I'm guessing this is a regional thing, but here in NJ there is a distinction between travel ball and club ball. When we refer to a "travel" team it's a town travel team that is only able to pull players from that town or a few neighboring towns if there is a regional high school. Typically those teams play league schedules and might play a couple of unaffiliated tournaments - the talent level varies greatly from year to year for these teams because they can only pull from a relatively small pool of players. They would typically have much more reasonable fees to join the team. There are exceptions when we have very strong town travel teams, but, by in large they would mostly be considered low B or high C level teams. "Club" teams can pull from anywhere, and run the gambit with regards to talent and are constantly recruiting. Most will strictly play a tournament schedule, although some still play in leagues. It's pretty typical here for a girl to start playing rec, play town travel (if there is a team in her area), and then move to a club team by 12U.