No place to camp in Florida

I think they are already working on something. Bill giving residents priority at booking FL state parks

Ha, just wait til summer and you'll have no problem.

How about last-minute cancellations? Is there a way to monitor such a possibility? I know that over the years my wife and I have scored some killer cruise deals by watching last-minute offerings. Just a thought.

We have family in Fl - Brooksville area and have the same issue. Can't find a campsite anywhere. Most CG's we call are actually retirement or FT communities that used to be regular CG's. We often end up camping in their driveway and despite the convenience, I'd rather stay at a CG.

I have lived in the Tampabay area of Florida all my life. It is really a pain to get reservations in Florida during the winter months. You most either get lucky or make reservations way in advance.

For the most part, Florida residents face the same obstacles the rest of us do in having to plan well ahead to get a chance at campsites. Residents do have one big advantage though, in that they are in position to take advantage of last minute cancellations that are not practical for out of staters to use.

There is this though, the national forest service campground we're in right now has 86 full hookup RV sites. A tour through the park last week found 47 of those sites occupied by vehicles with Florida plates. Our previous state park also had a high concentration of Florida plates, although I didn't do an actual count there. So apparently a significant number of Florida residents are managing to get sites it seems. If Florida residents demand site availability at will, then the only answer it seems, would be to drive out all out of state campers so empty sites will be there when and where they want them. Of course that won't happen, in part because Floridians would then crowd the parks themselves, resulting in the same problem as now. In the mean time of course, all the rest of us would have moved on, taking our out of state money with us.

Same problem in AZ when the snowbirds show up for a 6 month stay. AZ State Parks helped out by limiting stays to 14 days.

Don't know what kind of camping you're into but about 4 hours up the road there's some terrific state park camping near Savannah GA. Some of those state parks have full hook ups too. Here's a map of GA state parks just north of you.
Map of GA State Parks

Crooked River State Park, St Mary's Georgia has a couple sites available this weekend.

We stay there every year in the early May timeframe. Fernandino Beach is a reasonable drive from there.

Mike

Dutch_12078 wrote:
For the most part, Florida residents face the same obstacles the rest of us do in having to plan well ahead to get a chance at campsites. Residents do have one big advantage though, in that they are in position to take advantage of last minute cancellations that are not practical for out of staters to use.

There is this though, the national forest service campground we're in right now has 86 full hookup RV sites. A tour through the park last week found 47 of those sites occupied by vehicles with Florida plates. Our previous state park also had a high concentration of Florida plates, although I didn't do an actual count there. So apparently a significant number of Florida residents are managing to get sites it seems. If Florida residents demand site availability at will, then the only answer it seems, would be to drive out all out of state campers so empty sites will be there when and where they want them. Of course that won't happen, in part because Floridians would then crowd the parks themselves, resulting in the same problem as now. In the mean time of course, all the rest of us would have moved on, taking our out of state money with us.

Exactly. More Floridians would gain access, but all Floridians would still fight for spots and still have to make reservations a year in advance. The proposed bill would all but eliminate out of state visitors and end up doing nothing but make residents feel good.

Mike