No campground spots available, what to do?

Not sure what your requirements for a campground are, but there are Good Sam Campgrounds (found in the Good Sam or Trailer Life Books) KOA campgrounds found on KOA.com, and there is also RVparkreviews.com that list campgrounds by area. We always travel with our dogs but honestly your 200lb dog will be a major problem in finding a campground. Many campgrounds are restricted by their insurance policies (which are hard enough to maintain) and dogs will be limited to less than 20lbs. Some breed are also excluded.
That's not to say you can't travel with the pets in the future, but you may have to do some serious planning, research, and make advance reservations to find facilities friendly to your needs.
Good luck.

Start branching out to neighboring cities. RVParkReviews.com shows many possibilities. Try modifying your days to other days. Sometimes there are county or city parks that have camping.

SweetWaterSurprise wrote:
So my better half had a trip she wanted to take but didn't quite get to making any reservations until a week before. Of course almost every park is full at the stops she wants to make. What do most of you guys do when this happens? This will only be our 2nd major trip in our new RV so we are still rookies.

1st. start making reservations months in advance for every trip. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose. Reservations can be canceled or changed if needed.
2nd. most cities have Fair grounds , county parks, Wallmarts, churches but check this out before you start you start your trips.

kalynzoo wrote:
Not sure what your requirements for a campground are, but there are Good Sam Campgrounds (found in the Good Sam or Trailer Life Books) KOA campgrounds found on KOA.com, and there is also RVparkreviews.com that list campgrounds by area. We always travel with our dogs but honestly your 200lb dog will be a major problem in finding a campground. Many campgrounds are restricted by their insurance policies (which are hard enough to maintain) and dogs will be limited to less than 20lbs. Some breed are also excluded.
That's not to say you can't travel with the pets in the future, but you may have to do some serious planning, research, and make advance reservations to find facilities friendly to your needs.
Good luck.

200# and a Mastiff.......Mastiff is on the list of banned breeds

with one or two excepts during the high season we have never had any problems getting a campsite without reservations. You have not mentioned what typs of campground you want/need but we only stay at State/Federal public campgrounds and this time of year, they should have plenty of space.

I just did a trip to Assateague, Newport News Shenandoah Valley - turned up and found a site at each place with no problems. I was the only there on one night (made it kind of spooky!!);

I never use commercial campground, so don't know if they get fully booked.

gerry

When is your trip? If you are planning to go in the next couple of weeks the parks are full of leaf peepers. That will end in a couple of weeks but then parks will start to close in the most northern states due to the oncoming winter.

There are always Walmarts.

Our trip is set for next week. We have had no issues with our dogs in the RV, they travel well and do not cause issues. Very well behaved dogs. The campground we were able to finally find for part of the trip had no problem with us having a Mastiff either. We simply haven't had any luck with parks at the other stops we planned on making.

Another suggestion is to join Boondockers Welcome. Members provide parking spots on their property - could be some members in the area you are going. Facilities vary depending on what member has to offer.

boondockerswelcome.com

Walmart's,truck stops, or BLM(bureau of land management) sites. Are all good for at least an overnight.
We stayed in Salem in a little campground/Marina on a peninsula, it was about a mile from the village with public transportation close by . here's a link:

http://www.salemweb.com/winterisland/
Don't know if they're booked or not; or maybe you tried already
They had electric and water. but no dump station. They gave us directions to another location where you can dump, but we opted to wait till that evening at another CG
Good luck, we travel with our canines with no problems there, but you better check the regulations to make sure.

Look for a Flying J gas station in the area. Most of those allow overnights.