HCC might not be a good DC for someone on the east coast, especially if you want to drive. If flying longer distances doesn't bother you for short stays and really really like skiing in CO where about half their inventory is found, you might find the pickings a little scarce with HCC.
There are only 6 'domestic' locations east of the Mississippi:
Stowe Vermont,
NYC (600 sq ft!),
Hilton Head,
FL panhandle,
Orlando, and
OuterBanks inland (sometime this spring).
HCC's membership shot up to 400 last year, but their number of locations per member looks like it fell, so you could experience big problems getting good locations like LaCosta, CA and HH during the summer. They recently added a house high in the hills of Maui about 40 minutes from water, and a 10,000 sq ft house in the Steamboat hills that seems like a little overkill, but it came from a private investor buying his way into HCC. They do allow 2 week stays in Tuscany but that's the only Europe location to date. Paris is on the books, but like a number of the other
'in development' locations, members know nothing ... making the 'future destinations' seem like pie-in-the-sky promises.
http://www.highcountryclub.com/destinations/In_Development.asp
There are restrictions on how long you can stay at any given resort and I think that's one week only, unless you book a different place for the 2nd week. There are also restrictions on 'holiday' travel - like the whole month of March!
There is no maid service, no chef, no room service, and many of the 'beach' locations are pretty far from water so you might find TS resorts have better 'beach' locations and more availability due to the physical number of units available. Some of the locations are smaller than 2 bdrm timeshares, but seem to have a higher quality of decor even if few are in 'prime' locations -
ON the beach or
Ski-in/Ski-out.
I do like the 3, 4 and 7 night stay options HCC started as there are probably some last minute locations (like NYC) that would be attractive for shorter stays than one full week ... but with a place like HH, and some others, a 7 night stay is too restrictive IMO compared to my being able to book 4 weeks in a row 13 months ahead at my Marriotts. A problem with
Turks would be there is only one location with HCC and once it's booked there isn't another one available while larger DC's have more than one location at the popular sites.
HCC members are a committed group and won't like this post, but it does appear that some members seem a little disenchanted by a lack of communications on how HCC is doing with the expansion of locations to maintain the promised 6-1 ratio especially in view of the member growth they had in 2007. I think HCC has their hands full with rapid expansion of members - on one hand they have done well, but member disatisfaction could become a major stumbling block as a result. JMHO