My Favorite Campground Feature That Hardly Anybody Has. Why?!
I’ve always giggled at this image, but you have to admit… it is pretty true.
Yes, these days, having good wifi is pretty much the most important human need. ????
But, if you’ve been in your share of RV campgrounds, you know that good, solid wifi can be pretty hard to find. While a lot of campgrounds advertise to have wifi, it is often pretty weak. And it can get especially bad at night when people (rudely) try to stream Netflix.
Every now and then, you find a great campground that has solid wifi service. They have wifi repeaters throughout the campground and you actually can get pretty respectable service.
In most campgrounds, though, you’re left to your own devices (literally). You end up needing your own hotspot or you just tether to your phone.
This One Time… In Blairsville, GA
Several years ago, we stayed in Blairsville for 3 weeks. Specifically, it was Crossing Creeks RV Report.
Crossing Creeks is a true RV report. Sometimes you find “resorts” that just aren’t that “resorty”, but Crossing Creeks lives up to it’s name. Since we were there, the place has expanded into a whole second phase and it is much larger.
When we stayed there, they had a feature that was truly awesome. It was especially awesome because we were there for 3 weeks.
They had hard-wired internet service at the campsite.
They gave us a box that looked like an old cable box. That box plugged into the pedestal at the actual RV lot with a CAT5 network cable. And we had full speed, hard-wired internet right inside the RV.
It was seemingly every bit as solid as the the internet service we had at home. I even ran it through a hub to give internal wireless access to all our devices right inside the motorhome, but all of it going through the hard-wired connection.
Why Don’t More Campgrounds Offer This?
I absolutely know that everything wired up to a campsite costs the owner money. In fact, I’ve read before that the average cost per campsite to build one is about $20K. I have no idea how accurate that is, but the point is… it isn’t cheap.
But, if a campground is already running electric, water and even TV cable to each campsite, why would it be so hard to run CAT5 cabling to each site pedestal?
Obviously, Crossing Creeks provided us with a box which basically serves as the modem. Not all campgrounds would do this as it might be cost prohibitive as well as more work to track the boxes and make sure they are returned undamaged upon checkout.
To be clear, too, Crossing Creeks isn’t your typical campground. Owners can actually purchase their own lots in there and stay long-term. Some owners can open up their sites to renters like us for short-term stays and share in the revenue. Seeing as Crossing Creeks doesn’t primarily cater to short stays, their cost structure is certainly different.
But, running CAT5 connections to the sites similar to how one might run phone service would be doable. It would be a nice selling point!
If needed, campground owners could even offer it as a surcharge upsell. Many would take the upgrade. In many cases, I know I would. ????
Would you?
