As I am sure many of you know if you camp in National or state parks the fight for reservations is intense and made worse by those who use bots.

Currently we are ensconced in John Pennecamp State Park in the Florida Keys. We will be here two weeks. The hours that went into getting that reservation as well as others is overwhelming, as many of you know because often you are competing with a bot capable of responding to an opening in 2/100ths of a second.

I am not sure of where all these bots will end. Maybe it will ultimately be a battle of bots. Many old timers, like us, talk about getting out of camping all together, us included. We are not in the West so simply advising us to move to the next spot up the road is rarely an option.

it seems we are left with two choices. We can either pay someone $60.00 per reservation for them to use their bot (last year’s price and no we didn’t), or I can learn to write my own bot. Also not an acceptable solution. A universal lottery system would seem equitable though complex.

Thoughts

 

Steve,
I am not sure where all this will end but it is definitely difficult to get a reserved camping spot today. Luckily, where I live there are a lot of places to boondock but even then, I have seen so many people out there trying to get any place they can to set up camp. It is definitely frustrating and I feel your pain.

We have some state parks around me that last year went to a reservation system on some of the lakes in our area. On the one hand I agree with them doing it as people used to haul their campers out there on a Wednesday and leave them just to be able to have a spot for the weekend. Now with online reservations in place, the entire summer fills up and you cannot even get a spot unless you are willing and able to camp during the week. I am not yet retired so that is not an option for me.

We have used out truck camper less the last two years that since we got it and I have definitely thought about selling it but I go back and forth on doing that.

 

Getting a spot to camp some place you actually want to be is something that again never gets mentioned in the popular websites and I am not even sure how many newbies realize what they are getting into. We have two computers going every morning waiting for the reservation window to open. It closes again in an eye blink. We are currently camped next to writers for one of the giant dealerships and they are stuck in the same situation. Crazy times!!

 

I for one am dead set against Lottery or Auctions. I'm also against bots and the sooner they put the anti bot systems in place the better. I hate matching up letters or numbers or pictures but see the necessity of it.

The State Parks, USFS, BLM here in Oregon have a rule that they all use and, most importantly, enforce. That is, your campsite has to be occupied the first night of your stay and thereafter cannot be left unattended for more than 24 hours. So, the old trick of showing up on Tuesday or Wednesday, parking the camp trailer, pitching a tent and then disappearing until Saturday doesn't work in the campgrounds. 3 years ago we had an emergency with one of the dogs and had to make a flying trip to our Vet, 5 hours away. We checked with the Host and the Forrest Ranger, and they had no problem with us being gone for 2 days and even told us they would keep an extra eye out on our camp and boat. They are good with it as long as you have a good reason and tell them in advance.

There has been some discussion, mostly among entities, clubs, groups who are mostly rooted in the big cities, of going to a lottery and auction system here. I've heard that USFS may have one of those lottery campgrounds, I haven't seen it, or it hasn't affected us. I am aware of some lottery draws and auctions on Yurts or Cabins, but not tent or RV spots in a couple of selected campgrounds in the State. So far, we have been able to fight them off as far as general schemes for auctions or lotteries. One campground close to home we like to go to for 2 days and waterfall viewing was right on the verge of implementing a lottery. A bunch of us voiced our displeasure with that. We put enough pressure on them, that they are reworking - rebuilding an often unused group site only campground into a general use campground.

I do not think we have run into any bots on our state or federal reservation system in Oregon....yet, at least in a noticeable way. Oregon State uses Reserve America and USFS uses Recreation.gov.
However, if you are not up at oh dark thirty and on the computer and logged into your account the second your camp site goes from "NR" to "A", you stand a chance of losing out, if it is a "prime" spot. This year I noticed that some of the sites around ours stayed open for up to a week before the last one was gone for the 4th of July period. I just checked the campsite, and it is now reserved through Labor Day. There are only two reservable days after Labor Day and then it goes to First Come First Serve. The 2 reservable days won't be released for a few days yet. So, I'll be up early in the morning of March 4th keeping an eye on "our" camp site. That way I'll know we have the site reserved for us for one day and we will be in it when it goes to first come, first served the next day. Usually after Labor Day the place is a ghost town an nothing to worry about. But now we have to drive 220 miles to get there instead of just 80. Interestingly enough, I spent the first 8 years of my Law Enforcement career working at getting a transfer into that area.

