RVers who buy up campsites

toedtoes wrote:
I think where we're losing sight to the OP's post is that the person who reserved that campsite DID go to the campground and paid for the campsite for 5 days and then LEFT and didn't return for at least 2 days. This wasn't someone who had an unforeseen circumstance happen, this wasn't someone who made a reservation online and added a day for an early arrival or late departure. This was someone who intentionally booked a campsite they had no intention of using for several days.

Out here, in campgrounds that are close to a large town/city, this is why there is the "must be occupied the first night" rule - because otherwise locals drive up to the campground and reserve 2 weeks so they can have their favorite spot on the weekends. For those who are from outside the area, they drive up to a no-reservation campground that is fully booked but there are a dozen empty sites.

For me, that's why I stay at reservable campgrounds in high season. I don't want to arrive after a 4 hour drive to find that the locals booked all the sites and are sitting at home watching tv while I'm driving around looking for a place to park, or worse, driving the 4 hours back home.

But that's why there are different rules at different campgrounds. Because there is no one rule that makes it "fair" for everyone. You just have to find the campgrounds with the rules that work best for you and stay away from the ones that don't. Or start boondocking. :)

Respectfully, nobody is losing sight of the facts. Your scenario is quite plausible, even probable, but there are always other possibilities. The person could have driven to the campground and paid for the site with every intention of camping that very night. But, perhaps, his cell phone rang with a family or work emergency, so he did not go right to the site. Or perhaps he is local, drove to the park without his gear to see if he could get a walk up site, got one, paid for it, headed home for his gear, and had an accident (or had mechanical problem, or got arrested, or got an emergency call, or whatever). He did not cancel because he hoped to make it. Maybe he even called the Rangers to tell them what happened; he did not communicate it to the OP or anybody else posting here.

As to Bill Gates, hard to imagine he or anybody like him books campgrounds without planning to show up. But if somebody did book a big block of campsites and could not use them due to an emergency, blame the emergency.

I know people will walk up and pay for walk up sites mid week just to be sure they will have it for the weekend. Some places make them pitch a tent or something to show that it is taken, nobody is apt to check to see if somebody is actually sleeping there. Like you, I do. It want to drive to a walk up location to be turned away, so I want to drive to a reserved site. No wonder so many parks are switching to advance online reservations. People book the nights they want and leave the rest for others. So, if your assumption the person just badly wanted the weekend is correct, a reservation system would have served the OP and the weekender well.