Gateway to Cape Cod - Thousand Trails

The rate quoted is a Passport America rate. We stayed here because of the PA discount and the proximity of the campground to friends.

This campground is a former KOA (you can tell by the camp office building). It is gated, upon arrival you have to call the office via the microphone to gain access. You are then told to find a site, then come back to the office and tell them which one you took.

The road leading into the campground is paved, but turns into dirt. Come in via High Street to Stevens Road. Do not take Pierce (it's a farming road around the cranberry bogs) Upon reaching the campground, the gated main entrance is paved, but the remainder of the the roads are sandy dirt and full of pot holes. The area has a lot of trees and a sandy soil....which of course gets tracked into your rig.

The campground has full hookups (Water, electric, sewer). The is no cable. There is WiFi, at least close to the camp office where we were. It was capped at 1 Mbps and would frequently dropped out. Frustration led to us using the MiFi. Verizon wireless was 2 bars of 4G if I put my phone in the window. Otherwise it was 3G.

There are a good number of seasonal sites and park homes in the campground. We stayed in October, I was surprised to see the place about 75% full.

This was an average campground that could be so much more. The roads needed grading....we had a 2" rain storm while there which lead to huge puddles in the roads. The junk laying around the camp office could cleared out. The adult lounge looks like a construction trailer.

If in the area to visit our friends, we would stay here again. But that is the only reason.

We were there on a busy holiday weekend and there was a lot to do for the kids, so that was great! We stayed here to be close to Boston and we were happy with the time it took us to get up there. We were also able to get to the cape fairly quickly.

The whole campground and sites were made of dirt and this started to cause a problem when a rather large rainstorm turned the whole place into mud. There were a lot of dips in the dirt that made large puddles that did not even dry up over a 2 day period. Taking the dog for a walk or even just walking around the campground became a bit difficult. Some large gravel on the sites at least would really help with this problem for next time it rains. Hopefully in off-season they will fill the holes and get it less muddy for next rain.

The sites were pretty good sized. I can tell that when they removed trees, they decided to only remove about half as many as most campgrounds. So even though the parking might be a little tight for large rigs, you then have a nice amount of sitting space before the next site starts. The hookups were also really good with nice water pressure and consistent power.

The wifi is a paid service but we were pretty close to the Member Lounge hotspot and it worked just fine while we were there. We used it for some work as well as streaming movies without issues.

Because of the holiday weekend, plenty of activities for the kids. They had a nice playground, a good pool (that was closed, but looked nice) as well as some other areas.

The laundry area was also good. Lots of washers and dryers for use.

Unfortunately no dog park area, so once we took her near the lake entry and let her run around.

We would stay again, just hopefully not before a rainstorm.

Sites are narrow and roads are tight making turns. Friendly helpful staff. Was able to work off ATT. T-Mobile was in and out of service. Looks like they are doing work to help with the roads. All sites with power look to be 50 amp.

Stayed here and at Old Chatham TT in Cape Cod. This is one is better for sure. Old Chatham is a mobile home park with a few transient sites and no laundry. Definitely more of a campground here with tall trees and a good camping feel. Mostly pull throughs so that’s nice. Decent amount of room between spots too. They are mostly dirt and there will be mud and giant puddles when it rains as I saw. (Get some class 5 in those areas!)
The only negative is that the map shows trash bins in numerous areas and I went to each to find no bins. Was told they moved everything to a very inconvenient spot behind the main office. Pretty gross back there but it’s away from the campers at least. Update the map!
Great spot overall and its 9 min to the nearest Walmart and other amenities.

7/15: Arrival - First, and I suspect this is largely due to the number of people in the area, Verizon (2mps/1mps) and AT&T (2.5mps/1.5mps) are not really that good during the daylight hours, but voice use is fine. Late night, you can actually stream shows (8mps/3mps), but during the day you're lucky if you can use Facebook or check your email. Connecting to a work computer through a VPN is really difficult due to the slow speeds.

WiFi ($$) is OK and typically better than 3mb down/1mb up so you can use it for may work applications. Connecting to your work computer though a VPN is fairly workable. Streaming? Not so much. Signal occasionally drops out for a very short period of time. You'll be happier if your streaming device can download shows for later viewing.

