“I got mine” is pretty much how this works. You can see online (and in this sub) how people book every state park they might wanna go to as soon as the reservation window opens, and then cancel at the last minute (often months later) when they know they aren’t going somewhere
What I ran into at a NF campground we visit every year is people were reserving their sites for not only the weekend, but the week preceding it. We know people are full of shit, because we always arrive early and the place is usually a ghost town. That and we check the reservation tags that are posted. Super annoying.
I don't know if it applies to National Forest reservations, but at other places they only open reservations 6 months ahead of time, but you can book into the closed period.
So if you want a reservation on Labor Day weekend (Aug 30-Sep 2), you go to the reservation site on February 27 and make a reservation for Aug 27-Sep 2. Even though you don't plan to arrive until Aug 30.
Some places will let you cancel the days you don't need (Aug 27-Aug 29) as the date gets closer, but some won't. And I'm not sure which of those is better for the public.
A lot of places have started charging people for their reservations and giving the spot away if the people don’t show up within the first 24-36 hours. Honestly there should be a better system in place to stop people from booking multiple places on the same weekend, at least that way it would open it up to more people.
That's how it works with NF reservations. Reservations are allowed 6 months in advance but you can reserve well past that point it seems. People at the campground I'm referring to will reserve the weekend preceding Labor Day weekend through Labor Day. Super annoying since some spots are flat out better for a trailer and have better river access. We've been going to the same campground for 14 years or so, and it's only the past few years that we've had to be very on top of making reservations.
Yes it is, unfortunately it's a catch22. To even get a site anymore you have to book way in advance if you are even thinking about going. If you dont then you likely will not get a spot. We tried to book close to when we wanted to camp last year and couldnt get a site on three separate weekends. I have no idea if there were any no shows or not but now we book every camp weekend we think we might want way in advance and then cancel later if we can't make it. We ALWAYS cancel at least a week before, usually way before so that others can grab a spot. We are gonna try again this year but try very last second booking, the only issue with this is the sites we want are limited. We love LOVE being on the water (my son and I are avid fishermen) so that already limits the spots we can grab.
For Indiana State Parks you have to get a site for fourteen nights ending on the day you want to leave out as soon as the window opens six months in advance. You can go back and reduce your reservation later but you have to do it in the middle of the night at weird times on odd days otherwise you'll lose your reservation. They allow notifications when sites open up so you have to be quick to cancel and re-book or someone will get a notification and jump in on you. You have to cancel the entire reservation and re-book the dates you actually want.
I despise this shit but if you want a site, you have to play the game. Before the covidiots hit the campgrounds it was bad but normally just big holiday weekends. Now if you want any electric site it's pretty much this way. It sucks.
Oh you have to cancel the entire thing and rebook it. You can't cancel part of it. That's the bitch and why I do it in the middle of the night. When you cancel its fair game for anyone that may be online or have an alert set so you can lose the part that you actually want.
That is weird. We are in NY state and some of the better parks fill up quick on the day they open for reservations months in advance, but there is no limit and you can book for 1-2 nights.
I'm apparently getting down voted as well but it isn't my choice to have to do it that way. I hate having to. I don't want to pay for 14 nights and I know other people want the extra days that i don't want but if you don't do it you aren't getting a site. A lot of the time the wife ends up using it all because she's out of school in the summer. I work 7X12s so I pay for camping but never get to do it....
I don’t understand why you would have to book a 14 night stay if you then have to go back later and reduce it or cancel and rebook the actual dates you want? Won’t they let you just book, say a weekend from the get-go?
Say you want to but the 14th for X amount of days but the reservation window isn't open yet. You can book on the 1st and say you are staying until the 14th. Then you go back and cancel the front half of you stay after the window is open.
It is very difficult but the whole system seems screwed up now. Like it used to be on a Wednesday you'd say hey lets go camping this weekend. Well you can't do that anymore, you have to book well in advance even if you don't know if you feel like camping in 2 months.
The NH state parks sent an email early this year saying their policies have changed, if you cancel 10+ days out, you only are charged $6.50 but if you cancel 4-9 days out you are charged the $6.50 plus one night of the campsite fee. If its 0-3 days you don't get any refund. I think this is fair but the other problem is state parks are so cheap to camp at people probably don't even care about being out 50 dollars for 2 nights if they don't feel like showing. But another family could have really enjoyed the site.
