National Parks and RV size

It is a pretty simple fact. The bigger you are, the fewer sites that you will fit into. A spot has to be found for the unhitched truck too.

With that length I would forget about camping inside the national parks and most US Forest Service campgrounds. Easy enough to find a private RV park where your trailer length will not be a problem and these will also have full hookups. Only difference is cost.

When we travel around the western USA in our 24' long RV we stay 95% of the time in public campgrounds and as a senior the cost averages out to around $7 a day. At a private RV park the cost is going to be over $35 a day (though you do get cable for your TV and free Wifi). In the private campgrounds you also will not have to deal with generator noise which is a blessing.

OP: The best thing for you to do is make a list of the parks you want to visit and check their websites for more accurate information.

With our 40' motorhome our first choice is always a public park - national, state, COE, national forest, county and city.

We do our research and have never been turned down at a park of our choice. Plus, we don't make reservations. We arrive early morning, staying the previous night closeby and sites are easily secured. Having volunteered in national and state parks we know that they don't have reservations for every single site and some campgrounds don't even accept reservations.

Granted, we mainly stay west of the Mississippi nowdays. If your plans are to stay solely in the eastern states then you might have problems. We have stayed multiple times in Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Glacier, Zion, Bryce, Canyonlands, Denali's Teklanika and Riley Creek, Jasper, Baniff and Rocky Mountain just to name a few.

No, not every site will accommodate you but there are plenty that will. Motorhomes like ours don't bend in the middle like a 5th wheel but still, we have no problems.

Sorry, I must think different from some of you. I am not part of the ME generation. If there are multiple sites large enough for me, all things being equal, I will take the shortest one that I can get into leaving the larger ones for somebody larger than me who might come in later. I rarely take a pull thru unless it has been asigned to me without asking for it.

The example I gave was in Teklanika, Denali NP. You make a reservation but cannot reserve a particular site. Picking a site in CGs like that in advance is near impossible anyway. This is not a CG that the same people visit weekend after weekend & they know each site very well. When you are a traveler as opposed to a weekend warrior you seldom visit the same CG twice.

Virtually all of the sites at Teklanika are as level as one could wish for. Most are good for 30'. Very few are good for anything over 35'.

Dog Folks mentioned handicapped parking. Few things make my blood boil faster than seeing apparently healthy people with a tag park in a handicapped spot then skip on into the store only to be seen walking around the store just fine. I am not handicapped. Don't have anyone in the family who is handicapped. I do respect those who are & am happy to be considerate of them. I have no time for lazy or selfish people who can't park or are too lazy to take a few extra steps to the bathroom.

LewBob wrote:

Dog Folks wrote:
Sorry. But if I get there first, pay first,and set up first, I have no obligation to think of taking a less desirable site because MAYBE some bigger unit will need the site.

I paid for it and have every right to the site of my choice, of those available, big or small. If you need an larger site, plan ahead and make a reservation.

Absolutely no obligation. That said, when we camp we consider the site size among other attributes. All things being approximately equal, we take the smaller site, being considerate (no extra cost).

All other things equal among the sites, I agree.

I do the same thing with my handicap tag. If the parking lot is smaller and the walk is short, like an office or store front compared to a big box store, I will walk. If it is within my limited range, I will not take the handicapped spot, although I have the right to.

I can't help but think maybe someone is worse off physically, and will need it more than I.

Dog Folks wrote:
Sorry. But if I get there first, pay first,and set up first, I have no obligation to think of taking a less desirable site because MAYBE some bigger unit will need the site.

I paid for it and have every right to the site of my choice, of those available, big or small. If you need an larger site, plan ahead and make a reservation.

Absolutely no obligation. That said, when we camp we consider the site size among other attributes. All things being approximately equal, we take the smaller site, being considerate (no extra cost).

Veebyes wrote:
At 40' site availability will be severely resrictive in NPs & many older SPs. A CG may only have a couple sites capable of accomodating something that size & if the staff are not careful assigning sites to the appropriate sized unit or, worse, it is a first come first served & pick your own CG, you can very well find a class B occupying the only site that your 40'er could fit in meanwhile there are many empty sites that the B could have taken. Saw that once. A Volkswagon Westfalia in a 60' long site. Talk about thoughtless!
Our LOA is 35'

Before we call our fellow campers names...Perhaps the Evil class B found the only level site left that worked for him...or had a passenger with a handicap or illness and needed to be close to restrooms...wanted to be close to a beach, river or hiking trail...or simply wanted a nice view available only in that larger site...and was prudent enough to arrive early in the day for the best choice.

Is it the practice of every camper who arrives in a first-come, first-served campground to perform an analysis of all sites left, scour the place for the smallest possible site they can occupy, take a site they maybe really don't like as well....so that a later - possible - arrival will have a supremely suitable site waiting? Should campers accept a guilt trip because someone else didn't get what he wanted? Nope, and nope.

Bottom line for the original poster...get whatever size you like and just be aware you'll sacrifice some flexibility and choices incrementally as size increases. Bigger RVs need to plan and reserve ahead more than smaller RVs, and fit into fewer sites. But you'll have much roomier quarters, which may make up for it in your opinion. We all make sacrifices.

Veebyes wrote:
Saw that once. A Volkswagon Westfalia in a 60' long site. Talk about thoughtless!

Sorry. But if I get there first, pay first,and set up first, I have no obligation to think of taking a less desirable site because MAYBE some bigger unit will need the site.

I paid for it and have every right to the site of my choice, of those available, big or small. If you need an larger site, plan ahead and make a reservation.

The percentage of National Parks is not useful info. Neither is the percentage of sites in any of one of those parks into which you might fit. The only thing that matters, really, is whether a site big enough is actually available on the day(s) you want it. Also, the matter of whether you can reserve it or need to be there early enough in the morning and early enough in the week to snag it when it does become available.

As others have said, the National Parks were mostly built long before rigs that big existed. Since then, park budgets have been restricted so thoroughly by the penny-pinching crowd that renovations and upgrades have been pretty much impossible. So it is a bit of a miracle that any sites large enough to accommodate a big rig exist at all.

If you fancy spending much time camping in our National Parks, your best bet is tents. There are far more tent-only sites than RV compatible sites. Second best is a pop-up or small trailer.

You will find private RV parks much more accessible.