If you love RVing on public lands, you aren’t alone. The Recreation.gov reservation website is reporting that there were more than 130,000 RV reservations on public lands in the U.S. in 2020 through its site. That’s more than three times the number of reservations in 2008. Outdoorsy, one of the world’s largest peer-to-peer RV rental companies, took a look at the Recreation.gov numbers to identify the 12 most popular spots for RVing on public lands.
Here are the 12 most popular spots for RVing on public lands:
#12: Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina and Virginia – The 470-mile-long national parkway through the Appalachian Mountains saw 8,114 reservations.
#11: National Forests in North Carolina – The four national forests in North Carolina include Nantahala National Forest, Pisgah National Forest, Uwharrie National Forest, and Croatan National Forest. The four forests cover 1.25 million acres of public lands. In 2020, those forests had 8,219 RVing reservations.
#10: Canyon Lake, Texas – This lake, located between San Antonio and Austin, has seven parks on its shores operated by the Army Corps of Engineers. It saw 8,339 RV reservations in 2020.
#9: Pinnacles National Park, California – This park has 30 miles of hiking trails and hundreds of climbing areas. It had 8,516 RV reservations.
#8: Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona – This includes more than 300,000 acres of public lands. It saw 8,839 reservations in 2020.
#7: San Bernardino National Forest, California – This place includes eight wilderness areas and three wild and scenic rivers. It had 9,065 reservations in 2020.
#6: Yosemite National Park – We all know what this iconic national park has to offer. It saw 10,038 reservations in 2020.
#5: Sequoia National Forest, California – This wonder covers 1.1 million acres with 52 campgrounds. It had 10,482 reservations in 2020.
#4: Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah – This place saw a total of 2 million visitors last year, and had 11,562 RVer reservations.
#3: Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee – With 11,698 RVing reservations, there were a lot of campers on its 500,000 acres in 2020.
#2: Acadia National Park, Maine – The rugged coastline here hosted 14,363 RV reservations on public lands in 2020.
#1: Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona – The top spot goes to the one-of-a-kind hole in the ground, with a whopping 18,436 RV reservations on public lands.
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Thankfully, the places on the list we’d be interested in we’ve already visited, and our favorite places are nowhere to be found on it.
If you’re going to Acadia National Park (#2) be SURE to register online for a pass to Cadillac Mountain Summit….you CANT get a pass at the park….an extra $6 thru Reservations.gov. And get a separate pass for the vehicle also. Just the price we all have to pay for increased demand.
YIKES, you had me worried for a moment. No more, this doesn’t effect me since I AVOID going ANYWHERE where I need a reservation! The one big plus of the surge of newbie interest in rving is that they want all the bells and whistles and head for the nearest disney like rv resort masquerading as a place to CAMP
Disney like- just another name for “too cheap to pay for it”. The reason I have never camped at Disney World is I admit I am too cheap to pay for something not even remotely like camping.