National Park- Motorhome legnth?

maddawg46 wrote:
I was always told you should keep your RV to under a 30ft legnth. Why is that? I just bought a class A that is 31' 10". So what can't I do now?

We just bought an Axis 24.1, 25' because much larger is so difficult to find NPS site to fit in.

Our coach is 45', 65' total with toad. We've been to most of the National Parks and NFC without any problems. If in doubt call the rangers at the park of your choice. At 31' you'll not have any problems at 90% of all California State Parks. Most of what you've heard is BS. You'll not fit into Doheny for sure but most other parks are easy in and out. Roads around the campground are the issues, not the size of the sites. Most of the Ca. SP brochures are way out of date. For instance, Folsom Lake in Norcal shows 31' maximum size yet we've stayed there many times. Their longest site is around 70' pull thru, slightly larger than 31'..:W....Go, camp and enjoy your rig.....Dennis

Four of the biggest/most popular National Parks in the US, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Zion, and Grand Canyon, will all take a 40' motor home. Yes, there will be many parks that a large RV won't fit or there will be limited large sites available. However, I've seen it happen here too many times where people regurgitate rules and size limits that don't really exist, often confusing new RV owners/purchasers.

EVERYONE has a type of camping they LIKE to do. Some like to drive to isolated campsites no bigger than the size of a p/u truck, while others like to stay in RV resorts. You need to know what type of RVing YOU'LL be doing and buy an appropriate size RV for your needs.

A couple of functions wrapped together.

*length of rig
*popularity (and, to a degree, remoteness) of the park

Places like Grand Canyon or Yellowstore are more likely to have more large sites (and a gazillion more people) than less visited places like Navajo National Monument or Bandelier, for instance.

maddawg46 wrote:
I was always told you should keep your RV to under a 30ft legnth. Why is that? I just bought a class A that is 31' 10". So what can't I do now?

Noticed you're from CA and this seems to be a distinctly CA belief.

I think it comes from the fact that less than 20% of CA state park sites are at least 40' long (one-third of the federal parks in CA are 40').

About half of all the sites in state and federal parks are at least 40' long.

I gathered stats on State Campgrounds and Federal Campgrounds a few years ago.

OP: You will have absolutely no problem fitting into many of the popular national parks with your 32'. We didn't with our 40'. We also didn't make reservations. There are plenty of campgrounds that don't even accept reservations such as in Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier, Zion, etc.

The only change you might have to do is to get to a campground by early afternoon, preferably in the morning when folks are leaving. We've also gotten into reservable campgrounds in national parks by picking up a cancellation or no-show by being there early morning.

Since you're in California, the state parks there might give you some problems but that's the only state we found like that. Regardless, there are awesome national forest campgrounds and county parks in California that are way better than the state parks.

Bottom line - you won't have problems.

We got the Hurricane 27K because of the 30' limit on a lot of National and State Parks.
The 27K is a couple inches under 30' and its a good fit for us.

We have a 38ft fifth wheel if a campground doesn't allows us in we find another one nearby. Near most State and National parks there we be several private RV parks. Most RV parks have been updated to provide big rig access.

You should be OK even at campgrounds with a 30 foot limit. I've never seen a ranger get out of their booth to measure the length.

At the Grand Canyon, you can bring in any length RV and park in the Trailer Village campground. That being said, there are places within the Park where you cannot drive to with any vehicle over 26' in length.
Every park is different and depending on what RV sites are left open will determine what length coach you can get in.
If you use the Reseve America website to book sites for the various National Parks, they will give the length restrictions at the various parks.

What korbe said: "The longer the RV, the fewer campsites available". What you can't do is fit into a site that is too small. There is really no such thing as a site that is too big.

You can't park in a 24-foot site. You can't park in a 18-foot site. You need a larger one. A smaller RV can fit in a larger site as well as the smaller site.

I've been in state parks, and national park campgrounds, where about a quarter of the sites are just big enough for a 18-20 foot van, small trailer, or a pop-up camper, half are in the 24-30 foot range (and back-ins), fewer than a quarter fit for anything in the 36-40 foot range. Since many of these are also pulling another vehicle, they are more like 55-65 feet long. A handful of sites, usually pulloffs alongside the campground road, are available for those.

That's between the Mississippi River and the Colorado Plateau. The sizes and mixes are different in different parts of the country. You and I at 28-32 feet might find it very difficult to get a suitable site in some of the older, heavily forested campgrounds in state parks in Michigan and Wisconsin. I haven't been to the northeast, but I suspect the campground situation might be much like Michigan.

How much impact this has on you depends on where you want to go, what you want to do. My 30-foot motorhome is enough "too big" for some of the places I want to go that I am converting a 18-foot van to a camper, and for longer stays, shopping travel trailers in the 13-18 foot range.