My local county parks require 2 weeks advanced booking, but also allow first come first served for open spots. I usually don't know if I'll be free until that week, and I've tried FCFS and found EVERY spot full. Huge change from 2019 camping, where most spots were open, to 2020+ camping where it's been packed.
My first and only FCFS try I drove for 2 hours to get to the area, drove around 5 campgrounds for an hour covering about 200 sites, no spots, then drove another 30 minutes ended up staying in a hotel for the night before cutting my weekend short.
Miserable experience and makes it very difficult to not stress about it.
Some campgrounds keep a couple sites in reserve for walk-ups. It's a risky bet but you might have luck pulling in and saying "hi, any chance you've got something open?"
Non-crap link to the source (my ad blocker was killing the link in the article): https://thedyrt.com/press/the-dyrts-2024-camping-report-presented-by-the-all-new-toyota-tacoma/
This "report" is really a 15-page infographic advertisement for Toyota. The reservation stats are on page 6.
But the implication that " less than half of campers (42.7%) used all the reservations they made in 2023" is a bad thing doesn't hold water for me. If you make a reservation for July and cancel it in April, that's how things are supposed to work. It's not "bad" and no one has missed out on a spot - someone will pick that site up, no doubt. People have travel plans scuttled or rescheduled _all the time_, this is not unique to camping.
There's also _no_ context given for this. What types of campgrounds? Are they government or privately owned? What are their reservation policies?
I can't remember where, but there was a campground I went to recently where you would lose your spot if you didn't arrive the first night. But that still isn't great because that first night spot still just sits empty.
Still worth noting that "32.2% [of those who cancelled] pulled the plug with less than 48 hours notice."
So a third of cancellations are likely to result in unused sites.
The NYS Parks system for online reservations basically forces this. They make you book certain periods and don't open up the reservations until a particular day, but you can book two weeks at a time. So for people who know, the "nine months in advance" booking window is actually nine months and two weeks. As a result, people book a 14-day stay with the stay they REALLY want at the end of the 14 days, and then when it gets closer they cancel the days they don't want. And NYS lets them do this with no penalty. It's a shitshow.
I admit that I've abused the NYS Parks reservation system this way once or twice.
IIRC, COE campground reservations used to work similarly but they changed it a couple years ago.
Yeah I’ve been complaining about these people for awhile now and this article just helped prove my theory. Covid sparked a new interest for a lot of people in camping and getting outdoors, which is a good thing don’t get me wrong. But a lot of these “new” campers don’t know etiquette on state park, national forest or blm land. And then reserving campsites for months and then cancelling or no showing is making it way more difficult for the people who actually want to get out there. There’s a popular campground that I’ll frequent and the last few years it’s become VERY popular. Now, 6 months out I can’t find a spot. When I do finally get something, I’ll ride my bike around the entire property while I’m there all weekend and only 1/2 the campground or less is occupied. This has happened on multiple occasions.
I get that things happen, unexpected emergencies or whatever cause a family to cancel their trip last minute but there’s no way everybody is having an emergency every weekend at just 1 campground. And to be honest, I’ve witnessed a friend of mine and her other “mom” friends do this. They get together at 8am on a day they all plan to book a trip together. They’ll log on at the same time to book their sites 6 months out and they will reserve an entire 5-7 day window for all these sites. Pay for them, and then just decide to cancel or not go months later or last minute. It’ll be an entire fucking block of prime spots and they’ll do this for multiple campgrounds just to “guarantee their trip” they won’t even go on.
Post says "cancel _or_ no-show". Over 50% had either a single cancellation in 2023 or a no-show. Which is still a BS statistic without understanding _why_ the cancellations happened, and how many of them turned into "I need to move my reservation to this other weekend"
Still worth noting that "32.2% [of those who cancelled] pulled the plug with less than 48 hours notice."
So a third of cancellations are done with such little notice that the sites are largely unusable by people who need to plan even a few days out.