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UPDATE 7/22: Overnight, Verizon went up to 10mbs/3mps during the day and I'm streaming and video conferencing without issue. AT&T is still slow. The WiFi has been slowly degrading (now under 2mps) and is too slow to for work/VPN use. It's OK for checking your mail if you don't have any attachments to download.
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UPDATE 7/26: Everything was very good through the weekend. Yesterday there was a little slowness but bandwidth was good, but today I'm getting 2mb down and 4mb up for speed. The WIFI is, for all purposes, useless with very little bandwidth available. The bandwidth for Verizon went up to about 6/2 around noon. Makes it difficult to work when things yo-yo like that.
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TV reception is OK for the most part, but many may perceive there being a lack of channels worth watching.
If you want to listen to the radio, you need something half-way decent to grab the signal. I've got two FM radios and the little one just doesn't pick up much.

The campground is mostly hard-packed dirt and some gravel. If it hasn't rained for a while, it gets dusty. Otherwise the campground is really nice.

Pros
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Quiet... and I mean QUIET! for most of the week.
While it's an old campground, they haven't let it go... it's fairly well maintained.
The sites are fairly level, but the trees may make navigating into a few of the sites a challenge for big-rigs.
Big, brand new dog park
In park snack shack
Good looking pool (didn't try it out)
It's Cape Cod, go out and enjoy the area!

Cons
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Lots of seasonal campers - nice people, but it's really busy on the weekends.
Dusty if it hasn't rained for a while
It's Cape Cod, watch out for heavy traffic in certain areas

Other things
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There's a fantastic little diner up the road that sells really excellent Fish & Chips and ice cream (tons of flavors). The fries are decent but the onion rings are somewhere around amazing. The Chicken fingers were a nice surprise as they were moist and tender.

Nice looking bike trails in the area, but MA does not allow eBikes on their trails, so they can kiss it.

When coming in, do not follow your GPS if it tries to get you to turn at Porter road as that takes you through a neighborhood. Turn onto Stevens road from High St. The road will become a rough, so do the posted 10mph.

Park is big but narrow roads. Sites are 1st come first serve. All sites are also dirt and the B section is very uneven. A sites are the best to stay in but hard to get. C is in the back and narrow sites and kind of flat.
One thing to keep in mind is you will have ZERO or VERY slow cell and NO Starlink service. We actually had to leave in the morning and find a new campground as we work from the road.
If you need to work and be online, I highly recommend jelly stone 20 min up the street.
Staff is super friendly but this TT is very much camping and off grid.
They offer a paid Wifi service but it was about as slow as dial up. Lol.

We came at the end of the season but the campground is nice. The staff is nice. The place is quiet. The roads are all dirt and kind of bumpy. The restrooms are clean and look sort of recently renovated. The store is small but clean. The laundry is average. We will definitely stay again. T-Mobile service is not good. Wi-Fi is slow.

We have a Thousand Trails membership (older contract) that does not cover this park. But I could use the STORAGE YARD area for $25 a week. This made it convenient to stay with friends in the area. You might be able to take advantage of this, so call ahead and ask them if it is available for temporary storage. Used it in September 2018.

We chose this Campground because it is part of our Thousand Trails Membership and it was just 15 minutes from Thomasland (Edaville Family Amusement Park)! My twin 5 year old boys are Thomas the train obsessed so this was a must see for them. It was very clean and well maintained. There was a very bad rain storm during our visit and some areas did flood (it poured buckets all at once) but the staff were out and immediately clearing drains and staying on top of it so it was cleared up quickly. A lot of the sites are pull thru and the full hook ups are in good working order. The sites are nicely shaded and the pool was wonderful. The playground was new and well maintained.

First I will say that all of the staff we encountered here were very friendly and helpful.

Beyond that, this park needs a lot of love.

From reviews and talking to the staff it appears that this part was just brought into the thousand trails network about a year ago and they are making improvements.

The pool area is decent.

The showers are scary.

All of the roads and the sites are unlevel dirt. Like not even kind of level or flat. The roads alone will shake your teeth out even at 5mph.

The 'residents' of the park do not keep their sites tidy and clean and it does not appear that the campground management requires that of them so it kind of has a trailer park vibe.

Cell service was usable but not fast. We had to drive around to find a decent spot that had cell service. We looped around twice. The download speeds varied a lot... 20 at times, down to less than 1.

With some love this park could be pretty awesome considering the location.