Reservations required?

Hello everyone,,

We're planning our 1-year on the road starting this summer. We have our route generally mapped out, but wondering how detailed we need to get with making reservations at RV parks.

Our general plan is to make a counter-clockwise circle around the US originating from the east coast. We planned to travel a few hours, camp a few days, and repeat. Periodically spending just 1-day somewhere, but averaging maybe 2-3 days at each location; and with the occasional 2-3 weeks at National Parks, etc... I guess I hadn't planned on making specific reservations for the trip, but we just looked into a sight for the beginning leg, and was surprised to see the reservations are already starting to fill up for the summer. I'd really like to avoid having to commit to a specific schedule, so is there room to be flexible? Or do we have to make reservations and try to stick to them?

Perhaps the right answer is to make reservations well in advance for the busier places; i.e. national parks, and then use those as anchor points in our overall schedule - but be free an easy with the rest?

Thanks!

There are some people on this forum who probably don't go to the bathroom in their own house without making a reservation first. I spent 10 years doing just what you did, traveling the US and spending a lot of time in the National Parks. I made exactly one reservation in the entire ten years and never had a problem finding a site. I would suggest starting your trip without reservations and then if you are having problems you can start making reservations ahead.

Like Tom, we don't tend to book anything in too far advance as we like the flexibility.  It can also cost money if you need to change plans for some reason.  We either book the day before we move or on the day, or just turn up and hope for the best.

I do book a few days in advance if it is a place I particularly want to go to.  Although we don't always get our first choice of campground.

Now, having said that, at the present time with the Virus I know that some places are much busier than normal, some places are taking less campers and some campgrounds are closed putting pressure on free spots and other RV parks.

I would suggest allowing yourself some flexibility but check a week in advance of places you want to go to, to ensure there are open campgrounds, and then booking maybe a few days or day in advance.  IF you are happy to be flexible.  Some people don't like to wing it and need the comfort of knowing where they are going.

You will get a variety of opinions and I would listen to folks who are currently out on the road and in particular to those close to or at the places you want to be. 


Feel free to post in the Destinations section any time you are planning your next move, there will be someone who has recent info I am sure.

And welcome to the forum.

We find that at State and National Parks, National Forests and COE parks we generally do not have a problem getting in Sunday-Thursday. Friday-Saturday are usually booked.

Oldgator73 said:

We find that at State and National Parks, National Forests and COE parks we generally do not have a problem getting in Sunday-Thursday. Friday-Saturday are usually booked.

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One of the other forum members is currently in Montana and said that some places are now filling up Thursdays.  Some people are taking tents and leaving them to save a space. Rangers in one park were leaving a note and if the folk didn't contact them the next day the tent was getting confiscated.  It is a bit crazy out there at the moment I think.

Also with more places being reserve only instead of walk ins (which I hope does not become permanent), folks are reserving then not turning up and camp hosts cannot release the site if no-one turns up, however, apparently a Ranger can.  Some people are happy to relinquish their fee.  I hate when people don't cancel if they are not using a site.  Selfish.

We are currently in Estes Park at a Private Campground.

We RECONd the two partially open Campgrounds in Rocky Mountain National Park Last week. Some loops within Moraine and Glacier areas closed. Covid, bathrooms etc. So in a covid world of those two campgrounds open, only 60% of the campground is "really" available to book.

Big trips and pre booking will rush and stress you. Your anchor point booking sounds good and if you want to stay inside the park in a covid world you may have to pre book. 

Have Fun.

