New to owning an RV park? Start here

If you have never run an RV park, this guide walks the whole road in order: the paperwork before you open, the sites and hookups, rates and rules, taking bookings, hiring help, running the store, and your first 90 days. Read it top to bottom once, then work it one step at a time.

One honest note before you start: permits, licenses, and taxes for campgrounds are set by your state, county, and city, and they differ from place to place. This guide gives you the right order to do things in and the right offices to ask. It is not legal or tax advice — your local offices and your own accountant have the final word for your park.

1. What the job actually is

Running a park is five jobs wearing one hat:

Host — greeting guests, answering questions, and handling problems kindly and quickly.
Bookings and front desk — reservations, check-ins, payments, and changes.
Grounds and repairs — mowing, cleaning, hookups, water and sewer lines, and a hundred small fixes.
Storekeeper — stock, prices, and sales if you run a camp store.
Bookkeeper — bills, payroll if you have staff, taxes, and knowing what the park earned.

Most new owners do all five themselves at first. The secret is not working harder — it is keeping all five in one place, so a booking, a repair, and a store sale never live in three different notebooks. That is the whole idea behind Camp Orbit, and this guide shows you where each job lands in it.

What this looks like on a real Tuesday: you greet a family checking in at 10, walk a site with a tripped breaker at 11, unclog nothing glamorous at noon, sell ice and firewood through the afternoon, answer three emails about next month, and close the day counting the store money and glancing at tomorrow's arrivals. None of it is hard on its own. The job gets heavy when every piece lives somewhere different — bookings in one book, repairs in your head, store stock on a guess — and a guest question sends you hunting through all of it.

Two habits separate calm parks from frantic ones. First, everything gets written down where it happens: a booking, a repair, a sale, a finished job. Second, the same few checks happen at the same times every day, whether the park is full or empty. This guide is built around those two habits.

2. Before you buy or build: the ground itself

Do this before you sign anything. A beautiful property that cannot legally run as a campground is not a bargain.

Zoning first. Ask your city or county planning office, in writing, whether an RV park or campground is allowed on that land, and what approval (for example a conditional-use permit) you would need.
Campground license. Most states license campgrounds, usually through the health department. The license typically covers your drinking water supply, your sewage system, restrooms and showers, and — if you have one — your pool.
Water and sewer. Find out whether the park is on city water and sewer or on a well and septic system, and whether the system is sized for the number of sites you plan. Septic systems need regular care: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends an inspection at least every 3 years and pumping typically every 3–5 years.
Electric capacity. Count the sites and the power they need. Modern rigs draw a lot — a park short on electric capacity will hear about it on the first hot weekend.
Flood and drainage. Ask for the flood map for the property and walk it after a heavy rain if you can. Low sites that hold water are sites you cannot sell.
Insurance, early. Talk to an insurance agent who knows campgrounds before you open, not after. The core coverages for a business like this are general liability, commercial property, and business interruption (also called business income), plus workers' compensation if you have employees.

The U.S. Small Business Administration's guide to licenses and permits explains how federal, state, and local requirements fit together, and its page on choosing a business location covers zoning and the local tax picture.

If you are buying an existing park, ask the seller for records before you agree on a price:

Two or three years of income records and the booking history behind them — how many nights were actually sold, and in which months.
Utility bills for a full year: electric, water, sewer or septic pumping receipts, trash, propane, and internet.
Septic inspection and pumping records, and well water test results if the park has a well.
The current licenses and permits, and when each one was last inspected.
Insurance history, including any claims, and a list of what equipment and furnishings are actually included in the sale.
Any monthly or seasonal guests' agreements, so you know what stays were already promised and at what price.

Questions worth asking your county or city, in person: Is the park a legal, permitted use today, or an older park allowed only because it was there first (called legal non-conforming)? If it burned or flooded, could you rebuild it as it stands? How many sites are permitted — and is that the number the seller is advertising? What signage can you put at the road? Are there quiet-hour, lighting, or setback rules you would inherit? Write down who told you what, and when.

Also check the practical things a listing never mentions: can a 45-foot motorhome make the turn off the highway and through your gate? Is there internet service good enough to run a booking system and offer guest Wi-Fi? Who plows, who pumps septic, and who repairs pedestals within driving distance — and what do they charge for an emergency call on a holiday weekend?

