Fighting for campsites 6 months in advance!

spoon059 wrote:

toedtoes wrote:
In our area at NFs, if you don't show the first night of your reservation and you don't call the rangers, you forfeit the entire reservation. There is no, well I'll book 14 days and then choose which ones to go.

I like this idea. I'm not sure how to prevent these types of bookings, short of a stringent cancellation fee and forfeiting sites like you mentioned. It still doesn't help the average camper, who checks availability before leaving and it shows booked because the date hasn't yet arrived to forfeit the site.

With this policy, you cannot book a site online if it's within 3 days of the arrival. This prevents someone from booking a site for tonight and not showing up - while someone who is at the campground can't get a campsite because it got reserved.

It also prevents double booking of the site. If I go online today to book a site, the earliest I can book is for an arrival date of Wednesday. So, if you arrive today and reserve the site with the host, the host knows if that site is available for the one night, two nights or three nights without needing to recheck the system or having someone reserve it right after you booked it in person. If it's booked for tomorrow night, it has been so since at least this past Friday.

I really have not seen the reservation issues here that I hear about in other areas. There is no "drop off your RV and go back to work for 5 days" or "book 2 weeks and only use the 3 weekends", etc.

You book what you are going to use and if you don't use it, you lose it.

It also means that folks can do walk ins and actually have a chance of getting a spot. Off season, I will check out the campground a week before my planned arrival to see if it's worth paying the online surcharge for my favorite site or if I don't reallyneed to bother.