John

It really depends on where and when you want to go and what size / type of RV you have, and how flexible your schedule is, as well as if Covid camping craziness is still going on.  For example last October we made a roughly month long 2,800 mile loop from Louisiana to the Grand Canyon and back. Booking 3 nights at mather campground inside Grand Canyon NP about 5 weeks in advance, though to do so we had to alter our route in order to Page, AZ then the Grand Canyon, vs or original plan of doing the loop the other way around, as both Mather campground, and Trailer village campground in the national park were booked up for our original dates.  The strange thing is the dates that were open were with us arriving on a Saturday, vs arriving on a Tuesday which was booked solid.  The only places we made advance reservations on that trip were Grand Canyon, Wahweap campground in Page, and in Sante Fe (arriving on the last day of the Albuquerque balloon festival).  A few of the other places involved calling from the road to get a place for the night, and on occasion pulling into a random campground, always managed to get a spot for the night, though a couple of times we barely did.  For example stopping as Cosmic campground in the Gila National Forest in NM, we got the last site of the 7 or 8 sites in the campground.  Most of the other sites were filled with hunters as unbeknownst to me hunting season was scheduled to open the next morning.

It depends on where you?re going, and when you?re going to be there.

I once booked a state park 363 days ahead and got the last site in the entire campground.

Sadly my next reservation is at a body shop.

I think everyone just has to have a strategy to follow and then enjoy the adventure...

When we road tripped via hotels we did not plan in advance. We would arrive at the new place and then look at the next leg (we do like 400 mile days in the car) and make a reservation for the next leg. If our Prime location was not available we always found something in like a 50 mile radius of our target.

In the RV I also have the flexibility to overnight in a rest stop, Walmart etc if we don't have a spot. As others said, I would book the spots where I want to be for a weekend much earlier and plan to get there. I would look at cancellation policies and cancel early if I know I could not make it to a spot I booked 3 months early...

Plans change.

Very few places need to be reserved well in advance, primarily those that are extremely popular, e.g. Yellowstone or Yosemite.  Some spots have high weekend traffic and a few are busy year around; otherwise there is either no need or you can book a day or so in advance once you get near in time and distance.

With cell phones and internet, it's easy to look a day or two ahead on your itinerary and check site features and availability.  Then book a site if you want that level of comfort before arrival.  If headed toward an area with plenty of campground choices there is probably no need to reserve, but sometimes an area may have only one  choice you feel is acceptable. Make your own judgement about that.

We made reservations at Raccoon Branch CG in the Washington Jefferson NF, VA. They have 20 site with electric and water and several more with no utilities. When i reserved I got the only reservable site as the rest were first come first served. Our reservation is for Mon-Wednesday beginning on the 24th of August. Weekends were pretty much booked up but there were many open dates on Sundays-Thursday?s.

One of my "war stories" is about the fall weekday afternoon we arrived at a nice 35 site campground in a small Iowa town and found it to be 100% reserved.  It seems it was Homecoming Week at the local college and every campsite and motel room in town was taken. And no other facilities within about 35 miles!  We only needed an overnight spot, but nothing available, not even a Walmart or truck stop.  We hadn't even called ahead, thinking that a small town on a weekday couldn't possibly be booked up.  There is just no way to predict something like that!

The gracious lady who owned the campground was very sympathetic with our plight and offered us a place we could park near a 20A utility outlet, apologizing that it was muddy and not a prepared site. Wouldn't accept any fee for it either. We are thankful for anything and even a little power was a bonus, so we still made out OK.

The need for reservations has been increasing over the last ten years, but has accelerated to more and more places over the last 3 years. With more people vacationing by RV this year because of Covid-19 many places that in the past would not have been an issue are booking up particularly on weekends. While I expected this on the Oregon Coast, I was surprised on our trip from Newmar Service (Nappanee, IN) to the Oregon Coast. Example, Interstate RV Park in Davenport, IA was filled and turning people away both times we stayed there on our travels east and west. We had booked both stays several days in advance. On our trip east I had wanted to stayed overnight at the KOA in Cheyenne but its was booked out at least 2 weeks in advance. Now for this KOA they did have smaller sites just nothing for our 63 ft length (44 plus tow)



Last summer on the Maine coast I booked most stays for the east Coast part of the trip in February and was already locked out of 2 campgrounds I wanted. I've already booked those for next year.
This year I booked out trip on the Oregon Coast in January but couldn't get into several campgrounds. One in Astoria where we have stay before with little problem with booking a few weeks out and 2 in Port Townsend in Washington. 


