Campsite Length Restrictions for MH

"By my count, there are about 1700 state campgrounds with over 175,000 camp sites, and 1500 Federal campgrounds with over 80,000 camp sites. Plus there are all those county and city campgrounds.

I'd suggest RVers at least call the park and ask someone who works at the campground."

Most of the CGs I use are self-serve... no one to call and I've found their listed length to be much shorter than many of the sites. I've found a sat image of the CG more helpful than a person if available.

As for your count... I'll take http://www.uscampgrounds.info/ number of 13,000 US and Canada Public CGs and my WAG is 9K US and 4K CA. Doubt there are 6K city and county parks in the US.

At 43' we are noticing over the last few months that I fill a pull-through (diagonal type) quick and no room for the Toad. Pullouts seem to work better for us.

TechWriter wrote:

2gypsies wrote:
Once again, and I've stated this often, you most definitely can fit into national parks, national forests, state parks, Corp of Engineer, county and city parks. We've done it all during our 16 years of full-timing with our 40' motorhome. I think those that say "no" haven't tried.

By my count, there are about 1700 state campgrounds with over 175,000 camp sites, and 1500 Federal campgrounds with over 80,000 camp sites. Plus there are all those county and city campgrounds.

While I'm sure you visited many campground sites during your 16 years full timing, I'm confident you haven't been to all (or even most) of them.

So suggesting that folks just try fitting into a site doesn't strike me as the best idea.

I'd suggest RVers at least call the park and ask someone who works at the campground.

If you read my post again I stated that "you will not fit in all of them" and that "you need to do your research".

I never said we've been to all of them nor have I said that folks should just try fitting into the sites. The people that say "you won't fit" usually don't even have a big rig. Those that do have a big rig typically don't even try if they make statements that "you won't fit". There are many with big rigs that do fit.

The worst thing you should do is to rely on calling the park and getting a correct answer regarding a true 'big rig'. They don't know the size of each campsite. They don't even know what a 'big rig' is. Definitely don't ask a reservation service like Reserve America. They're not even in the state much less the campground. There are other ways to do research.

2gypsies wrote:
Once again, and I've stated this often, you most definitely can fit into national parks, national forests, state parks, Corp of Engineer, county and city parks. We've done it all during our 16 years of full-timing with our 40' motorhome. I think those that say "no" haven't tried.

By my count, there are about 1700 state campgrounds with over 175,000 camp sites, and 1500 Federal campgrounds with over 80,000 camp sites. Plus there are all those county and city campgrounds.

While I'm sure you visited many campground sites during your 16 years full timing, I'm confident you haven't been to all (or even most) of them.

So suggesting that folks just try fitting into a site doesn't strike me as the best idea.

I'd suggest RVers at least call the park and ask someone who works at the campground.

DrewE wrote:

TechWriter wrote:
When I checked a couple of years ago, about 1/2 of the sites in state and federal campgrounds were at least 40 feet.

That may well be true, but they are certainly not evenly distributed across the nation. Only a quite small percentage of the Vermont state park campsites, for example, are 40 feet long or longer.

That's why I charted park data by individual states.

I also chart Federal parks by state.

East Coast state parks as well as CA's come out short.

We've found many State and Federal parks are very accommodating. Many are even enlarging many of their sites for bigger coaches. We've also found that many of their brochures and/or web pages are way out of date as far as size of rigs are concerned, especially in the west.....at 45' we usually call ahead before committing to reservations. So far, we've never been disappointed or turned away....Dennis

I found that lot of campgrounds make the length rules because of narrow roads, not necessary small pads.
Going mid-week and taking my time, I was able to park my 40' conversion in spots marked for 30'. It took going against one way road.
Just don't plan to pull something like that Friday night.

A lot of good information here and things to think about. Thank you to everyone who replied. We are pretty confident in the size we're looking at. I lived for a while in our 35 foot MH before moving. One thing I do when I walk into one to look at it is call it my retirement home and try to imagine living there all the time. We know there will be sites and places we can't get the MH into, that's what the toad is for.

Once again, and I've stated this often, you most definitely can fit into national parks, national forests, state parks, Corp of Engineer, county and city parks. We've done it all during our 16 years of full-timing with our 40' motorhome. I think those that say "no" haven't tried.

Granted, you will not fit in all of them but neither will a 25' RV fit in all. We've seen parks with a 16' limit.

Also, we've found the Midwest and western parks have the most opportunities for big rigs, not the northeast and eastern states. In those states you'll just use alternatives. . . no big deal once in a while.

We've used public parks in Florida, Alabama and up to Michigan and in every state westward. We've also used Canada and the Yukon's Provincial parks and Alaska's public parks. We've gotten our 40' in some gorgeous boondocking spots along a river or lake.

Many national forest campgrounds have been renovated with paved sites and even hookups. Some national parks even have full hookups or at least electric and give a size up to a 40' RV. There is absolutely no difference in fitting into a site between a 38' or 40'. We've even fit in sites stated for 35'.

Don't get hung up on the site size that you may read in a description. We found those to be an average, not a given. We volunteered in Rocky Mtn. Nat'l Park and one of our duties was to examine every campsite and make a chart to be used for site assignments of what size RV would fit in what site. The rangers were amazed at how their old chart was so different. We found many more sites that would hold a 40' RV.

You do have to do your research though but we've never found when we got to a campground that we have researched that we couldn't fit. We always did.

What's nice about a motorhome towing a vehicle is if you're not sure if you should drive down that 10-mile gravel road and into that forest service campground, all you do is unhook the vehicle at a store or even on a wide shoulder on the highway, and drive your vehicle to the site to make sure everything checks out.

Without reservations (as we very rarely made them) we have fit into Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Zion, Bryce, Glacier, Big Bend, Canyonlands, Grand Canyon and many public parks too numerous to mention. We've fit in many coastal state parks in Oregon and forest service campgrounds in California. State parks in California? No, and besides there are other nicer public parks in California than the state parks. We've used every single Arizona state park along with awesome county parks. It can be done!

TechWriter wrote:
When I checked a couple of years ago, about 1/2 of the sites in state and federal campgrounds were at least 40 feet.

That may well be true, but they are certainly not evenly distributed across the nation. Only a quite small percentage of the Vermont state park campsites, for example, are 40 feet long or longer. A somewhat larger percentage, but still well less than half, of the sites I've seen in New York state parks are that size. In some areas of the country length is much more of a restriction than in others.

I don't think the difference between 38 and 40 feet is likely to be the tipping point too frequently, though.