Dislike of 'Reservation Only' camping

Pine Barren wrote:
We love going camping and I would have to say that we are in the reservation part of the topic. We like to know that we have a site when we get there. We do live in Florida in the panhandle and a lot of the state parks here are parks that everybody in the country likes coming to. I don't like the fact that at some of the parks I have to go ahead and make my reservation 11 months ahead of time but that is the way things are going so it is either go with the flow or don't get in those places. We make a couple of small trip on the fly without reservations a year and have been lucky so far only reason we do that is because those places are first come first serve. Happy camping everyone hope to see and meet some of the members from here on the road one day.

I live in Panama City and can definitely sympathize. It can be hard to find an RV park if you don't plan way ahead and make reservations.

One of the differences you'll notice in the varying opinions is the length of the RVs. The longer the RV, the fewer the sites, and conversely the more likely you'd need a reservation.

At 63' with my coach and trailer, I have significantly fewer options and book well in advance. Whereas my friend sometimes joins us in a rented class C, and at 24' has very little difficulty finding a sport at the same campgrounds at the last minute.

We have been full-time for 5 years and have never made a reservation. We have only had 1 time that both rv parks were full -- local construction project, so the workers had the sites. We just stayed at Walmart that night.

We love going camping and I would have to say that we are in the reservation part of the topic. We like to know that we have a site when we get there. We do live in Florida in the panhandle and a lot of the state parks here are parks that everybody in the country likes coming to. I don't like the fact that at some of the parks I have to go ahead and make my reservation 11 months ahead of time but that is the way things are going so it is either go with the flow or don't get in those places. We make a couple of small trip on the fly without reservations a year and have been lucky so far only reason we do that is because those places are first come first serve. Happy camping everyone hope to see and meet some of the members from here on the road one day.

ozkamper wrote:
Hi All,

Love camping, usually take one big trip for about 2 weeks every year. It's becoming tough to find places to camp where you can just show up. I don't like making reservations, in my opinion it limits you on where you can go. Weather, health, breakdown occurs and things change. Am I the only one who feels this way? Planning to visit all of Utah's National Parks in June of this year and it's tough finding places to go.

Thanks for listening,
Ozkamper

I have the opposite problem. I like to stay at military campgrounds and many of them don't take reservations. It's all first come first serve. I hate driving 300 miles to a campground only to find out that it's booked and they have no openings.

We never make reservations ... we arrive early and most often can get a site except in the highest level tourist parks, and even then we sometimes get lucky. Most NP's have national forest surrounding, so those areas are most often FCFS and do not get full. IT might mean a bit of driving to tour the parks, but it's OK with us. We always enjoy the ride, and are very flexible - if something won't work, we "flex" out of it and adjust our plans.

I know, I know, some can't do that, but for those, reservations work better. We don't like the inability to change plans on the wing - so, we live with our decisions and don't complain.

In addition, we usually short stay 1-3 days in one area, so adding the cost of a reservation ups the cost for camping. If we pay reservation fees enough times in a month, it can add up quickly.

We believe all public campgrounds should allow FCFS and Reservations at least some sites of each. IF it's all reservations, it's unfair to the FCFS campers, if it's no reservations, it's unfair to the folks that need a guaranteed spot. Some of each is a win-win.

ozkamper wrote:
Hi All,

Love camping, usually take one big trip for about 2 weeks every year. It's becoming tough to find places to camp where you can just show up. I don't like making reservations, in my opinion it limits you on where you can go. Weather, health, breakdown occurs and things change. Am I the only one who feels this way? Planning to visit all of Utah's National Parks in June of this year and it's tough finding places to go.

Thanks for listening,
Ozkamper

It's a fact of life today with the popularity and limited destination resources that proper and detailed planning is almost a must if you don't want to have your plans compromised. To provide the flexibility you mention you can just put in a couple of "FREE DAYS" so "adjustments" can be accomodated.

I guess I'm really used to this since i've been doing it for every trip for the last 20 years or so and haven't found it to be limiting at all and I would say while you're not the only one that feels reservations are a hassle, but are in the minority since you have found not making them does in fact limit your options to the point you have started this particular thread to discuss them.

Larry

I agree with the OP. But, to me, a CG that takes no reservations is, maybe, more problematic. One of our favorite destination campgrounds in an area with few alternatives has decided to become a walk up only campground. We call to find out the current status, as far as vacancies, but have to pack up and drive 150 miles, not knowing, for sure, we will have a place when we get there.

This is a city owned campground and I have tried to explain the potential difficulties to the director in charge. I even asked them to allow reservations with a cash payment, up front, but nothing sways this guy. This is the difference between a facility run, for profit, by a private owner and one run by a local bureaucrat.

bukhrn wrote:

IND_navyvet wrote:

BB_TX wrote:
I am of the other camp, pun intended. I prefer to make reservations and know I will have a site waiting for me when I arrive rather than take my chances and hope for one. And if none available, have to scramble to find something near by.

X2

X-3, we made our Western swing last year, made reservations as far in advance as possible, even with that, we couldn't get a site anywhere in Yosemite,can't even imagine driving across the country & take a chance on getting a site, any site, even one I really didn't want, a couple times the first come first serve campgrounds actually worked out, like Gros Ventre CG in the Grand Tetons, but even arriving early, we had to wait about 2 hours to get a good site.
I just find it no problem to make reservations, especially in the busy popular places.

We are fulltime campers. We usually waited until 2, or maybe 3 at the most, days before we were heading somewhere different. This worked fine for us when we were in the west and southwest.

Right now we are on the east coast area and I have us booked out until 1st week of June in places like Alexandria VA, Dover DE, Gettysburg, Lancaster and Philly. We have found this same situation of having to make reservations further out since we left the gulf coast area.

So many of the places in these area are already booked out as well due to more rvs on the road. And it isn't even summer yet!

I do lots of long trips (111, 138, 304, & 193 days) and make as few reservations as possible. For example, on a June & July trip to Alaska, the only reservation made ahead of time was for the Teklanika Campground in Denali National Park. Over the 74 days we only had one stop where the planned campground was full, and found another a mile down the road.

I want the flexibility of being able to stay longer or skip new parts of the country, depending on what I discover in the area. My solution when campgrounds start to fill is to call in the morning to check availability for campgrounds in the area I expect to reach that night. Most campgrounds are honest about the likelihood of them being filled for the night - if they are close, I'll make a reservation. In the few cases where everything is booked, I just go somewhere else. I do have the advantage of being retired so my schedule is more flexible than most, and I generally stop by 2:00, early enough that there are usually non reserved sites still available.