Reservations - 5 to 7 day minimum??

Wrong Lane wrote:
We are starting to make reservations for our end of July statrt of August trip in New England.

This year we are encountering many campgrounds responding that they are now only accepting 5 to 7 day (length varies for each location)minimum stays between July 1 to Labor day.

The latest to inform us of this policy is Bayley's in Scarbourgh-Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

The campgrounds with this policy almost always advise us to call a few days prior to arrival and they will see if they can fit us in.

We have limited vacation time and generally move every 3 or 4 days allowing us to see and experience more. We do, however, always reserve in advance prior to arriving. Calling a few days ahead of arrival, in the hopes of maybe getting a site, just doesn't fit our travelling style.

We have been able to find alternatives so it's not like we are stranded but my fear is that if we as a group accept this with no argument than this 5 to 7 day minimum may start to be the norm in popular areas.

I know that these are business and are free to use the business model they feel works best but ---- how many three night stays at $80.00 per night would thay really want to turn away?

Rant over!!

haven't run across that yet apart from holidays and other local special events. what we will occasionally do is pay for a week but only stay maybe 4-5 days. in many, many cases it is cheaper on a per-day basis to pay for a week even if you stay less than 7-days. just do the math to see where the break even point is.

as to the issue of reservations...we rarely make them but we tend to do the bulk of our traveling while school is in session (mar 1-june 1 and aug 1-nov 1). we tend to avoid most holidays, labor day being the exception. we usually find a spot a few days before labor day and hunker down until the following Tuesday. in the last 26-years we have always found a nice spot for that holiday.

we have two exceptions to our 'no reservations' policy. the first is at our favorite par in mesa, az for spring training baseball. we prefer a specific section of the park and a site that faces north. the other is the annual Dayton HamVention. beyond that we will occasionally call ahead to a park to check availability for an overnite spot but even that is fairly rare.