Advance reservations

[Pat & Pete]

In close to 7 years , we've made reservations once . We do call ahead if there's a camp we are interested in staying at .

[Dutch_12078]

We're making our SC, GA, and FL reservations for next winter as soon as the reservation windows open, and we do have a NY State Park site reserved for the 4th of July week. Other than that, we prefer to wing it when possible, although we do make advance reservations where site choice or popularity are an issue. Times have changed from the years when we could pretty much go wherever we wanted to and nearly always get a site for as long as we wanted it. There's lots more competition for sites now...

[Gannet]

For you folks flying without reservations, are you mostly staying in private parks? We're finding that for state, national, and COE it looks like we need reservations, at least it looks that way on their websites. 

[Kirk W]

We sometimes stay in public parks and other times in private ones, just depending upon how long we plan to stop and location as well as access. We typically call the park we wish to stay in, a couple of hours before we arrive.

[JudyJB]

I always make reservations, as far ahead as I can, since I travel alone and am an older lady.  First, it is much more difficult to get a spot in a national or state park, and in busy seasons like the summer for national parks and winter in Florida, they just are not available. 

However, if you do not care where you stay (not me) or if you have to stay occasionally in a Wal-mart, then you don't need tot bother with reservations.  Commercial campgrounds along freeways like KOAs nearly always have last minute spots, so once in a while I will wing-it while just trying to get from point A to B.  However, if I am looking at a specific destination such as Zion National Park, I always make reservations.

And yes, having to pay up to 11 months in advance is a pain, but it is the only way states and national parks can fairly be sure that people who make reservations will actually show up.  I occasionally cancel and pay the cancellation fee (usually $10) for the security of knowing I have a place to stay where I want to stay. 

[SWharton]

We call up where we want to stay a couple of hours before we want to stop. Many public campgrounds have cancellations and/or keep spots for drop ins and callers. We first check to see if there is a boondocking spot before trying the public campgrounds. Private campgrounds generally have some spots if you call.

[2gypsies]

Even for national parks you don't need reservations. In fact, there are campgrounds in the parks that don't even accept reservations. For instance in Glacier there's Apgar campground. In Yellowstone there are multiple campgrounds and also in Grand Teton Nat'l Park.  If a campground doesn't accept reservations someone is going to get a site there. It might as well be you.   Even with our 40' motorhome we got sites in those parks.

 

[docj]

The problem with trying to understand this thread if you're a newbie is that different people who have responded have very different views of what is an acceptable spot to stay in for the night.  If you understand where they're all coming from that's fine, but it's not clear if you read through the posts without knowing the differences.

For example, my wife and I almost exclusively request full hookup sites even for overnight use.  At the national and state parks where those are available there aren't all that many of those and trying to get one without a reservation is akin to winning the lottery.  So when you read someone's post about not needing reservations at national parks, don't think that's what you'll get if you just show up unannounced.  

IMO over the six years we've been full-timing there has been a noticeable reduction in the number of sites available for short term use at private RV parks because so many are being rented on a long term basis.  This is true all over the country in in both urban and even rural environments.  

In addition, state parks that do take reservations are often fully booked on weekends months in advance.  I suspect that many of these reservations get cancelled by people who choose at the last minute not to go and who don't mind the nominal cancellation fee that is often charged.  This appears to be the case in TX where you can cancel a reservation for $10 and weekend spots at most parks are already unavailable months into the future.

As for the situation in Canada with which this thread began, we've had lots of experience with the Parks Canada website for making reservations at national parks.  We've never had a problem.  Detailed photos are provided of every site and all the ones we've stayed at in several parks have been huge, anyway.    But, again, if you want full hookup sites at any of the major parks--Banff, Jasper, etc., be prepared to get online early in the morning on the day they become available.  Even an hour's delay can cause you to lose your chance.

[SWharton]

docj is correct. We all have a different requirements. For us all we want is electricity, we have tanks that we use for water etc. Many times we boondock(no hook-ups) also. About once a week we go to a full hook-up site so we can dump. We prefer that to dumping on the way out of a campground.

Once you are on the road for a while you will figure out what you are comfortable with. So much depends on what season and where you are.

[Barbaraok]

When we first began I figured that we would spend a lot of time in state and national parks.  But just about the time we went fulltiming, the state parks (as well as national) all went to online reservations and from Memorial Day through Labor Day it is next to impossible to get a full week reservations unless you know exactly where you will be all summer long and make reservations on January 2nd.  And as noted above, people make these reservations for Thursday through Sunday, then see two clouds and decide not to go and never worry about the small cancellation fee.  So that site sits empty.   We like the Corp parks because they are only 6 months out and we have had better luck at getting a site.   State parks also instituted the extra charge for a towed behind car unless you purchased a year long pass - - if you are going to only be in the state for 2-4 weeks, the pass may not make sense.   So we gave up on that and went to using membership parks for 1-2 week stays and PPA (and Escapees) for overnight stops.

Barb

[steved44]

Yep, everyone has their needs and necessaries in this business. We generally don't make reservations, but we belong to the Elks Club, so if all else fails we can stop at one of those.  Most of them don't take reservations, but they will let you dry camp in their parking lot if they happen to be full. You do have to belong to the Elks though.   We do tend to boondock some in the winter months in the West as we do have a pretty good solar array.   One place we have found to be accessible are state or county fairgrounds.  We were in Indio California and just on a whim called the fairgrounds.  They had 50 or 60 50A full hook-up sites and no-one else was there.  It was even gated!  So it always pays to check all of your options. We do tend to travel more in the fall of the year after school is in session (how about January in South Grand Canyon), no crowds there.  Another place we have found campgrounds is in small towns.  A lot of times they are not advertised but are reasonable and have room.  We do spend part of the summer in Oklahoma because our grandkids are here (and we don't want to miss tornado season), but the rest of the year we tend to look for cooler places to explore. We do use PPA and Escapees parks too.  Since we started full-timing in Feb of 08, we have not been left out in the cold (YET)!!    Enjoy the adventure     Steve