What do you do if you can't find campground?

[Mike Leslie]

What do you do if you can't find a campground?  I don't mean down the highway, I mean at destinations.

We have a 4-6 week trip planned.  Glacier National Park is one of the many parks we will stop at.  The reservation camping parks seemed to be filled (for third week of June).
What is the procedure for the first come-first served campgrounds ? Will we likely get a site.?  What do we do if we can't.? 

Any helpful hints are welcomed. Please!!

Mike and Leslie
29 ft Minnie Winnie

 

[BoomerD]

All the parks around the national parks will tend to be full-up this time of year. Mom, Dad, and the kids are all out there, trying to see the sights...

Try the various sites:

http://www.goodsamclub.com/travel/campgroundsandrvparks/Default.aspx

http://koa.com/

http://www.allstays.com/Campgrounds/

And some of the others.

 

[UTTransplant]

I am going to assume you mean National Park and National Forest first-come, first-served campgrounds. The trick we use is to find a commercial campground the first night as close as possible to the campground we want to get. Then get up early and be at the campground by 8:00am. Look at who is leaving. When you find someone leaving (check the date on the ticket or just look for someone packing up), and it is a site you can fit in, talk to the campers and tell them you are hoping for their site. Can you pay for it and put your receipt on the pole? Rarely you get someone who is an ass; most say "Sure." You go pay for the site, put your ticket on the post, and wait for them to leave. Remember they don't have to check out until 11:00 or so, so don't rush them! Just find some place to hang out of the way, have another cup of coffee, and relax.

When we had a little trailer, we never had a problem doing it like this. Bigger trailers are more of a risk since there are fewer sites they fit. Your 29' isn't too big so you should be ok.

 

[Busskipper]

What do you do if you can't find a campground?  I don't mean down the highway, I mean at destinations.

We have a 4-6 week trip planned.  Glacier National Park is one of the many parks we will stop at.  The reservation camping parks seemed to be filled (for third week of June).
What is the procedure for the first come-first served campgrounds ? Will we likely get a site.?  What do we do if we can't.? 

Any helpful hints are welcomed. Please!!

Mike and Leslie
29 ft Minnie Winnie

If I can't find a CG I'd ask the Ranger - the only time we have ever had an issue was many years ago in Yellowstone , didn't have a reservation and asked the ranger he sent us to what he called overflow for campers who were self sufficient, it was a horse stables - we backed up to a stream and loved it - stayed three nights till a spot opened up in the regular CG - (Hated it - but after camping in a great spot, by ourselves being in the tent city was just plain lousy)

You know what they say "Better to ask for forgiveness than get permission"  - one year we rolled in to Yellowstone again  and were able to get a room at the Old Faithful Lodge - late cancellation- while we waited on a vacancy in tent city.

Not sure if this was any help but if I were you I'd just go with the flow - there is so much to see and do all around the National Parks if you can't get in you will still just "Love it"

BOL,

 

[garyb1st]

We were in Glacier in June 2014.  Did not have reservations and only had one difficult time.  We generally look for low cost campgrounds and they fill up pretty quickly.  There were some marginal parks that we could have stayed in for about $50+ that we passed on.  We ended up staying in a decent, reasonably priced, $35.00 a night, park for two nights.  The first night we parked in a spot that normally is not rented out.  It did not have hookups.  The second night we moved to a nicer spot with water and electric.  They only charged us 1/2 their usual price for the first night.  Point is, don't be discouraged.  It may take a bit more time but you'll find something. 

 

[blw2]

hey, this is a great question!

We haven't done a lot of these type trips yet, but i am finding that the best parks seem to be really hard to get into.  Yeah, no big surprise....

My issue with winging it on the trip we took to TX was on travel days.
We're trying to make miles, and don't want to stop too early.
but when I start to get tired I don't want to putz around for another couple hours trying to figure out where to park for the night.  Nothing worse than to pull in, ready to stop NOW, and not be able to find a place.... or to find the Walmart you were hoping for isn't suitable for some reason or another

Happened to us recently that we were a bit later than planned coming into a city park CG.  DW had been told late arrivals were no problem, but when we got there, the gate was closed and nobody was home!  The phone number just went to recording....
ugh, that is an irritating situation...  (in this case, a camper soon came out the gate making a store run I suppose, and gave us the code....we were blessed!)  I felt a little wrong in doing that, but we were pre-paid.....

Anyway, I like the sound of Buscamper's overflow spot!

Does anyone know if this is common in FL state parks, or do they turn you away?