Amount of people at campsite

Many places do have a per-person surcharge, often up to a higher maximum. Vermont works this way: the listed fees are for four people, as I recall, and then it's a few dollars more per person over that to a maximum of six or eight, depending on the site size. Some also (or instead) permit more than the listed maximum if part of the same immediate family.

Other times, it's necessary to "occupy" two camp sites, even if you all stay on one most of the time. That's actually not entirely unreasonable in my opinion, as the site limits are often at least partly based on things like building codes or overall occupancy limits--the campground can't have more than x people staying there altogether due to the size of their septic system or whatever, and that gets divided down by the number of sites they have.

I'm sure there might be one or two campers who lie about the size of their party, as well.

languiduck wrote:
Ever see someone with 13 items in a 12 items or less check out lane at the grocery store?

Yea! And 5 loaves of bread is 1 item. 6 gallons of milk is 1 item. 4 tubs of butter is one item. 6 candy bars is one item. 7 boxes of breakfast cereal is 1 item.

So far, that's only 5 items! I've got 7 more to go!

(That actually happened to us once when my wife question the woman in front of us in line and she had a massive shopping cart full of stuff in the 10 items or less line!)

Ever see someone with 13 items in a 12 items or less check out lane at the grocery store?

Some places are very strict and some are very lax. We've been to both. Private campgrounds have a tendency to enforce the "X" number of people per campsite, much more than State Parks do. For private campgrounds, they can monitor things a bit closer, and because they are private owned, can do pretty much whatever they want. It's an additional money maker for them to charge if you exceed the posted number per campsite, or to even allow them entrance.

If you are a family of 5, with 3 small kids, it's pretty hard for anyone at State Parks to tell you, you have to reserve another campsite to accommodate the 5th (or 3rd child) or charge you more. I've never heard of that happening.

Indiana State Parks do enforce the 1 vehicle with a camping unit per campsite though. No problems with a camper AND a tent. But come sundown, the DNR guys will come around and tell you, you have to park all but one of your vehicles somewhere else (they always have a parking area near the gate house around the bath houses). This they do enforce.

X-2 fees for more than 4.

I have seen upper limits of capacity per campsite. Usually 10.

As often as not, the 4 person limit is just to allow additional fees for extra folks, as long as you pay enough most will let it go unless someone gets overly obnoxious.