National parks ?

I have stayed in Hard sided only National Forest CGs in Montana. That is not the general rule though.

I have been told that bears and alligators are also the reason dogs are not allowed on the trails at National Parks.

I do not know if this is true at all National Parks but I do know that at the Everglades and the Smokey Mountain Nationals parks they are confined to parking lots and campground areas.

In bear country, those in popups may have to follow a set of rules that apply to tenters, which often include keeping all food, toiletries, cooking utensils, even stoves, in their cars or in bear-proof containers in the CG, except when those items are being used. But an overall prohibition of popups in national parks - nope.

Hey all a buddy of mine was saying that he almost bought a tent trailer but changed his mind as they were not allowed in national parks. I have never heard this, have any of you encountered this?

Yes that is true. Not ALL parks allow tents or Hybrids. This is found more where there are a lot of bears. I think you will find more that do allow them then not.

Have your friend do some searches of parks and CG's in the area they will be camping most often and see if they have a restriction. Before he ditches the idea of buying one.

Lake Louise, in Banff National Park, tent campers are restricted to a certain area of the park, separate from the hard sided campground

All soft-sided camping units must stay within an enclosed electric fence in the Lake Louise Tent campground due to seasonal bear activity. Soft-sided refers to all tents and any vans, campers or trailers that have soft-sided pop-outs.

The only thing I can think of - the friend might have that idea because you can stay in Fishing Bridge campground at Yellowstone only with a hard-sided RV since it is in the grizzly-populated area of the park.

Otherwise, NPs certainly welcome tents and tent campers everywhere, from what I've seen, including other parts of YNP.

On edit: there's your answer, in triplicate!

The only place I've ever heard of it is at Fishing Bridge in Yellowstone. I'm not sure I'd WANT to use a tent trailer in grizzly country (we traveled with a Coleman Shenadoah for 13 years), but the other Yellowstone campgrounds allow them. Anyhow, the website says "Fishing Bridge RV Park is the only campground offering water, sewer, and electrical hookups-50 amp service; it is for hard-sided vehicles only (no tents or tent-trailers are allowed)."

Otherwise, we used our tent trailer in quite a few National Park campgrounds. Unless you are in low desert in the summer, go for it!

There are some campgrounds in some national park that require hard sided RV's. For example

Majja13 wrote:
Hey all a buddy of mine was saying that he almost bought a tent trailer but changed his mind as they were not allowed in national parks. I have never heard this, have any of you encountered this?

A quick Google search revealed this. Your buddy was given wrong information. If anything tent trailers would probably be the most welcome of all since they are small and more like a tent than anything other type.

Not true