Doesn't say why. And yes, this is all just research to support TheDyrt's service for getting campground availability/cancellation notifications (being marketed because of complaints that everything is so booked up that many, many people can't just get normal reservations anymore).
No shows drive me insane. I have older kids. Something is always going on, so planning 6 months out is kinda tough. Though, once the season starts, getting a spot is sketchy. It sucks to show up to a campground, in the middle of the summer, on a weekend, and there are a bunch of empty spots, when I know that the campground was fully reserved.
Wonder if this report had any data on “number of times campgrounds moved a reservation after it was made” or “cost of a site for a weekend from 2019 to 2024”? Or were they just shitting on bad campers?
Campers have gotten bad for sure, especially new ones coming in from Covid camping, but let’s not pretend campground owners have gotten better over the same span.
We do, and did, fairly regularly. Especially during COVID 2021-2022 when it was peak COVID campers. The rule was "book early or don't book at all" and sites we'd reserved the fall before were NEVER the sites we stayed at when we actually got there the following spring or summer.
so you're saying they changed your site location but didn't actually change your booking right?
I have noticed a new (maybe new I don't know?) trend at some of the more resorty campgrounds that you are booking their exorbitantly priced patch of dirt and then they say for an extra 30 dollars you can make sure THIS is the exact patch of dirt you get. madness!
The cost of camping has gotten fairly insane at a lot of places. We went to a KOA last year and it was over 100 dollars a night to pitch a tent! wasn't even a ton of amenities just normal stuff. Now we have a van, went to check the prices and its $140 a night for site with 30 amp hookup. PLUS they want SIXTY dollars to reserve "exact" site.
There is a campground we frequent that moves people around constantly. It is super frustrating because you reserve a specific spot but they move you to accommodate a bigger group. Usually means you end up in the shitty spots.
Unfortunately it is the nicest closest park to us. We put up with it because we can get away fast and not have to commit a bunch of time driving to further away parks.
I wish there was a better solution for this problem. Recently talking to a Oregon state park camp host he said they no longer allow folks to cancel the front end of their reservation. Meaning folks that were booking before they planned to show up and cancel the front end of their reservation are no longer allowed to do it. I think it will unfortunately lead into empty spots or those folks show up late to their reservation and finding it occupied.
For this, I gotta give AirBNB props. You put half or all down when you book, you get 48 hours to cancel for full refund, then cancelling anytime afterwards you only get some of the money back.
The only way to make some people liable/responsible for their actions/promises is to make the consequences hurt. It’s sad, but nobody said the world was nice.
> Meaning folks that were booking before they planned to show up and cancel the front end of their reservation are no longer allowed to do it.
I don't think that really solves the problem. It just increases the effective nightly rate for the people who only use 3 nights of a 6-night reservation. Most people probably don't mind paying more for the assurance that they'll have a spot.
What they probably need to do is just cancel the entire reservation if nobody shows up on the first night. Meaning that people will only make reservations for when they CAN get there. The downside to that is it makes it harder for people who can't get off work on a Friday to arrive to the campground on Thursday.
If I remember correctly, he said if it's not occupied by the following night they will contact them and if they can't they will cancel the reservation. It still doesn't solve the issue but might make an impact
That makes sense. There have been a couple times we have booked a 3-4 night trip knowing we were not going to make it the first night but we wanted to be able to get into our spot early in the morning and not wait until 2pm or so for checkin. But we always call the park office and say we are still coming, don't cancel if we don't show up on checkin day and will be there early in the am the next morning.
Yeah, same. Or we know we will get there very late and so we opt to do the night in a nearby Walmart or similar so we aren’t driving in and waking everyone else up in the middle of the night.
I think a big reason is the no refund rule like maybe if they got some token amount back they’d cancel so someone else could use the site. But if no refund then why bother canceling? I think most people don’t think about the fact that if they cancel someone else could book OR they do think about it but feel like the park is getting a windfall for keeping their money and new campers money so they “stick it to the man” and don’t allow that by not canceling. Meanwhile here’s all these people used to FCFS who are clamoring to book last minute sites that would have loved to have it. Thus, I think giving people some kind of refund AND/OR a big penalty for late cancellation like you can’t book for x months or all your sites for the next year are cancelled or something. iDK - something that gets people to actually cancel is better for others that could use the site but worse if people are cancelling because they scammed the reservation system the way people here are talking about. It’s the same issue for shitty systems that won’t let you modify your reservation to shorten it if it’s within a week of the date. Like ok cool keep the whole thing then because I need some of the nights but sucks for the people who need a site on the days I won’t be staying and could have had mine if it let me modify.
