What is it with campgrounds nowadays?
Well we've been on the road now for about 2 months. It's been a few years since we've rv'd and boy have things changed with the campgrounds. Not only are they more expensive (like everything else in t...
Forum Discussion
GordonThree wrote:
I've seen this a few times... tiny federal CG in Badlands NP. When I arrived every single site with electric was reserved with a tiny paper slip, with the days date written on it for arrival. I spent two days there before giving up because of the heat. Only three of the ten reserved sites had shown up.
Another time, at a large state park, their computer claimed they had two sites available. Drove in to check it out, an entire loop was empty. I took the site for two days. When I left, the entire loop was still empty.
I blame online reservation and the huge advance windows allowed. It's my opinion you shouldn't be able to reserve more than 2-3 weeks out. This 6 month to 12 month advanced reservation is silly. In the dead of winter, folks with cabin fever are planning trips and making free reservations, and then as the weather turns nice, they change their plans. It costs almost nothing to cancel a reservation, so no biggie for them. Now if the penalty for cancelling a reservation was 100%, that might slow 'em down.
I've had several different families tell me similar stories to this:
Oh we always reserve 3 or 4 sites next to each other for every weekend, in case friends want to join us.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I'll be playing the game next year... I have a bunch of e-mail accounts, so creating extra reservations won't be a problem.
I like the long reservation window - I can plan my trips early in the year and schedule time off work as needed. If I can't reserve the campsite until 2-3 weeks before the trip, then it's too late to get the days off work.
So, my point is, there is no one way to do reservations/walk-ins that works for everyone. What is better for you is worse for me, what is better for me is worse for Joe Blow, and so on.
The NFs I frequent have a rule that you have to show for the first night of your reservation or you forfeit the first night's fee and the reservations for the other nights. This works well and I rarely see a reserved campsite sitting empty.