All that said, there are still many places you can travel without reservations, but we have taken to at least calling for reservations by mid day on travel days.
I should also note that many places are only booked on weekends and that weekdays are much easier. But even that failed when trying to book Astoria and Port Townsend for this summer.


On the good side maybe next year (assuming no Covid 19) could be a little easier. Also there are actually a few new RV parks being built. This year we are staying in 2 brand new parks. Bay Point Landing in Coos Bay, OR (Private park) and Southern Oregon Campground in Medford, OR (County park). Both appear to be very nice and well laid out for big rigs.

Ken & Sheila said:

The need for reservations has been increasing over the last ten years, but has accelerated to more and more places over the last 3 years. With more people vacationing by RV this year because of Covid-19 many places that in the past would not have been an issue are booking up particularly on weekends.

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As a newbie RV'er I don't know what it was like before but 4th of July week was booked solid all around the panhandle and I ended up getting one of the last reservable spots in Biloxi MS.

My two closest weekender state parks are full the week of a weekend and I am booking 2 weeks in advance to make sure I can get in. I expect holiday weekends will be really tough.

We make sure to have the holiday's booked, including Halloween.  We mostly just book out a week or two in advance unless it's a popular area.
I also like to call some of the campgrounds we are interested in staying at to see if there will be sites available or if there are any special events planned.

As said, a lot depends on where and when. For short 1-4 day mid-week stays we generally have no problems finding a site, but for longer stays of a week or two, it gets more problematic. State parks in particular may require reservations well in advance, especially if you have particular site preferences. We've already booked NY state park stays for a 2 week July 4th stay and Labor Day week for 2021 and there's only a few sites left as of last week. Our upcoming Labor Day stay at a NY state park was booked last January, but a 4 day midweek stray at a nearby state park was only booked a few days before we went there last week when two sites were still available.

If you want to stay in a national park in the summer, you absolutely have to have a reservation, but frankly, I would not recommend staying in any of the big national parks in the summer.  Try to schedule slightly off-season to avoid the crowds and heat. 

However, it is getting really hard to find a place, even weeks in advance, at state parks, especially on big weekends like Labor Day, etc.  And don't forget that big weekends include three-day weekends in warm climates, like President's Day or Veterans Day.  And ditto for college towns in the fall and graduation times, although this year will be different in terms of sports, etc. 

If you don't mind staying 40 miles away in a commercial campground or in a parking lot, you can skip the reservations except during the summer, but given a choice, I would MUCH rather stay inside a national park than drive in and out 40+ miles each day!  And KOA is not quite the same as Yellowstone or Yosemite! 

Moosewala said:

Hello everyone,,

We're planning our 1-year on the road starting this summer. We have our route generally mapped out, but wondering how detailed we need to get with making reservations at RV parks.

Our general plan is to make a counter-clockwise circle around the US originating from the east coast. We planned to travel a few hours, camp a few days, and repeat. Periodically spending just 1-day somewhere, but averaging maybe 2-3 days at each location; and with the occasional 2-3 weeks at National Parks, etc... I guess I hadn't planned on making specific reservations for the trip, but we just looked into a sight for the beginning leg, and was surprised to see the reservations are already starting to fill up for the summer. I'd really like to avoid having to commit to a specific schedule, so is there room to be flexible? Or do we have to make reservations and try to stick to them?

Perhaps the right answer is to make reservations well in advance for the busier places; i.e. national parks, and then use those as anchor points in our overall schedule - but be free an easy with the rest?

Thanks!

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Edited to remove strange links

You can always drive further if you can't find a place to stay when you're just travelling around - HOWEVER, if there are places you really have to see (Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, Portland Blue Festival, Sturgis Rally, etc. etc.) then YES make a reservation so that you won't miss your key spots (make them as soon as you can) and end up sleeping 50 miles from your nirvana.


Been there, done that.