3. Set up the business

Pick a business structure. Sole proprietor, partnership, LLC, or corporation — the choice affects your personal liability, your taxes, and your paperwork. The SBA's business structure comparison lays the options side by side.
Get an EIN. An Employer Identification Number is your business's federal tax ID. It is free from the IRS — apply on the IRS EIN page and beware of sites that charge for it.
Register for your state taxes. Ask your state revenue department and your county or city what applies to you: sales tax on store sales, and whether site rent or cabin rent carries a lodging or occupancy tax where you are. This varies a lot by location.
Open a separate business bank account and keep park money and personal money apart from day one. Your future self — and your accountant — will thank you.
Put insurance in force before the first guest arrives, using the SBA's insurance guide as your checklist when you talk to your agent.

The SBA's 10 steps to start your business is the full start-to-open checklist, and the IRS Small Business and Self-Employed Tax Center is the tax hub to bookmark.

A few more setup details that save pain later:

A license and renewal calendar. List every license, permit, and insurance policy with its renewal date on one page, and set reminders a month ahead. A lapsed campground license can close you in your busiest week.
Payroll, if you hire. The moment you have an employee — including seasonal help paid in wages — you have payroll tax duties. The IRS tax center above has the employment-tax section; a payroll service or your accountant is money well spent here.
How guests will pay you. Set up your payment account (Camp Orbit uses your own Stripe payment link — see Step 6) before you take your first booking, and test it with a small payment of your own.
Records from day one. Keep every permit, inspection, utility bill, and repair receipt in one folder, paper or digital. Campground licenses, insurance claims, and a future sale all ask for exactly these papers.
An accountant who has a campground or hospitality client, if you can find one. Lodging taxes, site rent, store sales, and seasonal labor each have their own wrinkles, and an hour of setup advice in month one is cheaper than a cleanup in year two.

4. Know your sites

Every booking starts with an honest list of what you are selling. Walk the park with a notepad and write down, for every site:

Site number or name, and where it sits on the park map.
Hookups. A full-hookup site (often shortened to FHU) has electric, water, and sewer right at the site. Electric is usually 30-amp, 50-amp, or both, delivered through the power box at the site — the pedestal. A site with water and electric but no sewer is a partial hookup; those guests use the park's dump station.
The longest rig the site truly fits, including the turn to get in — not just the pad length.
Shade, surface (grass, gravel, concrete), picnic table, fire ring, and anything a guest should know before they book.

That list becomes your Sites list in Camp Orbit. Guests booking online see your real sites, and you stop selling a 40-foot site to a 45-foot rig.

More detail that pays off:

Site types. Most parks sell a few kinds of sites: full-hookup, water-and-electric, and plain (no hookups, sometimes called primitive or dry). Pull-through sites — drive in one end, out the other — are the easiest for big rigs and overnight stops, and usually your best sellers. Back-in sites are fine for longer stays. Tent sites and any cabins or rental units are their own types, with their own rates and rules.
Number in the order guests drive. Site numbers should follow the road, so a guest arriving at dusk can find site 14 by passing 12 and 13 — not by hunting across the park. If you renumber, change the map, the markers, and the booking list on the same day.
Take a photo of every site from the road, the way a guest first sees it. Photos catch what lists miss — a low limb, a leaning pedestal, a picnic table on its last legs — and they are the same photos you will use on your booking page.
Be honest about tight sites. A site that fits a 30-foot trailer should say so. One bad fit costs a refund, a review, and an evening; an honest description costs nothing.

5. Set your rates and your rules

Rates. Write one rate card: nightly, weekly, and monthly prices for each kind of site, what changes the price (site type, hookups, extra people or vehicles, pets, holidays), and which taxes or fees apply. Then check that the same numbers appear everywhere — office sheet, booking page, and confirmation. A guest should never meet three versions of one price.

Rules. Decide these before your first guest, and put them where guests see them before arrival:

Check-in and checkout times, and what to do for a late arrival.
Quiet hours, speed on park roads, and visitor rules.
Pet expectations, campfire rules, and trash.
Your cancellation policy — how much notice, and what is refunded.
How a guest reaches a real person in an emergency, day or night.

