Reservations for popular campgrounds

[VAHillbilly]

I have tried multiple times to book a national park campground when the booking window opens and found the sites already booked. I have tried to time it to the second but no luck. I suspect that there must be either an automated system to book the first nanosecond the window opens or some insider booking.

How do these sites get booked so quickly?

[SH]

Naio wrote:
Here's a place that uses software FOR you, for $40. Although if they are smart they are secretly scalping. http://campsitesniper.com/

Cool site but kind of pricey! Sad it has come to this!

[Naio]

Here's a place that uses software FOR you, for $40. Although if they are smart they are secretly scalping.

http://campsitesniper.com/

[Naio]

I have had good luck with popular places in the spring and fall seasons. Summer, don't bother.

There may well be software that times it to the millisecond, though. I know for ebay there is (and the software is free). Have you tried a web search?

[SH]

We also gave up on state parks a few years back. Sometimes if you book a year in advance you can find an open site but our life schedules are not amenable to doing so at this time.

We did try the booking a year in advance game once...got a couple of nice reservations. By the time the 12 months passed we had issues that did not allow us to use them. Frustrating Now we just use private parks and that works fine. We can still drive to the other parks and see the sights!

[goldsp8]

We tried to book Beavers Bend State Park in SE Oklahoma for next Memorial Day. Was told we could book June 1st. When the office opened at 8, both myself and my sister were dialing the number. At 7 minutes after, my sister got thru only to be told all full up. Like everyone else, not sure how that is possible since the park does not do on line reservations.

[bikendan]

don't feel bad, it's even worse in California.

not only for national parks but it's worse for Cali's state parks.
it's not uncommon for families to pool their computers together to make reservations for summers and weekends, 6 months prior.

coastal park campsites are gone within 30 seconds, quite often.

[4X4Dodger]

VAHillbilly wrote:
Actually the campground I am trying to get reservations are reservation only and do not have first come first served sites. Recreation.gov reservation site shows availability and allow 14 day reservations which can be booked 6 months from the date of the first reservation. For instance I tried to book a site 6 months from today (July 9) for January 9, 2016. The site showed a couple of sites available and the second the window opened I tried to book the site and the response was "no inventory available" and when I checked availability I found the campsite had already been booked for January 9 thru January 22.

This is very frustrating as I have tried this multiple times and found I was a fraction of a second late in attempting to reserve. Maybe I am doing something wrong but I don't think so as I have used the same reservation site previously for booking other less popular campgrounds.

No you are not doing something wrong. You must be on the rreserve space page ready and push the button right on the second. If you have to go to another page that is waiting too long. You must be at the Final step of booking. I know it;s frustrating.

However even campgrounds that are reserve only will take walk ups in my experience to fill spaces left vacant by no-shows and people who leave early (and a surprising number do).

Dont give up, staying in the Natl Parks imo is much nicer than any RV park.

PS it helps to have very fast internet and a fast computer. And many of the most popular parks are booked on the FIRST day they open the system for reservations for the system. This means the entire season will be booked in seconds.

[nwcutie]

OP, that is exactly how it is for us trying to book Riley Creek in Idaho. We start in early January with a list of the sites we can fit in and try every day as they come up until we bag one of them. We'll have the booking window open on the computer and try to time the reservation to exactly 7:00 am PST. It often takes a week to get one as everyone else is doing the same thing. Once we get a site, then we put in for our vacation time around it. Sigh...

[2gypsies1]

garmp1 wrote:

My issue is that there are many parks we'd like to visit, and being retired should have the opportunity, but between family and health issues, we're not always sure exactly when we will be where. To me retirement is to go "as the breeze blows". And the other issue is that we are from the mid-west and really like to camp among trees, vs a field. We need space between camps.

We're with you! As constantly traveling full-timers we hated to have to make reservations. We rarely did unless we really needed to be somewhere on a given date. If you're flexible you can easily travel without reservations. That is, if you don't need all the frills.

We stayed in many major national parks, state parks, forest service campgrounds and COE without reservations including Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier, Zion, Bryce and many others. We don't need hookups. We didn't have problems even with our 40' motorhome.

However, nowadays, if you have limited vacation time you do need reservations because everyone else is seemingly making them.

[RAS43]

SuburbanHauler310 wrote:
I have some friends that always stay at Carlsbad State Beach every June. They are online and booking at 12:01 am on Jan 1st. That place fills up that fast.

Tried to book a popular campsite at one of our popular state parks at 12:01 am and it was already taken. Someone was really fast!! I did get another site so all was not lost. 😄

[garmp]

I guess that camping, or "RVing" has become so popular that reservations are almost required at most popular parks. I have been camping, I mean with a tarp over a rope between two trees and on the hard, cold ground, with no electricity nor flush facilities in sight, since I was 5 yrs old. I'm now 68 and have a B with a nice mattress and micro wave, but still love the outdoors.
My issue is that there are many parks we'd like to visit, and being retired should have the opportunity, but between family and health issues, we're not always sure exactly when we will be where. To me retirement is to go "as the breeze blows". And the other issue is that we are from the mid-west and really like to camp among trees, vs a field. We need space between camps. A hand drawn map doesn't give me the info I want.
And ain't gonna do no Wally World for a night!

[westernrvparkow]

Is it possible you and the booking site are not on the same time zone? I have no clue as to whether or not the reservation sites are sync'ed to the local time zones or whether they use Eastern time, greenwich mean time, or the time zone where the reservation center is located, which could be in India for all we know. I highly doubt that there are bots tied to making reservations, since most cannot be resold. I think someone has already hit upon the key issue, there just aren't that many sites available. For example, if it is a 100 site park, and the average stay is a week, that means less than 15 sites become available on an average day. Considering a popular concert can sell out a 20,000 seat venue in a matter of minutes and those seats are only being sought by people in the immediate commuting area, 15 sites in a popular national park, where there are people wanting to make reservations from all over the world, they can go away pretty quickly, especially when there isn't human interaction to jockey sites and maximize the usage of the park.

[2gypsies1]

What park are you trying to book? Many national parks - and state - do not allow reservations for every site. If you look on the reservation site and see 'not available' that's what it means. It doesn't mean it's booked.

[MobileBasset]

Yes this is very sad. I have to talk myself down when I get into this situation. Gamble Rogers (Flagler Beach) has that problem. By some miracle I called after failing online, and was able to find a small slot open. The operators have better visibility into the big picture than we do when viewing online. Give it a try sometime. Of course being totally flexible helps.