Grounding is a pretty complex subject. The important thing to keep in mind is if you are plugged into the pedistal at the camp site, you are grounded to the pedistal, most likely poorly and this is worse than not being grounded at all. We've had numerous occasions here in Colorado where moving vehicles have been struck while driving. Last year we had a fatality up near Boulder, dude on a motorcycle was hit. Point being you cannot assume that the rubber tires on your camper are going to prevent a strike from directly impacting you. Lightening hits things all the time that people would assume it won't. You have a billion volts trying to get to the ground, anything and everything in it's path is at risk - even if that item is not grounded at all. Lightening frequently passes through items on its way to a better ground. i.e. the frame of your camper is inches off the earth. lightening will have no problem at all going through your frame, on it's way to the ground via a secondary arc. Ground to cloud lightening is also extremely common. That big steel frame that is grounded to everything in your camper makes a fine short cut for these type of strikes.
All those antennas sticking up on your roof can / and will attract lightening. The electronics inside your camper are all grounded as well. Either to your battery, or to that less than ideal common ground point where you are plugged in. Having a metal 'foot' making ground contact isn't a bad idea because it supplies another basic ground point, although not a very good one. If you are going to be grounded at all, it needs to be a good one to provide any value.
I'm a ham radio guy and work on large antenna farms. These systems take direct hits every year without issue because we spend most of our time and money on the grounding system.. not realistic for campers and while our equipment survives the experience, if a person was in the 'radio shack' at the moment of the strike, they likely would not.
This is a dangerous statement
"You do NOT want to create a path to ground for the current from a lightening bolt."
The entire point of grounding your equipment IS to provide a path to ground. Not having one results in property destruction, and potential electrocution. If you don't give lightening a good path to ground, it will vaporize your camper if it's struck, and probably will anyway... it's hard to really know what to do.
If you are 100% sure that all chains are off the ground, you are not plugged into *anything* and your electronics are all off, you probably are a little safer than the guy that is plugged into the pedistal, a generator, or has a random wire touching the ground but I wouldn't bank on that. Just my 2 cents.
One other thing.. by far - our biggest risk is not direct strikes, but the one that hits the ground or that tree 20 feet away from you, works it's way into the power system at the camp ground and fries every RV in the park that doesn't have a good EMS installed. If your goal is to protect yourself from these type of events, get a good EMS and try not to worry about it
If I was at a long term site, I would pound a ground rod and bond it to the frame of my camper with heavy gauge wire.
When it's my time, it's my time.
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