Kind and direct beats long and legal. Rules applied evenly, and explained briefly, cause very little argument.

How to set a fair rate when you have no history: look at three parks within driving distance that are most like yours — same hookups, same kind of area — and note their nightly, weekly, and monthly prices. Price your first season in the middle of that range, not the bottom. The cheapest park in an area fills with the hardest stays and still makes the least money. You can adjust between seasons with real booking numbers of your own; what you cannot do is raise a rate on a guest who already booked at the old one.

Long stays need their own terms. Weekly and monthly guests are the backbone of many parks, and they are a different deal from a weekend stay:

State the monthly rate, what it includes, and what it does not — especially electric. Many parks read the electric meter at the site's pedestal at move-in and move-out and bill the usage; if you do, say so in the agreement, and note that Camp Orbit has a meter-rate setting for exactly this.
Spell out mail and packages, extra vehicles, guests staying over, and how the site must be kept.
Put the end date in writing, and what happens if a monthly guest wants to stay on.
Know your state's rules: in many places a guest who stays long enough can gain tenant-like rights, and the line is drawn differently in every state. Ask your attorney or your state association where that line is in yours, before you sell your first monthly stay — not after a problem.

Cancellations, written as tiers, are easier for everyone than one flat rule: for example, full refund up to a set number of days before arrival, part refund after that, none inside the last few days — with holiday weekends stricter if you choose. Your exact numbers are your decision; what matters is that the guest saw them before they paid, and that you apply them the same way every time.

6. Set up Camp Orbit for your park

This is the step that turns the lists above into a working park. It goes in this order, and each step is short:

Create your account and add your park — name, address, and contact details. Camp Orbit's setup walks you through it, and a short setup film in the app's Help section shows the same steps on screen.
Add your sites from the list you made in Step 4 — number, type, hookups, and the biggest rig each one fits.
Paste your guest payment link in Park Settings. Guests pay you through your own Stripe payment link, so the money goes to your account. Camp Orbit never holds your guests' money.
Share your booking page. Every park gets its own booking page where guests pick a site, choose their dates, and book. Put that link on your park's website and your Google listing.
Add your extras. If you want firewood, ice, or other supplies waiting at a guest's site when they arrive, list them as extras with your prices. Guests add them while booking and pay for them with the stay, and you see them on the booking as a deliver-to-site item.
Take your first reservation. Add one yourself first — a friend's stay or a test booking — and watch it land on your Reservations list. When a booking is confirmed and the guest's email is on file, Camp Orbit sends the guest a confirmation email from your park.

Get started with Camp Orbit

Coming from another program instead? Read Switching park software without retyping your whole park — your sites, bookings, and guests can come over from a file, with a preview before anything lands.

Details worth knowing inside those steps:

Your Stripe payment link is made in your own Stripe account (Stripe calls it a Payment Link — you set the amount or let the booking page carry the total, and Stripe gives you a web address to paste). Paste it once into Park Settings; from then on, a guest's "Pay now" button uses it, and payments land in your Stripe account, never in Camp Orbit's.
Add your team. If anyone else works the park — a partner, a workamper, a cleaner — add them as team members, so jobs they finish carry their name and the work stops depending on one person's memory.
Set your closing checklists. The app has end-of-day closing lists; walk your own park once at dusk and write the list the way your park actually closes — gates, bathhouse, store, lights, quiet-hour check — in that order.
Do the test booking on a phone, not just a computer. Most of your guests will book from a phone in a passenger seat. If anything on that path confuses you, it will confuse them — fix it before you share the link.

7. A normal day at the park

Morning walk. Sites that emptied, sites arriving today, anything broken or out of place. Check restrooms, trash, and the dump station early, before guests are up and about.
Arrivals. Know who is coming, which site is theirs, and whether anything is waiting on that site — an extra they ordered, a repair you finished.
The work list. Housekeeping, maintenance, and management each have their own job lists in Camp Orbit, and every park starts with a ready-made starter list for each one — things like turning sites over, checking hookups, and closing the day. When someone finishes a job, it stays on the record with their name and the time, so you can always see what got done.
Operations. Camp Orbit watches your park's information for you — a booking request waiting, a task overdue, stock running low — and flags what needs attention, so nothing slips through.
End of day. Money counted, store sales recorded, tomorrow's arrivals glanced at, gates and lights checked. Ten calm minutes at night saves an hour of scrambling in the morning.

