

Picnic table A picnic table (or picnic bench) is a Table (furniture), table with benches (often attached), designed for working with and for picnic, outdoor dining. The term is often specifically associated with rectangular tables having an A-frame structure. ...

s *

Restrooms A public toilet, restroom, bathroom or washroom is a room or small building with toilets (or urinals) and sinks for use by the general public. The facilities are available to customers, travelers, employees of a business, school pupils or pris ...

* Recreation Hall *

Shower A shower is a place in which a person bathes under a spray of typically warm or hot water. Indoors, there is a drain in the floor. Most showers are set up to have adjustable temperature, spray pressure and showerhead nozzle angle. The si ...

s *

Swimming pool A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, paddling pool, or simply pool, is a structure designed to hold water to enable Human swimming, swimming and associated activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built abo ...

* Bar/

restaurant A restaurant is an establishment that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and Delivery (commerce), food delivery services. Restaurants ...

Occasionally,

Electric Vehicle An electric vehicle (EV) is a motor vehicle whose propulsion is powered fully or mostly by electricity. EVs encompass a wide range of transportation modes, including road vehicle, road and rail vehicles, electric boats and Submersible, submer ...

owners will use the electrical facilities at RV parks to charge their cars - especially in rural areas where other charging facilities are unavailable. In North America, "50 amp" ( NEMA 14-50) connections are especially desirable for EV charging. The "30 amp" ( TT-30), "20 amp" ( NEMA 5-20), and "15 amp" ( NEMA 5-15) connections may also be used, but offer progressively slower charging speeds. Outside of North America, 16 amp ( caravan mains sockets) are common.

RV parks by region

Australia

In Australia there is generally no differentiation between an RV park and a

trailer park A trailer park, caravan park, mobile home park, mobile home community or manufactured home community is a temporary or permanent area for mobile homes and travel trailers. Advantages include low cost compared to other housing, and quick and e ...

. The term "caravan park" is used to refer to both. The term "holiday park" is becoming increasingly common, with many parks increasing their stock of on-site cabins, often accompanied by a reduction in the number of caravan sites, generally having higher quality facilities than the standard caravan park.

Europe

Caravan sites in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

range in facilities depending on their age. Most new sites will be built to high

environmentally friendly Environment friendly processes, or environmental-friendly processes (also referred to as eco-friendly, nature-friendly, and green), are sustainability and marketing terms referring to goods and services, laws, guidelines and policies that c ...

standards and have facilities compatible with the newest vehicles. The Caravan Club has 1 million members in Europe with around 200 self-owned campsites and over 2,500 third party certificated locations, more commonly known as CL sites. The Camping and Caravanning Club is a non-profit organisation which has been running for over a century and has over 400,000 members and 100 campsites in the United Kingdom. In France, Germany and Italy, to a lesser degree also in Norway and the Netherlands, a large network of dedicated stopover sites for motorhomes has grown since about 1980. These sites are called ''Reisemobil-Stellplatz'' in German or ''Aire de Camping-car'' in French. While these sites can usually not be compared to North American RV sites regarding size and facilities, they still fulfill the same purpose.

New Zealand

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, motor camp, caravan park or holiday park are all terms typically used to describe overnight or long term vehicle-based camping. Along with powered sites for caravans, the parks usually offer tent sites and cabins, and a shared building with cooking facilities.

North America

SB US 19-98 at Withlacoochee River-RV Resort

RV parks range from rustic facilities with no or limited utility hookups, as often found in state/provincial parks and national parks, to luxury resorts with amenities that rival fine hotels. Some high-end resorts restrict the type of RV that can stay to motorhomes of a certain length or longer, and/or newer than a certain year. Most RV parks are open to allcomers and rent spaces on a nightly or weekly basis, much like a

motel A motel, also known as a motor hotel, motor inn or motor lodge, is a hotel designed for motorists, usually having each room entered directly from the Parking lot, parking area for motor vehicles rather than through a central Lobby (room), lo ...

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

. A few parks operate on a

time-share A timeshare (sometimes called a vacation ownership or vacation club) is a Real property, property with a divided form of ownership or use rights. These properties are typically resort Condominium (living space), condominium units, in which mul ...

basis. Membership campground networks like Thousand Trails operate like clubs, with members paying an initial membership fee and annual dues. There are over 13,000 privately owned RV parks and over 1,600 state parks that cater to RVers in the USA. Many of these RV parks offer WiFi hotspot access on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis; occasionally, WiFi is included in the campsite fee. Most RV parks are independent or operated by a government entity. In the United States,

Kampgrounds of America KOA (short for Kampgrounds of America) is an American franchise of privately owned campgrounds. Having more than 500 locations across the United States and Canada, it is the world's largest system of privately owned campgrounds. It was founded ...

(KOA), is the largest and best-known chain of RV parks, with Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park Camp Resorts a distant second. Good Sam Parks are mostly independently owned RV campgrounds endorsed by the Good Sam Club, a large association of US RVers that is operated for profit by the Affinity Group, Inc. Listings of RV parks can be found in printed directories; the best known are the annual ones by ''Woodall's'' and '' Trailer Life Magazine''. Online and mobile app RV directories are provided by AmericaOnWheels.com, CampRate, Campendium, eCampGuide, MobileRVing.com, Reserve RV, RoverPass, RV Parks & Campgrounds, RVParkReviews, RVThereYet, The Dyrt and others. Overnight rates for most USA RV parks are US$15 to US$50, although some in cities and country parks may be US$10 or less; even free. There is a

subculture A subculture is a group of people within a culture, cultural society that differentiates itself from the values of the conservative, standard or dominant culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures ...

of " fulltiming" RV owners who live in their recreational vehicles on a permanent basis. They typically move from one RV park to another. The length of time that someone is allowed to stay in an RV park varies from park to park.

References

Recreational vehicles Campsites