Do I need to reserve in advance?
I'm planning to start my first rv trip in May. I have already read information about some locations that are booked in advance in minutes, but what about parks (private and public) that are not in th...
Forum Discussion
It doesn't matter when or where we go, we always make a reservation for our final destination spot, getting there, sometimes we "wing it."
However, this last Summer there was no "winging-it". We traveled from Central Indiana to Mount Rushmore (South Dakota) over the 2 weeks of July 4. Believe me, there was no "winging it." We started searching for campground availability a year ahead, only to be told by many we couldn't make reservations until after a certain date. I waited for that date and when I finally got through to a live person, found out there was no more space available. And some of the locations would not let us just do an overnight either. They wanted at least 3 days.
We made our final destination at a Good Sam campground in Custer, SD for about a 10 day stay. We took 4 days getting there (3 night at different campgrounds on our route) and 3 nights coming back. We ended up NOT getting in where we wanted for those overnights. We ended up at different locations for all 3 nights going, and ended up using KOA campgrounds for the overnights. Close to where we wanted to do some sight seeing, but ended up being farther away than wanted for a comfortable sight seeing and activity run-around from where we landed. But we then discovered other attractions we visited where we did stop.
Returning home, we had no agenda. We ended up driving a more Southerly route through Nebraska and back to Indiana. Here we had no problems willy-nilly our way home. We did call ahead where we thought we'd like to stop to check availability. By this time in the experience, we just looked for KOA's as they almost always had availability on-the-fly.
Our winter and March trips to Florida and South Carolina (5 years in a row now), we always book the destination (State Parks), but found this time of year, traveling from Indiana, through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, North/South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama are not so restrictive. Just call ahead and see if they can do an overnight for us. Which they usually can. BUT .... forget about Florida anywhere! If you don't make your reservation a year in advance, you probably will not get into the campground you want (state or private).
Bottom line, if you have a specific destination point you REALLY want to go to, make the reservations. Everything else, it all depends on location and time of year.
However, this last Summer there was no "winging-it". We traveled from Central Indiana to Mount Rushmore (South Dakota) over the 2 weeks of July 4. Believe me, there was no "winging it." We started searching for campground availability a year ahead, only to be told by many we couldn't make reservations until after a certain date. I waited for that date and when I finally got through to a live person, found out there was no more space available. And some of the locations would not let us just do an overnight either. They wanted at least 3 days.
We made our final destination at a Good Sam campground in Custer, SD for about a 10 day stay. We took 4 days getting there (3 night at different campgrounds on our route) and 3 nights coming back. We ended up NOT getting in where we wanted for those overnights. We ended up at different locations for all 3 nights going, and ended up using KOA campgrounds for the overnights. Close to where we wanted to do some sight seeing, but ended up being farther away than wanted for a comfortable sight seeing and activity run-around from where we landed. But we then discovered other attractions we visited where we did stop.
Returning home, we had no agenda. We ended up driving a more Southerly route through Nebraska and back to Indiana. Here we had no problems willy-nilly our way home. We did call ahead where we thought we'd like to stop to check availability. By this time in the experience, we just looked for KOA's as they almost always had availability on-the-fly.
Our winter and March trips to Florida and South Carolina (5 years in a row now), we always book the destination (State Parks), but found this time of year, traveling from Indiana, through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, North/South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama are not so restrictive. Just call ahead and see if they can do an overnight for us. Which they usually can. BUT .... forget about Florida anywhere! If you don't make your reservation a year in advance, you probably will not get into the campground you want (state or private).
Bottom line, if you have a specific destination point you REALLY want to go to, make the reservations. Everything else, it all depends on location and time of year.