The weekly rhythm matters as much as the daily one:

Weekly: deep-clean restrooms and showers; mow and trim; walk every pedestal and water spigot; check the pool water (the CDC suggests testing chlorine and pH at least twice a day while a pool is open, and your state or county pool rules set the enforceable numbers); count fast-moving store stock and reorder before the weekend.
Monthly: read meters on monthly-stay sites; look at the month's money (Step 10); inspect the septic system area for soggy ground or odors; test smoke alarms in cabins and buildings; review upcoming bookings for gaps you could fill with an offer to past guests.
Each season: service what the season punishes — water lines before a freeze, air conditioners and shade before the heat, septic pumping on the EPA's 3-to-5-year rhythm, tree limbs over sites before storm season.

When something breaks mid-stay — and it will — the order is always the same: safety first, then the guest (move them, fix it, or make it right), then the repair, then write it down. A guest whose problem was handled fast and kindly often becomes your most loyal regular. A guest who could not find anyone becomes a review.

8. Help: hiring staff and workampers

Many parks trade a full-hookup site — sometimes with wages — for seasonal help with cleaning, grounds, maintenance, or the office. Those helpers are called workampers, and hiring them well is a skill. The short version:

Write the posting honestly: exact duties, hours per week, days off, what the site includes, and any wages — before anyone drives a thousand miles on it.
Talk more than once before you offer the job, and check references. Most bad matches are visible before arrival, if you look.
Put the agreement in writing: start and end dates, hours, days off, and the full pay-and-site package.
Stay in touch before arrival, and have their site ready when they roll in.

Our full guide, Hiring workampers who actually show up, covers the whole process, and you can post your opening free on the Camp Orbit Workcamper Jobs board. Workamper News, the field's own publication, keeps a guide for employers on what workampers are looking for.

Interview questions that tell you what you need: What parks have you worked, and may I call them? What jobs do you like most — and which do you not want? How many hours a week do you want, and are you firm on your arrival and departure dates? What does your rig need — length, hookups, a clear path in? What would make you leave early? Honest answers here prevent almost every mid-season surprise.

Have a plan for a no-show anyway. Even good hiring cannot prevent every changed plan — illness and family emergencies end seasons early. Keep a waitlist from your other applicants, know which jobs a neighbour, a local hire, or you yourself can cover for two weeks, and keep your postings current enough that a replacement search starts from somewhere. If someone does not arrive, a short, kind message and a fast move to the waitlist beats a month of hope.

Paid staff vs. workampers. Local paid staff suit year-round and part-time needs; workampers suit a defined season and bring their home with them. Either way, wages are wages: if money changes hands, payroll rules apply (Step 3), and the site-and-wages package should be valued in writing so both sides know the whole deal.

9. The camp store: start small

Open only what you can run well. Most parks start with ice, firewood where it is allowed, basic RV supplies (a sewer hose fitting has saved many a weekend), and a few food and household essentials. Count the stock, mark prices clearly, and keep stock counts and sales in Camp Orbit alongside the rest of the park, so the store does not become a second set of books. Our guide Your camp store without a second set of books shows how that habit works.

A starter shelf, by what guests actually run out of:

Site emergencies: sewer hose fittings and seals, water pressure regulators, fuses, leveling blocks, duct tape, flashlights and batteries.
Comfort: ice, firewood, fire starters, bug spray, sunscreen, basic first aid.
The small grocery: milk, eggs, bread, coffee, a few canned and frozen basics, marshmallows and the makings of s'mores — the single most forgotten purchase in camping.
Local, if you can: a shelf of goods from nearby makers gives guests a souvenir and your park a personality a chain store cannot copy.

Firewood has a rule almost everywhere: many states and parks ask campers not to move firewood long distances, because insects that kill trees travel in it. Buy your firewood locally, and if your state has a firewood rule, post it at the store and the gate — guests respect a rule they learn before they unload a trunk of wood from three states away.

