How many make park reservations vs find as you go.

A lot of old-timers mourn the days when you never needed a reservation. But as the baby boomers hit SS age, RVs are selling like hot cakes. Meanwhile, it seems that the number of campsites is shrinking.

So, if you know where you are going to be, why not make the reservation? Sure, you may end up canceling and losing a couple of bucks. How much is peace of mind worth?

Please remember that not ALL Walmarts can allow overnight camping due to restrictions by local ordinances.

We usually reserve when headed to travel "destinations" and especially during the summer school vacation season. Since I am the driver, I prefer to know that I have a safe place to park when on a timeline/summertime. Otherwise, off season, we like to free-form our travel plans. Happy trails!

GregToni wrote:
I'm a planner... want to at least have an idea of where I'm going, what to see, and where to stay. Spent a couple of months planning a 3 wk trip to Seattle this summer, now it just got canceled... planning a couple replacement trips, Kansas and northern rockies. With some places not taking older motorhomes, I want to make sure I have a place when I get there.

You really spent a couple months planning a three week trip?

We traveled on motorcycle pulling a camper over 150,000 miles in 10 years, rarely ever made a reservation, had a lot of fun on those trips.

I'm a planner... want to at least have an idea of where I'm going, what to see, and where to stay. Spent a couple of months planning a 3 wk trip to Seattle this summer, now it just got canceled... planning a couple replacement trips, Kansas and northern rockies. With some places not taking older motorhomes, I want to make sure I have a place when I get there.

2gypsies wrote:
If you're still working and pressed for time then definitely make reservations.

We were full-timers and retired so we were never on a schedule. We didn't make reservations even for our 40' motorhome and for many national and state parks - even along the Oregon coast in all seasons.

Many parks have campgrounds that don't even accept reservations such as Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier, Bryce, etc. and also some state parks - even in Oregon. We also enjoy national forest campgrounds. Of those that do reservations, there are always 'no shows'. If it's a major tourist destination such as Yellowstone, we'd stay nearby the previous night and drive into the park early morning when folks are leaving and when the 'no show' sites become available.

Honestly, we've never been turned away because there was no room at the inn. I understand that some folks think they can't travel this way but you can. It just takes a different way to approach the situation. You'd never pull in a 4pm in a national or state park and expect to get a site. The same goes for pulling in on a Friday. If you can be flexible it's easily done.

I sure hope this will work for us. We are going to Grand Canyon, Utah NP areas, and Colorado for the months of May and June. Our trip is completely seat of the pants, and I do have some dread about not having reservations. OTOH no matter what, our MH will be somewhere every night, with us inside it.

We won't know until we try.

We reservein advance unless going someplace that does nit take them like our fave spot two hours away. Then we go mid week to get a spot. Only once got burned in 7 years.

Destination we always have a reservation. Overnite travel stops we wing. Maybe a bigbox parking lot or something of that sort. Everyother day we get out the guide about 2 in the afternoon and start looking. Always find something, sometimes even adds to the adventure.

We do it both ways on our trips to Montana or the Black Hills. 3 Years ago we did 7k miles in 7 weeks and only made 4 reservations. We are in the early stages of planning a trip to Montana, S.D. Colorado, and N.M. before heading home for Aug. thru early Oct. Not sure how many reservation I will make. If any they will be made as we go. Enjoy your trip.

Sprink-Fitter wrote:

Oasisbob wrote:
Here in Oregon we reserve because space may not be available or not a good spot. If we go unreserved we run the risk of someone reserving our spot online forcing us to move. Odd thing about OSP is online it may show nothing available but when we arrive we see several unoccopied spots. Have yet to figure that one out

How could someone reserve you're spot?

Sprink-Fitter

I don't see their answer so I'll post my guess. I think Oasis Bob is saying he would have a site for one night then decided to stay more nights, but before he renewed for the next night someone made a reservation for the spot he is occupying which forces him to move. If he reserved the following night when he arrived I don't think he would have that problem.

Wa State Parks used to let you cancel with full refund, except for the original "online reservation fee", which is like $7 or something..

But, people started to abuse the system and make reservations TWO WEEKS ahead of time, to get the weekend they wanted. Then they would cancel the prior days after the 9 month time frame for that weekend.

They would get refunded all the fees for the prior days they canceled, yet still be able to keep the the days they really wanted..

Totally UNFAIR and WA State Parks realized that and put policies in that if you cancel your PRIOR dates after such a period of time (within days), you would NOT get your site fees back and have to eat that cost.. You can still cancel your ENTIRE block of days and get a full refund within 7 days of your arrival date.. But, you have to cancel the entire reservation block..

So, you can still do the TWO WEEK thing and then cancel if you want, but it's going to cost you now.

Thank you WA State Parks for doing this! I was getting blocked out of so many sites because of this and now I can get the sites I like in the time frame I want and all is good in the world again!

Mitch