April / May trip. Campsite availability?

April, May should be wide open with no reservations necessary...you can be much more flexible this way...July, August not so much.

But, be aware that local school districts have "Spring Breaks" around Easter and this often makes campsite availability tougher.

Have a great trip and enjoy our country.

I wouldn't make reservations either. I would leave early in the day and stop early. Its much more easy to find a campsite at 2 or 3 than at 5 or 6 PM. You also have to figure in some weather concerns as well as detours.

Welcome. Is this trip locked in? If you are somewhat flexible, I would suggest that you might alter this plan. Driving cross country is not really a good way to see the country. Pick a region, NE,PNW,SW,SE etc and visit that region. You will see far more and experience far more than through the wind screen of a MH on a 19 day whirlwind speed trip across America.

If you are going to visit the more famous places like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite I would think you should make reservations at those campgrounds. Flexibility is great, but missing out on a camp site inside a national park because it is full is not great. Welcome to the forum and have a great trip.

I agree with above. If you plan to visit popular places like the national parks and if you want to stay inside the parks then consider reservations. But most of the parks also have accomodations just outside the parks within easy driving distance.
In other areas you should have no problem without reservations. But calling ahead of arrival will take any worry out of it. Use an RV guide book such as Woodalls or web site such as rvparkreviews.com to find RV parks and their phone numbers.

if you plan on camping near San Francisco or in Calif., at the end of your trip, i strongly suggest you make reservations way before.
especially for something like Yosemite, which is often booked up for May, 6 months prior.

i do agree that your trip is waayy too ambitious for only 19 nights.
unless all you want to do it look at things from the road.

Hi,

These may help you find places to stay:

Free and Low Cost Campsites

Bob's Cheap or Free Campsites

not necessarily boondocking

Agree with donn0128. Our first RV trip was a rental. Arrived in evening of first night, Denver, CO. Hotel that night. Picked up RV next day & rest of the day spent supplying it with food etc. then getting out of Denver. We had 15 nights with the RV, covered 2000 miles of basically Denver, Grand Canyon, Vegas, Rocky Mountain Nat Park, Denver. Last day was pack up & drop off RV early then get redeye home.

The point is, 15 nights & half the distance you are thinking about we were BUSTED & came back feeling that we really had not seen much. Oh sure, you can drive the distance in that time but how much will be seen?

What are the main sights that you want to see? If most are in the West you might think about a pickup in Denver & dropoff in SFO.

We are based in Maryland & have crossed the country a number of times. Driving across the US is a beautiful drive but one needs to get off the interstates to appreciate it. One also needs time.

Last year we did a 11,000 mile loop around the country. It took us 120 days & we STILL came back feeling rushed.

Another consideration. April is early for nothern state CGs so many might not be open till May.

New York to San Francisco in 19 nights. That's nearly 3K miles if you drive a pretty straight route. 400 miles a day would take you 7.5 days to get there. Not much time to do any sigthseeing. I suppose you could drive more hours per day, but I think you'll find that even less appealing -- pretty hard on the driver.

If you are interested in seeing stuff out West you'd be better off flying into Denver or maybe even Phoenix.. a lot more time to enjoy things like the Grand Canyon, Sedona and then onto California.

As to Campsite availability -- probably not a problem unless key destinations.

For the start of your trip in April I would at least contact the campground to see if they are open. I know in New England most campgrounds do not open until sometime in May.