Pricing the store: set each price to cover what the item cost you, the card fee when a guest pays by card, and the few items that will spoil or break before they sell. Write prices so a guest can read them from a step away. And count on a schedule — the same day each week, before the weekend — because a store that runs out of ice on Saturday morning is losing the sales that make it worth running.

Extras are store goods without the store. Firewood and ice listed as booking extras in Camp Orbit are ordered and paid for before the guest even arrives, and waiting at their site when they pull in. For a small park, extras can earn like a store with none of the counter hours.

10. Money: know your numbers weekly

Record expenses as they happen — a repair, a delivery, a utility bill — in the same system as your bookings and store sales.
Once a week, look at three numbers: what came in, what went out, and how many sites are booked for the next two weeks.
Keep a reserve. Septic pumping, a failed water heater, or a quiet month should be an inconvenience, not a crisis.
Download your records when you need them — Camp Orbit's Park Settings let you download your sites, reservations, guests, and more as files for your accountant or your own files.
Plan the slow season before it arrives, not during it. Filling sites in the slow season is our guide to long stays, regulars, and making quiet weeks pay.

The expense list every park has — keep these categories in mind when you look at your numbers, because a new owner is usually surprised by at least two of them: electric and water (your biggest, and they rise with occupancy), septic pumping and trash, insurance, property tax, mowing and grounds, repairs to pedestals, pumps, and water lines, payment processing fees, and the software and internet the office runs on. When a month looks bad, the answer is almost always sitting in one of those lines, growing quietly.

Set money aside as it comes in, not after. Open a second account and move a fixed slice of every week's income into it for taxes, insurance, and the reserve. Ask your accountant what slice fits your park; then make the transfer automatic on the same day you do your weekly numbers. A tax bill you have already saved for is a chore. One you have not is a crisis.

Read your reports like a story. Camp Orbit's reports pull your bookings, store sales, and expenses together. Look for three things: which kind of site earns best per night (it is not always the most expensive one), which weeks are empty every year (those are your slow-season project, months ahead), and which expense grew without a reason. Fifteen minutes a week, and there are very few surprises left in a season.

11. Getting guests: be easy to find

Claim your Google Business Profile. It is free, and it is how your park shows up on Google Search and Maps with your hours, phone, photos, and reviews. Google's own add or claim your profile page walks you through it.
Answer every review — the good ones with thanks, the hard ones with calm and a fix. Future guests read your answers as closely as the reviews.
Use real photos of your actual sites, entrance, and buildings. Guests forgive a small park; they do not forgive a surprise.
Link your booking page everywhere — your website, your Google profile, your Facebook page, and your email signature — so a guest who finds you can book in the same visit.
Join your state campground association and OHI, the national association for RV parks and campgrounds. Their member directories put your park in front of campers, and their owner education is written by people who run parks.

Make your Google profile earn its keep: choose the category "RV park" or "Campground," set your real office hours and your check-in hours if they differ, add your booking page as your website link, and post your best ten photos — entrance sign, typical sites (with a rig in them, so size is honest), bathhouse, store, and the prettiest corner of the grounds. Add a photo or two each season; a profile that changes is a profile guests trust is still open.

Cheap marketing that actually works for parks:

Past guests first. An email to last season's guests in the quiet weeks — a real note, with one clear offer — outperforms any ad, because those readers already know your park. Camp Orbit keeps your guest list, so this season's bookings build next season's mailing.
Local partners. The bait shop, the trailhead outfitter, the diner, the wedding venue with overflow guests: leave rack cards, take theirs, and agree to send each other the customers you cannot serve.
One event of your own. A chili cook-off, a stargazing night, a fishing morning for kids — a small event gives past guests a reason to return and new guests a reason to try you, and it is exactly what turns a slow shoulder season around.
Road signage. More first-time guests still arrive by seeing a sign than by any app. Make sure yours is legal (Step 2), lit, and visible from the direction most traffic comes.

