Is 34'-7" Too Long for Parks?

[Sport45]

My wife and I are starting to look at trailers to get into RV’ing. Her folks had a TT and they camped every summer and many of the longer school breaks when she was growing up. They continued the tradition with grandkids until my kids were almost adults.

Anyhow, my in-laws have passed now, and the wife and I are looking to start trailering again and hope to be accompanied often by our boys and their future families.

To this end we have started going to RV shows and searching manufacturer and dealer sites to see what's available. The actual purchase is probably a couple years out, but I don't think it hurts to start early. We may buy sooner if something really tickles our fancy,

All that said, the question I have is this: If we get a 5th wheel with an overall length of 34.58 feet will we have a lot of trouble getting into State and National Parks to camp? We would really like to go back to Yellowstone, Glacier, Yosemite, and all the other great places my In-Laws treated us to. Just don't want to buy too much trailer and find out we can't get in to the many places we want to camp.

They pulled, IIRC, a ~27' Coachmen TT with a Suburban and were able to get in every place we went. We'd like to be able to sleep at least 7 and I'll be pulling it with a one-ton SRW crew cab pickup which I'll probably buy about the same time as the trailer. Since my wife's sister is joining us in retirement one model that caught our eye is the Keystone 292FWBHS. It has what amounts to a rear in-law suite and plenty of available sleeping spaces.

Sprinter 292FWBHS

We're open to suggestions if you know of other trailers we should be looking at that fit the bill as well. Any insight is appreciated!

[Seattle_Lion]

Oregon uses Reserve America too. We mostly camp in WA state parks and they have no problem with 35-40ft RV's. Last summer we had a 27' TT (30 ft with tongue) and had no problems anywhere. We now have a 36' 5th and it isn't much longer at all. We have reservations at Fishing Bridge for a site big enough for our 5th. It may be tighter in the East, but out here the parks are newer and the sites seem well sized.

[greende]

Old Duck wrote:
We are at 33' and camp mostly at state or county parks. During the summer season we need to reserve and plan. What we've also found is the length of site usually shows the area to park your rig, but many have room past the bumper stops to hang the end or your rig over. Sometimes Google maps helps on this if it's a place we haven't been.

Don't know what the parks are like in Oregon but here in New York, they always list the sites short. We will book a site listed as max 30' and easily get our 35' 5er into it. Reserve America does the New York State Parks now. There was a site in our home park that we knew we could get into that was listed as a 20' site. Reserve America would not let us book it because we listed our 5er as 35'. DW just change the length to 20' & it booked it! I ended up being able to get the entire trailer and 21' truck in my sig in the site.

[MTPockets1]

Been in 49 States and Prefer State and National Parks. Private Campgrounds are never a problem. We've never had a problem, but most always make advance reservations on-line and select sites that will fit. We do have problems getting reservation at some of the National Forrest Campgrounds due to length or other restrictions. Planning ahead is the key.

[RollandB]

We are at 33' and camp mostly at state or county parks. During the summer season we need to reserve and plan. What we've also found is the length of site usually shows the area to park your rig, but many have room past the bumper stops to hang the end or your rig over. Sometimes Google maps helps on this if it's a place we haven't been.

[Sport45]

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies! We do plan ahead (hence this question) so maybe this won't be the problem I was afraid it was. Looking at the NP websites I had seen 34' as a common "limit" and that was a concern.

[Merrykalia]

Many of the newer parks, especially in the east will easily accommodate a trailer of this size.

Virginia is in the process of re-working their parks to be able to accommodate the larger RVs and TN is doing the same.

[Allworth]

That is like asking "How long is a battleship? (True or False)"

Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. Finding out for any particular location is part of what goes into RVing.

[MrVan]

We have a 38' 5th wheel and have not had any real problems finding a camp site.

[korbe]

We have a short 5er and we plan on doing a lot of camping with our kids and grand kids. But we don't feel the need to sleep 7. Our kids bring tents and sleep outside. Just a thought.

[FastEagle]

Depends on the park. This picture is of a site we had at Natchez Trace state park in TN. Our trailer is 38'.

Click Here


FastEagle

[Veebyes]

Generally speaking, up to the lower 30s won't be too much of an issue at most SPs & NPs. Once you go past the mid 30s length the possible sites available for a longer rig drop rapidly.

What gets really frustrating is arriving at pick your own site CG to find the few sites able to accomodate a larger rig being used by a class B or a C that could have easily fitted in another shorter site nearby. Get used to it.

If you are a weekend warrior you will get to know the parks you frequent the most & adjust to suit. If you are a traveller never returning to the same park, not so easy.

[kennethwooster]

We use to pull 38.5 for a number of years and never had a problems. Went to 32 ft which we love except the bedroom is tight, so planning on going larger in a couple of years. We just upgraded to a F350 DRW, so we could handle a heavier trailer and longer. We usually go to rvparks in Texas and Colorado, and have never had a problem. Possibly if you only go to state parks you could run into a problem.

[rhagfo]

greende wrote:

eHoefler wrote:
We have a 40'2" fifth wheel, if you do a little planning ahead, you won't have any issues, we haven't, and state or federal parks are 90% of our stays. If you like to fly by the seat of your pants, and just wing it, you will have difficulty finding the bigger sites.

Agreed. We have a 35' FW and do not have problems at New York State Parks but we plan ahead. We are usually able to book a site listed at 30' and are able to fit the length of the trailer. The only problems we have had is backing into the spot because of trees & other obstructions. Once, we had to go around the loop backwards to miss a tree. These are rare, however. As stated above, anything north of 35' may take some planning.

We tow a 33' 5er, and find it best practice to have a reservation for a correctly sized space. Some older parks have very few larger spaces.

[RoyB]

We do a lot of camping off the power grid and don't see many of the longer trailers out there. The TT size we see the most is 24-26 feet type.

I'm sure you will find places where the long trailer will fit ok but it will always be a hassle.

We camp off the power grid in our OFF-ROAD POPUP camper including the Westmoreland State park which is our home camp site and it is around 18-feet from hitch to spare tire mount.

We look alot like this GOOGLE photo towing our 14RT trailer...


Roy Ken