Every winter, some version of the same offer lands in a small-park owner's inbox or voicemail: "We loved our stay last summer. Would you do a seasonal rate if we left the camper there all year?"
It's a tempting deal, and in 2026 it's getting more tempting. Transient RV travel has softened — campers are taking fewer, shorter, closer-to-home trips, and park model and destination-trailer sales keep climbing while towable shipments slide. More campers want a home base. More parks are wondering whether to give them one.
The answer isn't yes or no. It's which sites, how many, and at what price — and most owners who get burned skipped one of those three questions.
What a seasonal site actually is
Definitions vary by region, so be precise in your own head before you're precise in a contract. A seasonal site is typically:
- One camper, one named household, for the full operating season (often May through October in northern states, or the full year in the Sunbelt)
- The rig stays parked whether the guest is there or not
- One flat seasonal rate, usually paid in one to four installments
- Utilities either bundled or metered separately
That's different from a monthly guest, who books month to month and can leave — or be asked to leave — with notice. A seasonal commitment runs the whole season, in both directions. That's the feature and the bug.
The math, honestly
Start with what the site earns as a transient site today. Not what it could earn at 100% occupancy — what it actually earned last year.
An illustration. Say a water/electric site rents for $45 a night and filled 70 nights last season. That's $3,150 in transient revenue. If a seasonal camper offers $2,800 for the season, you're giving up $350 of gross — in exchange for zero turnover cleaning, zero no-show risk, no midweek vacancy, and money you can book in February.
Now run the same math on your best site — the pull-through by the water that filled 110 nights, half of them at a $60 weekend rate. That site grossed north of $5,500. A $2,800 seasonal on that site is a $2,700 pay cut you signed up for voluntarily.
The pattern: seasonals make sense on sites that sit empty, and cost you money on sites that sell out. If you don't know your per-site occupancy, that's the first thing to fix — it's the whole decision. (It's also one of the five numbers worth checking every month.)
What the back-of-napkin math leaves out
Four costs that don't show up until the second season:
Electric. A transient camper runs the A/C for a weekend. A seasonal camper runs it all July, plus a mini-fridge on the deck and maybe a space heater in the shoulder months. If your seasonal rate bundles electric, you've written them a blank check. Meter the pedestal, or set the bundled rate assuming heavy use — and say which one you did in the contract.
Peak weekends. Every seasonal site is a site you can't sell on July 4th. If your park turns away transient guests ten weekends a year, each conversion deletes your highest-margin inventory first.
Appearance drift. One camper becomes a camper plus a deck, a shed, a second vehicle, string lights, and a tarp. None of it is malicious; all of it changes what a first-time weekend guest sees on arrival. Your contract — not a mid-August argument — is where you decide what's allowed.
Rate stickiness. Transient rates can move every season without a conversation. Seasonal rates move one awkward conversation at a time, which is why parks end up with ten-year seasonals paying 2019 prices. Build an annual increase into the renewal, even a modest one, so raising the rate is the default instead of a confrontation.
How many, and which ones
A few guardrails that hold up across most small parks:
- Cap the percentage. Many owners land somewhere between 20% and 40% of sites as seasonals. Past that, the park's character shifts from campground to residential community — which is a legitimate business, but a different one, with different insurance, different regulations, and in some states different tenancy law. Decide on purpose, not by accretion.
- Convert your coldest sites first. Back row, no view, far from the bathhouse. Seasonals care about community and a home base more than the site itself; transient guests shopping your map care a lot.
- Start below your cap. Converting a transient site to seasonal takes a signature. Converting it back means ending someone's summer tradition. Add seasonals in twos and threes and hold some powder.
Seasonals pair especially well with a longer shoulder season: they're the guests still showing up in late September when the transient calendar goes quiet, and their payments are the floor that makes staying open pencil out.
Put it in writing, and put it in the system
A seasonal agreement doesn't need a lawyer's letterhead, but it does need: the dates, the rate, the payment schedule, who pays electric, rules on decks/sheds/subletting/guests, proof of insurance on the rig, and what happens if either side wants out early. One page, signed, every season — including for the regulars you'd trust with your truck. Especially for them.
Then track seasonals in the same system as everything else. A seasonal site managed on a side spreadsheet is how a new hire double-books "that empty-looking site on row C," and how a $700 installment quietly goes unpaid until August. Bunkpost handles long-term and seasonal stays alongside transient bookings on the same grid, so the site shows as occupied, the balance is visible, and payments run through the same Stripe account with daily payouts as every weekend reservation. You can see everything else it covers on the features page.
The trade-off, plainly
Guaranteed revenue is capped revenue. A park full of seasonals has a predictable floor and a hard ceiling — no upside from a great-weather summer, a new attraction nearby, or your own improving reviews. A park with zero seasonals keeps all the upside and eats all the risk. The right mix depends on your occupancy, your cash-flow needs, and honestly, how much you like running a community versus running a hotel.
But if you have sites that sat empty 290 nights last year, a fair-priced seasonal on each of them is found money — as long as the rate assumes real electric use, the contract renews annually, and the count stays under a cap you chose in advance.
If you're weighing the mix for next season, Bunkpost is free for the park — no monthly fee, no setup fee; guests pay a flat $3 booking fee at checkout, and seasonal billing doesn't cost you anything at all. See how the model works on the pricing page, or how setup works if you want next season's seasonals and transients on one calendar before renewal letters go out.