12. Your first 90 days

Days 1–30 — paper and ground. Zoning and license confirmed, business set up, EIN and bank account in hand, insurance quoted. Walk every site and build your site list. Set your rate card and write your rules.
Days 31–60 — set up and rehearse. Camp Orbit set up: park added, sites in, payment link pasted, extras listed. Book a test stay and live it like a guest — find the entrance, check in, hook up, buy something at the store. Fix what confused your test guest. Our Opening day checklist is built for this stage.
Days 61–90 — open and learn weekly. Take real bookings. Every week, read your numbers, your reviews, and your notes page: what broke, what ran out, what guests asked that you did not expect. Fix one thing at a time, safety first.

In practice, those three blocks look like this:

Days 1–30, your errands list: county planning office (zoning in writing) → health department (campground license) → state revenue department (tax registrations) → IRS website (EIN, free) → bank (business account) → insurance agent (quotes, then coverage) → utility companies (accounts in the business's name, and a year of past bills if you bought the park).
Days 31–60, your build list: site list written → sites entered in Camp Orbit → rate card set → rules written and posted → Stripe payment link made and pasted in → booking page tested on your own phone → store basics bought and counted → first workamper or staff posting written → entrance, office, and bathhouse guest-ready.
Days 61–90, your habit list: morning walk daily → arrivals checked daily → jobs finished get marked the same day → store counted weekly → numbers read weekly → one improvement fixed each week from your notes page. Habits, not heroics, are what a good season is made of.

Expect the plan to bend. A permit will take longer than promised; a repair will eat a week. The point of the 90 days is the order — legal ground first, then the system, then guests — not the exact dates.

13. Mistakes almost every beginner makes

Selling a site that is not ready, and spending the weekend apologizing for it.
Three versions of one price — on the website, the office sheet, and the confirmation.
Rules that live only in the owner's head, argued one guest at a time.
No written agreement with seasonal help, so both sides remember different deals.
No reserve, so the first big repair becomes a debt.
Bookings in a notebook, repairs on sticky notes, store money in a shoebox — and no way to see the whole park at once.

Every one of those is a system problem, not a talent problem. Systems can be fixed, and most of them are fixed by keeping the park in one system from the first day instead of the fiftieth.

One more, the most expensive beginner mistake of all: buying the wrong park because the numbers were the seller's best three months. A park is a year, not a summer. Always price a park on its full-year records (Step 2), always count the tax and insurance as they will be for you — not as they were for a seller who owned it for years — and always keep enough cash after closing to run the place for a quiet season. The deal that leaves you with nothing in reserve is not a deal.

Helpful links, checked by us

Every link below was opened and checked on October 30, 2026.

Starting the business

SBA — 10 steps to start your business: the start-to-open checklist, in order.
SBA — Choose a business structure: LLC, sole proprietor, and the rest, side by side.
IRS — Get an EIN: free, direct from the IRS.
IRS — Small Business and Self-Employed Tax Center: taxes, recordkeeping, and forms in one hub.

Water, septic, and safety

EPA — How to care for your septic system: inspections, pumping, and protecting your drainfield.
OSHA & NIOSH — Small Business Safety and Health Handbook (PDF): printable safety checklists for maintenance, housekeeping, and grounds work.
CDC — Keeping your pool safe and healthy: water checks, chemical safety, and drowning prevention — alongside your state and county pool rules, which are the ones enforced.

Learning the RV park business

OHI — So you want to open a campground?: the national association's roadmap from first idea to grand opening, including buying vs. building.
Woodall's Campground Magazine — "2nd Busy Season?" (September 2026): how parks are turning fall into a second busy season with event weekends and long stays.
Woodall's Campground Magazine — Choosing a reservation system (2023): two working park owners on what they learned switching systems mid-season.
Modern Campground — OHI workshop for prospective owners (October 2026): a workshop covering evaluating, financing, and operating a park before you buy — worth watching for the next session.

The short version

Get the ground legal, know your sites, write your rates and rules down once, take bookings and payments in one system, hire on paper, and look at your numbers every week. Do those six things from your first day and you are ahead of most new parks. Camp Orbit was built to hold all six in one place — for one park, the Start plan is $99 a month, and you can set it up today.

Get started with Camp Orbit

Questions before you start? Email us at [email protected] — we answer every email within one business day.