I received this email a few days ago:

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Do you or a fellow Escapees member you know travel with kids? Maybe you take your grandkids on an adventure in your RV every summer. Whatever your style may be, if kids are involved in your travels, then Fulltime Families is for you. We are proud to announce our partnership with them and, to put the icing on the cake, FtF is offering a FREE one-year membership to active Escapees RV Club members!

FtF is an extensive resource that helps you meet other families on the road by attending their rallies and their nationwide Roadschool Conferences. They have a database full of FtF Family Friendly Campgrounds that not only helps locate welcoming parks you and your kids will love, but also allows you to waive any "additional person" fees the campgrounds may charge. Another great benefit they offer is helping you find low-cost and free activities to help your family discover the world around you by partnering with many industry leaders in order to provide you with discounts and valuable tools across the board.

These are just a few of the excellent services they offer! Their benefits are ever-growing, and they continue to seek out ways to enhance the experience for traveling families on the road. They recently introduced the FtF Explorer Program, which takes the best parts of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and allows your children to "Seek, Learn, Share" by earning badges, all while enjoying living on the open road!

Fulltime Families is pioneering the path for families on the road, and we think you will find great value in their membership. Don't miss out on this generous offer, and take advantage of the free one-year membership today by visiting: http://fulltimefamilies.com/joinftf/escapees/ .

I believe that this is just one more example of how serious they are about expanding the club membership to younger RV folks like it was back when they began. And even though we were retired by the time we went fulltime and were finished raising a family when we joined the Escapees, I think that this is a very good thing for the club and it's future. We owned RVs of some type most of the years our kids were growing up and it would have been very helpful to us to have had the kind of support that Escapes can be.

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. My only regret is that we aren't fulltimers anymore... or even sometimers. We sold our RV last month and plan to stay stationary for a few years while the older kids leave the nest. But we plan to fulltime again in the future, no doubt! I wish the FtF partnership was a reality while we were RVing! I hope lots of families take advantage of the partnership.

I agree that RV families with kids need more support. We used to have problems getting into AZ RV parks with our two kids (they were 16 and 10 at the time). The kids were insulted that they had to be escorted everywhere or downright refused entry.

We don't do KOA because they charged extra for kids; how can they be "family friendly" and yet charge extra for kids. It wasn't as though the kids were going to use up some facilities. The only places we felt welcome were municipal RV parks or state parks or federal parks (BLM, NFS, COE, etc.).

The DW still has a bad taste in her mouth over this; especially the RV parks in Yuma. Oldest daughter is now 36 and would never visit Yuma in their RV (with two kids).

The co-op parks might need to be encouraged to allow children in (and without constant supervision for those who would be old enough to be safe on their own). The DW and I both remarked about how the SKP parks we visited would be a little more fun with the sound of children playing.

Badly needed.

WDR