What really ticks my wife and I off is seeing the campground is all full up on the reservation system and then the camp sites sit open and unused because someone canceled or was just a no show. In our favorite campground we've noticed that at least 25% of the camp spaces never have the campers show up. So, over the 4th of July, there will be at least 6 camp sites on any given day that go unoccupied. The camp host rarely gets notified of the cancelations, but most of them are just no call, no shows. Trying to lock yourself into one of those now open sites is a tricky proposition. A number of times now we have seen the 'Campground Full' sign get displayed, just to have it taken down an hour later over the 4th. The problem is that those open sites are all reserved at some point, so if a person arrives and occupies one of the "no shows" they may have to leave the next night when a reservation shows up.

 

i suggest a lottery only because bots are a reality and I don’t see any real action to stop them. Another thought I have is filling no show spaces takes work. I don’t see any real motivation for states to deal with that issue. I have no answer!

 

Time after time, we end up camping at the "rear" camping spots because the lake front spots are "reserved"... and, Nobody is actually staying in 90% of those lake front spots... We go for walks in the evening and nobody is camping there, we leave in the morning and nobody was there all night..... WTF is happening...??? We end up usually boondocking because of this... In a way, it's actually better... because you don't have to pay anything, and you get to stay right on the lake front pretty well every time... Now up here, in the north that is easily doable, but in the south with that many more people it can be hard, I am sure... as for the lottery BS... If you don't show up you pay double for that spot... Works for me...

 

I think everyone feels the same frustration. The system is being overwhelmed and market to death. Finding spaces varies. State parks site in Florida are almost impossible, but even most of the commercial campgrounds are tough unless they look like parking lots.

I am all for making people pay, but I think the states see it simply as if a space is paid for whether it is occupied is a nonissue. We live a bit over a 100 miles from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but we have pretty much given up even trying to get in there. Bots make things worse and I hate people that look for ways to manipulate the system. We are normally on the road from weeks to months at a time and trying to find places we want to stay is the worst part of it!

 

A couple of years ago we got cancelled out of "our" camp site. They had a ton of excuses, but we were left sitting in the campground entrance with our camper and 23' boat and 230 miles from home. Fortunately, I had lived, worked and hunted in this area for a lot of years. I actually spent the first 6 years of my career trying to get a transfer to this area and finally succeeded. So I know the area like the back of my hand and we have several hunting camps very close by. That saved our trip. We went a 1/2 mile south of the lake and set up in our old bear / elk camp. USFS refunded our 2 weeks of camp fees and we used that to rent a slip at the marina for the boat. That's far from ideal as their slips are 16'. We have a 23' boat. It's also low maintenance for a "resort" so has no fenders, rubber dock protectors, not even any old fire hose for hull protection. We do some wild camp boat in only and beaching, so I always have protective devices on the boat and used all of it.
The thing was, for the next 3, nearly 4 weeks we passed 'our' campground in the boat and 'our' campsite was never occupied. We discussed driving the 12 miles to the district Ranger HQ, but decided against it as we weren't going to tear down camp and move. Besides, once we were set up, we weren't time restricted and could stay as long as we wanted. Two weeks into our stay, a Forest Service LEO I used to work some cases with stopped by camp. We explained to him why were in the old bear camp. Unbeknownst to us, he must have gone back and had a chat with somebody. He stopped by our camp several times and never said a thing. But when we got home, there was a letter from the District Ranger apologizing and assuring us that our September reservations were 'cast in stone' and we would have no problems.


For a little more pleasant change of pace...

This is our old bear camp. No time restrictions. They will kick you out, enforcing a forest stay rule, if it looks like you are homesteading.

"OUR" campsite in the campground. Been camping here since or close to it since about the time I was in diapers.

We beach the boat in the grass/reeds here and you can see the camper through the trees.

Our own "private" beach dock in the grass and reeds.

 

I'm glad it worked out for you!

 

I solved the reservation problem by camping in the off season (Oct-April). I can make reservations a couple weeks in advance. Sometimes a month in advance if it's a holiday weekend. This is why I want a bigger slide in so I can just go dry camp somewhere in the summer. I have friends that stay up late and try to get spots once reservations are open using multiple computers and multiple people to get the spots they want. Too much work and If I want to go there that bad, I'll go sun-weds since I'm not a retired guy.

