National Parks and RV size

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!

The smaller the better is the rule but there is also the need to be big enough to be comphy. Somewhere there is a balance for everyone. We bought with CG site availability in mind. So far, 7 seasons of about 150 nights per season, very seldom making reservations, very seldom staying more than a few nights, we have been able to get into a site almost everytime. Our LOA is 35'

Much said above is true regarding rig size and NPS site access. Other things to consider are width and height. I personally have reserved sites that the length was alright (35 ft) but the site width did not allow for slides due to trees or other fixtures. Additionally, tree limbs over hanging the site can limit the height (it is illegal to perform your own pruning).

I use the web site recreation.gov and enter my requirements to get the appropriate NPS site listings and these are generally correct and will have notes about various restrictions.

Should add that a forty foot fifth wheel may have problems at some commercial CGs.
I would be looking for shorter rig with more slides.

I tend to research everything to death.

When preparing to retire 7 years ago, I looked into that issue and the consensus was then, about 30 feet was as long as practical if you are planning visiting a lot of National Parks and Forests.

Ironically, the over all length was a factor in our purchasing decision, but we have stayed in only one National Forest in all this time. We like state and COE parks.

Shearwater wrote:
I can't give you a direct answer on that but a lot of the NP campgrounds were built a long time ago and cannot handle vehicles of that size either because the campsites are too small or the roads leading to the sites are inadequate.

I would suggest googling the National Parks you are interested in and checking our what they have to say about size limitations.

x2

Parks we visit such as Big Bend have limitations due to older construction. For example, our 24-foot rig is a challenge to get into campgrounds at Natural Bridges in Utah, Navajo National Monument in Arizona, Desert View CG at the Grand Canyon and in Big Bend's Chisos Basin CG. On the other hand, there are several sites that can accommodate a 40-foot rig in Squaw Flat Campground in Canyonlands National Park. Be aware, too, that many parks' sites are first-come, first-served, and the bigger sites are often the first to go.

Ultimately, I suspect it has to do with the outright popularity of the park. Places where tons of people go have more demand for larger sites, and, lo and behold, there are sites there for large rigs. However, if you look at the NPS site, you'll discover that the really popular places like Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and the like, are most definitely in the minority of places operated by the National Park Service (including both National Parks and National Monuments). When it comes to these less well-known locations, your chances of fitting in are a good deal smaller, even for RVs a lot smaller than the one you are considering.

:)
Lynn

63.8%. :B Seriously, there are quite a few national parks you'll be able to visit, including Grand Canyon NP and Big Bend NP to name a couple. Many times, as in our national parks here in WA, the problem lies not in the size of the site, itself, but in the difficulty getting into it due to trees, tight loops, etc.

you're going to drastically reduce the number of NP campsites you can fit, if you choose a RV of that size.

only by contacting the specific park, will you get a good idea of how many sites you can fit into.
i can tell you that in Yosemite, it would be less than 25%, maybe only 15%.

I thought it wa 57.4%!
Allow/ I have not run into any NPS operated parks having restrictions to not allow. Some of the concessionaire operated get picky.
You would need to check with each park as rules vary!
NPS.gov

I can't give you a direct answer on that but a lot of the NP campgrounds were built a long time ago and cannot handle vehicles of that size either because the campsites are too small or the roads leading to the sites are inadequate.

I would suggest googling the National Parks you are interested in and checking our what they have to say about size limitations.