Are you headed out to a national park this summer? Plan to camp? If so, you’d better have a reservation by now — at least if you’ll be visiting the biggie parks — Yellowstone, Yosemite, Zion, Acadia, Grand Canyon.
But with all the new RVers out there, and all those folks who are traveling around the USA instead of Europe, camping reservations can be hard to come by. In some cases, you’ll need to reserve a couple of years ahead of when you want to visit.
So what about you? Do you have a reservation to camp in at least one national park this summer? We’re talking about national parks, not monuments or other federal lands.
Remember, it can take a moment for the poll to load if you’re on a slow connection, so stand by. It will be right along.
Since the 4 NPs we plan to visit this year do not have camping to accommodate our motorhome…it isn’t possible. We stay “near” the park. Last year we did stay at the park in 1 out of 25 visited.
We are too big for most National Parks and will stay nearby. In over 50 years of RVing we have only camped in one of them but have camped just outside of several. National Forest is a different story though.
We are visiting 8+ national parks this spring and will not camp in any of them. We prefer to boondock near NPs rather than stay in them. In a couple of areas, we have reservations at a private RV park.
All National Parks around me don’t allow my partner to enter. He’s a good dog. We boondock most of the time.
Not Summer, but have a week reserved in Yosemite at the end of April.
I’ll visit the national parks unattached to the 5er. But camping outside of any national parks.
We will be going to a few National parks this spring, but reservations are at private campgrounds not far from the parks.
I voted that we have more than one, although we have yet to make them – the reservation 6-month window opening dates are on my calendar for March & April. We spend most of a week at each Rim of Grand Canyon each year. I already have KOA reservations for our overnights at the beginning, middle, and end of the trip.
We know how to cope with the worst crowds at the Canyon. My husband hikes, and will be doing a 2-3 night backpack if he gets a permit at South Rim.
No, not going to any national parks in the future. There are just too many people for us. Glad we visited some of the parks several years ago.
Totally agree, Bob. Way back when I retired we did the customary round of the most popular western Nat’l parks – with no trouble. Now? No way!
Seems the parks are getting more crowded with newbies and trailer trash that don’t respect the rules or ones that don’t respect others. Trash everywhere, noisy unruly kids, noise at all times of the day and night, fires burning all night and dogs running loose.
Wow! “Trailer trash?” You do realize a considerable number of this newsletter’s readers reside in “trailer parks.”
Deborah, I think you are right that most of our readers reside in “trailer parks,” although we call them RV parks. But I think Bob’s point is that there are lot of people who also reside in these same places that do not show respect for their fellow RVers by acting in ways that are rude or otherwise offensive.
I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in a trailer park. I don’t care what you call them NOW, Bob is disparaging a very large group of people. I believe Bob could have found a better term to describe people whose actions he does not like, as he is not showing the respect he is requiring of others.
I have tried to get into Sleeping Bear Dunes Platte River campground and all sites are booked within 1 second of being made available. There is no way this is happening unless there is a computer Bot making the system unusable. I see no way on recreation .gov to verify that real people are logging onto the site and making reservations. This is the first year in the last 14 years we haven’t been able to book our two weeks stay and it sucks.
Totally agree with you. Florida went away from recreation.gov and bought into a different booking system that totally stinks, it also is being manipulated making it impossible to get a site at some of the best parks, if you want interior Florida not an issue. Done with going to Florida too expensive and way too crowded.
2 weeks is extremely difficult to land . If you break it down into 4-5 days at a time you will have better success. I understand moving is a pain . Been coming here over 30 years
best of luck even though you’re the competition
; )
Welcome to 2023, Ed. Another 400,000 RVs will likely join us this year fighting for places to stay. And, yes, bots are making those reservations. A real human most often does not have a chance in grabbing a vacant site before these robots.
So, if a “bot” makes the reservations, what happens to those sites? Do they get rented at some point, or just sit there unoccupied? If the latter, who’s paying for those sites and why?