Welcome

A few months ago, a club member posted a message to one of our mailing list, RV-Talk, about her family's first outing in their pop-up. Shortly after they finished setting up in their RV park space, an older couple wandered over from their Class A just to say hello. During the conversation, the older couple told of their experience with their first RV -- a pop-up. On their first trip with their new outfit they blew out all of the water pipes. The campground they stayed at had high water pressure and the then-inexperienced campers didn't know they should have brought along a pressure regulator. Fortunately, the member telling this story didn't need a regulator on that first trip, but they know the advice eventually saved them hundreds of dollars. On future trips they did have a regulator and they did need it.

To me, that story epitomizes what RVing is all about: kindness, sharing, helping, making new friends quickly. The qualities of good character and sociability that seem so rare in our society today can be found easily among RVers. And age makes no difference. The generous and friendly traits so lacking in today's younger generations can be found in ample supply in every age group of RVers. And I mean, every age group. RVers today just aren't oldsters tooling around the countryside. Today, RVers include twentysomethings, thirtysomethings and families with children of all ages. RVing is bigger than ever. And one of the great things to see is how willing the veterans are to help less experienced RVers. I don't think you will find this level of cross-generation sharing and helping in any other group of people.

That's really what The RV Club is all about: RVers helping RVers; RVers making new friends; RVers sharing and laughing together; and, RVers capturing the warmth and instant friendships found around an open campfire. I don't think you will find anything quite like The RV Club any place on the Internet. Sure, there are hundreds of RVing Web sites, but none that offer as many easy and convenient ways to make friends, get help and share advice.

Club History

The true story of the little club that could

The RVClub was launched Sept. 23, 1997, but its history, in some respects, goes back at least to the fall of 1996. At that time, Club founder Howard Owens was online editor for Affinity Group Inc. (Trailer Life, Good Sam, Camping World) In mid-November 1996, he launched an e-mail discussion group for RVers called RV-L. That list proved instantly successful and quickly grew to 800 subscribers.

The idea for an online RV club was first proposed by Owens to AGI. He suggested RV-L could become the nucleus of such a club. Despite receiving an initially warm reception to the idea, the proposal was never fully explored and attempts by Owens to implement some aspects of the Club concept where thwarted. In October 1997, Owens decided to take a few of those ideas along with some others he had developed and launch the Internet Cadillac Club as an off-hours, side project.

Two months later, AGI decided to restructure and roll back its online effort and Owens was laid off. He said his good-byes to RV-L and about 40 members of the group wrote back to wish him well. Over the next several days, Owens watched RV-L flounder without any active list management. He realized the list probably wouldn't survive with a leaner online division at AGI and thought list members just might be interested in an Internet RV club. He also felt that he would like to ensure online RVers, especially the friends he had made through RV-L, had adequate resources to help each other, have fun and learn. No other RV site was providing a full range of Internet services to RVers.

Meanwhile, the Internet Cadillac Club was off to a slow start, but it's basic structure provided the perfect template for an online RV club. Owens dropped the ICC project and began developing the RVClub. Within two weeks of his layoff, Owens was ready to test a new e-mail discussion list for RVers. He contacted the 40 people who initially wrote him after his layoff and invited them to beta test RV-Talk. All 40 people quickly signed up for the new list.

Several days later, RV-L went off line. The list server handling the list developed technical problems that could not be immediately addressed by AGI. Concerned that RVers were being poorly served, Owens quickly prepared RV-Talk for an official launch. By this time, other online RVers heard rumors that Owens was setting up a new list and they began to contact Owens to get more information. Those RVers joined the beta test group. On Sept. 23, 1997, Owens announced RV-Talk was ready to be opened to the public. He also announced the launch of the RVClub Web site and the terms of membership.

Word spread quickly on the Internet and within four weeks, RVC had 500 members. These initial member were awarded charter status in the Club. When RV-L eventually came back online, few RVers continued to participate. Though some who had switched to RV-Talk saw the value of maintaining two lists for RVers, without significant participation, AGI decided to shut down RV-L.

Since its launch, RVC has grown steadily, adding more services and member benefits, signing up new members daily and gaining greater recognition within the Industry.

In early 1999, the RVClub was sold to a new company called RVCare. RVCare was a network of RV dealers dedicated to providing RVers with quality service.  RVCare is no longer active.

Today, the club is owned and operated by Howard Owens in partnership with a former partner in RVCare.

RVClub Firsts

Is the RVClub the most innovative Club and Web site for RVers? You be the judge. Just take a look at this list of things RVC has done before anybody else (and many of these items have yet to be duplicated).

• The first RV club designed primarily for cyberspace.

• The first RV club to offer members a service for secure, online dues payment.

• The first RV Internet site to archive its e-mail discussion list.

• The first RV site to offer regular reviews of other RV Web sites.

• The first online RV bookstore to give RVers a place to post their own book reviews.

• The first RV club and RV Web site to offer a searchable member bio section.

• The first RV Web site to offer a computer help desk.

• The first RV site to give industry professionals a place to discuss industry issues among themselves.

• The first RV Internet site to provide RVers with four of the major interactive discussion options -- chat, threaded discussion, e-mail discussion, instant messaging

• The first Web site for RVers to use a community leader program.

• The first RV organization to offer e-mail classified ads.

• The first RV Club to offer a social mailing list.

• The first Internet site to offer an RV-only Web search engine.

• The first searchable database of RV reviews.