Trouble Reserving Campsites

[Jcolang]

Hello Friends,

I live up in the Pacific NW and have recently moved here from beautiful and sunny New Mexico. I've found that RV campgrounds up here book up in early Spring and stay booked through Fall. RV camping has become so popular that now very young people are buying RVs and more people than ever before are entering retirement. As a result there is growing demand for RV campgrounds, higher costs for the sites, and fewer of them available. Up here in the NW, if you haven't booked your site by April or May, you can pretty much count on not getting any weekend sites ANYWHERE and if you are lucky you may get a mid-week spot in an undesirable location. I love to RV but I work full time and the only time I can get away is on weekends so I am really visualizing some good luck coming my way. I wish more RV campgrounds would open but with the rising cost of Real Estate prices and land taxes, people are not very inclined to open new RV parks.

Does anyone have any tips to help reserve sites? I always book on line and book EARLY and I always post on YELP my favorite campsite spots and belong to several on line forums. I think it's very helpful to consult others who have found helpful ways around this. I did join a national RV campsite (paid) membership but found after I joined that it's not very helpful and their member sites don't seem to have any more availability than non-member sites.

I wish I were retired! I'd be out there every month. As soon as I retire I am going to take a year off and travel all over the USA and Canada in my rig!

John

 

[GaryS-WO]

In our experience many (if not all) of the popular national park campgrounds fill up months in advance. HOWEVER:

If you monitor their websites you will find vacancies in time due to people canceling their reservations. We were able to get a campsite at Grant Village in Yellowstone two weeks before we left on our last trip due to a cancellation. Also, while we were there we met a couple that were working as campground volunteers and they told us that the campground was rarely full due to cancellations and people just not showing up. So, check the reservation website daily and be flexible and you will not have to reserve a site a year in advance.