I scored a campsite on a weekend in a National Park! How amazingly lucky am I? Two available days at Hot Springs National Park and, get this, with electricity!
Check for National Park campsite cancellations
I wish I could say I had been trying for days but, no, not this time. I just went online and there it was. A cancellation! Truly a gift! This works for crowded national, state, and county parks, too. If the campground you want to stay at is full, keep checking back. This could happen to you, too!
Build trip around campsite availability
As some of you know, I write our weekly Campground Crowding column. I have not heeded the sage advice of our readers and am only now starting to make travel reservations for the year. I have not even tried to make reservations at a National Park a year or two years ahead of time. Starting this late, to score a campsite at a National Park, the trick is being willing and able to build parts of our trip around a few important places. Once I found and booked the campsite, I moved the rest of the trip around those days. In the past, I have been able to do that for several of the National Parks when they have been impossibly booked.
Try the list view
Some online booking sites show list view with their date availability. Once I have determined the sites that are long enough for our motorhome, I can search specifically for those that are available. That also allows me to see other sites that might be available if I am willing to move.
Please cancel your reservations (if you can’t make it)
This extraordinary gift was ours only because somebody took the time and effort to cancel their reservation. Canceling that early, they may have gotten all if not most of their money back. Even if you can’t get any money back, please cancel and do your fellow campers a favor.
Hmmm, I wonder if Shenandoah National Park has any cancellations…
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Nanci – I agree! I use the List View regularly and it enabled us to secure 3 nights in the Grand Canyon CG. We did have to change sites, but we were ok with that. “Funny” thing, the site we moved from ended up being a “No Show”.
Stay safe,
Joe
Wow, you checked for availability by checking to see what was available? Truly insightful.
I have an even simpler method: we don’t go to national parks in summer. Last Thanksgiving week, we stopped at Arches NP on our way to spend the holiday with our son’s family in Las Vegas and visited Grand Canyon and Monument Valley on our way home While snowbirding in AZ and NV during the winter, we camped in several national monuments. No problems getting reservations anywhere!
That seldom works. In my experience,
more often than not, you’ll end up disappointed and sleeping at Walmart (if you’re lucky).
The reservation system is horrible across this country! The “Campground Full” sign used to be the exception – now it never gets taken down.
Camping has changed…
You’re right about the signs. Just yesterday I took a ride to our favorite five mile away state park. There are two camping loops, one with power and one without. As we drove in we could see the “Campground Full” signs for both loops. However, as we drove around both loops there were six open sites (some in the powered loop, some in the non-powered loop). There’s no way for the ranger helpers to keep up with the comings and goings of campers. So in many cases these signs are worthless. Once the campground fills they put up the signs – and then forget about them.
Merely the existence of this article shows me how bad the rv reservation opportunities have become.
I booked 2 nights at Bahia Honda State Park in the Florida Keys this past April, only 3 days ahead of time.
I booked a weekend in Shenandoah (Loft Mountain) in June just a couple of weeks ago, and there were more than a few campsites to choose from.
As a camp host at a popular National Park campground, we are almost always fully booked. But, as the author mentions, there are cancellations-people leave early, or are no-shows, or just change their mind and cancel. We, as camp hosts, frequently cancel no-shows after 24 hours. At our campground, everything is booked through recreation.gov. There are reserved campsites, no first-come, first-served anymore. Other NP CGs may be different. Our campsites are on a 6-month advanced reservation, but there are also many campsites that are on a two-week window. The trick is to constantly monitor recreation.gov and grab a site when it pops up. But-and this is important-as the author suggests if you’re in an RV with a certain length make SURE the site you’re reserving will fit your rig. Because in NPs the CGs are often small, and you probably won’t be able to change sites upon arrival.
We are planning a trip out west in September. Sites in Signal Mountain CG in GTNP for Sept 12, 13 & 14 were going to be available to reserve on March12 at 10 AM Eastern time. I did a couple of trial reservations a few days ahead to get a feel for the process. On March 12 I had my computer up and running with a list of the sites that were possibly going to be available. Our internet is pretty slow but my reflexes are fast. I pulled up the site I wanted and at 9:59AM clicked on it. By time it went through it was 10AM and took me to my cart to complete the reservation. This worked on the government site but I did not get a site in Yellowstone, through a different website so reserved in Gardiner, MT. I am planning the trip around Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton and now working the reservations on both ends back to the east coast. It was a very exciting morning, drinking coffee, waiting to reserve the site.
Like a lot of things, it’s all in the timing as it was probably posted less than a minute before you logged on and saw it.
I have found the same thing, if I look at the list instead of the map view, I can chain together a few days. You just have to be willing to move about a bit.
I just had to cancel a trip. All but one refunded minus the $10 fee. The one gotcha I had was in Oregon, I had deposited $190, refunded $95 of it, WTH!
I think this is one of the reasons people don’t bother to cancel their reservations. We needed to cancel a one night stay at a park and it would cost more to cancel than to just not show up!
To me, that qualifies as robbery! How do they justify just stealing your money?
Tommy – it’s probably called “terms and conditions”! The fine print stuff.
Probably right, DW/ND.
Does anybody know if cancellation fees are different for certain Nat’l Parks. According to Lazy Q, she was charged a $95 cancellation fee. That cant be right.
There are also certain reservation and booking fees that won’t be refunded.