Just like boating facilities, there need for more facilities is not even keeping up with demand.

 

Varies greatly by where you want to be. Here in the Keys winter is the busy season and state parkS stay slammed year round for the popular ones.

we are retired so have flexibility, but still fight the bots for winter sunshine. Throw in a beach and we are really happy.

This year we wanted to do the Keys, but I don’t think we will go this far south again. Traffic gets crazy and noseeums are very bad from late afternoon till dark.

We camp a mixture of everything from Disney to boondocking and we camp year round.

 

One of the first problems I have with the reservation system of both State and Feds is the reservation fee. It seems silly to charge $8 for a mostly computer to computer conversation that you are required to have in order to successfully stay in a campground. The amount they charge for camp spaces, that fee should already be covered.

Oregon closes down a lot of the camp spaces in the State Parks Campgrounds over the winter. Fort Stevens will go from 300 down to 50 for example, even though they had camp hosts set up in several closed off loops, (Those numbers are just an example - the camp hosts in unused loops is not.). When we were down at Sunset Beach they had shut all but one loop down.

For a lot of the campgrounds that doesn't seem to be much of a problem except on the weekends. When we made the "lighthouse tour" to the Redwoods last winter, we started off at Ft. Stevens in Astoria and went to the California border. We didn't have any problems getting a site on one to two days notice with the exception of 3 campgrounds. Those were Umpqua - Reedsport, Bullard Beach-Coquille and Harris Beach - Brookings. We did get into Harris Beach at Brookings, but we had to adjust our arrival and departure date to get one of the two available sites on the reservation system.
For us, that just about mandates wild camping or dry camping abilities / proficiencies as we have a habit of 'spur of the moment trips' with spending the night "wherever we land".

It is interesting that the State Legislature passed a law to have State Parks slap on a 25 to 30% surcharge on State Campgrounds for out of staters. Originally that was to discourage travel to the state during the pandemic. Last year they revoked that law but added a new one that charges the fee to RV's from out of state. Seems "tourist friendly". "One reason for taxing out-of-state RVs is because Oregonians already pay an extra licensing fee to register recreational vehicles with the DMV. The annual cost ranges from $86 for a small trailer to $388 for a mammoth 45-foot motorhome. About half of that money goes to state parks."

So, if you are visiting Oregon from out of state in an RV, it will cost a little extra to stay at a State Park campground.

 

What I have noticed in some of the bigger parks like Ft Stevens is they will open more loops if there is demand. At least that's what I've seen. I also have a few private RV resorts we stay at as well and they are rarely busy in the off season. The only CG we haven't stayed at is the Forest Circus one that has spots over looking the beach near Florence. There are only a few of those and they are always booked.

Yeah the service fee is a bit irritating but on the same token it does cost something to develop and maintain the software and hardware that the contractor is using.

I can see in places like the Key's being an issue for sure. I'm sure the National Parks are similar. Maybe someday I'll be able to travel further than the left coast in an RV and hang out in some nice places. For now we just slum it at home.

 

I seem to remember reading an article recently that divulged the fact the US agencies that manage public campgrounds has actually been shrinking. To the point of closing many campgrounds across the US. This of course was exacerbated by the wuhan flu and the thousands pouring into the rustic areas. We are fortunate to be in the west and have ample opportunities to camp. We stay away from Yellowstone (pretty much our backyard), Grand Teton, and many of those due to crowds and we find people are less tolerant and friendly these days. I know the Pennecamp Reef area must get slammed year round and sympathize with your dilemma and internet bots. Many overlook the US Army Corps of Engineers run campgrounds and most military installations have sites as well. May not be the best views or exactly where you want to be.

Cheers!

 

I'm disappointed in a lot of the Military Campsites. The ones we want to go to are worse for getting reservations at than Beverly Beach on the Oregon Coast. As far as I know the MIL Camps are only for Active Duty, Retired and Disabled Vets. NAS Whidbey Island is so busy they take reservations by phone only and you have to know the secret handshake/Gate to access the base and get to the Cliffside Campground.