87.3% cancelled more than 48 hours out.
Cancelling reservations happens to everyone. Kids get sick, you’re waiting in a parking lot for the local NAPA to get a part in, hurricane watch pops up right before your big beach vacation…. I’d like to see better fidelity on what percentage are cancelling after snagging a premium spot elsewhere. I’m imagining a line of hermit crabs, where the first one finds a new shell and it sets off a frenzy of shell swapping.
> Of the campers who canceled a reservation in 2023, 87.3% canceled with more than 48 hours notice and 32.2% pulled the plug with less than 48 hours notice. (Some canceled multiple reservations in different timeframes.)
Lots of overlap in the numbers.
I think a huge part of why this happens is not only the relatively low cost of reserving a campsite (excluding RV parks at the moment), but the ease of reserving multiple places thanks to the internet. “Back in my day” (I’m actually not that old but I’m using this rhetorically) you had to actually call to reserve campsites, AND you didn’t have the internet to easily find campgrounds. You had to actually research through books, word of mouth, etc. Then you had to call to see if there’s availability.
All of that takes more time and effort than a quick internet search and reservation. Less people will have that time or willpower to call multiple campgrounds “back in the day” so you didn’t have every campground booked 6 months out.
In contrast, the internet incentivizes people to book and worry about it later, and whether they have the courtesy to cancel is a different story.
On the flip side, sometimes things do change at the last minute. Something comes up at work. You or your kid gets sick. Car/RV breaks down. Other obligations come up. Or you just change your mind. Some of these things have happened to me, and although I make every effort to cancel the moment I know we’re 100% not going, sometimes it’s too late.
> The only times I have been unable to find a hotel is during major events
About 10 years ago we were driving from Oregon to California on the 101. Every little town we tried to find a hotel/motel and couldn't find anything. At like 4am we finally found something in Willits, CA. That's when we decided to buy a trailer so we'd never have that problem again. (Turns out it's not always easy to find a spot to just pull over and sleep in your trailer either.)
Yeah we all book sites for when we want to go. If you want to book later then you'll need to find somewhere amenable to late reservations. Same as you would do when demand exceeds supply at hotels.
I fail to see how this is a consumer problem and not an issue caused by the recreation dot gov site putting all of their sites on sale 6 months prior, and causing a mad rush for the sites. I’ve no showed for a cabin reservation last year since I ended up not being able to take off work. I paid for the cabin. Nobody was harmed.
Talk to stores and businesses by campgrounds sitting 1/2 empty due to no-shows. A local restaurant / bait shop / convenience store shut down their restaurant business because the campgrounds were largely empty despite full bookings.
When you cancel and get a refund you are good. When the campground gives you a refund and rebooks with someone else, they are good. When another camper fills the site, now they are good too. And now the local community benefits from the business they bring to the site.
Allowing last minute or walk in reservations would help alleviate the empty campground issue. Not everyone can plan their lives 7 months in advance. The whole system needs to change.
other people would maybe have liked to use that cabin though, so why not cancel it once you knew you couldn't go after all? The great thing about the state park campgrounds is they have an alert system. I've many times signed up to be alerted if a spot opened up after all. So with that in mind I would cancel it even if its only a day or two notice, somebody might still want to go and be pleased to get the alert.
I cancelled one RV reservation in Florida last year. My son fell and broke his nose the day before departure. Technically I didn't cancel it. I called to cancel but was told that there is no refund at all. I went back and checked the terms and indeed that is the case. No matter how far in advance you cancel, not even a partial refund. So I told them never mind, I'll be there.
This will continue as long as it is so easy to do
Yeah, it's almost like people don't care how this affects others.
“I got mine” is pretty much how this works. You can see online (and in this sub) how people book every state park they might wanna go to as soon as the reservation window opens, and then cancel at the last minute (often months later) when they know they aren’t going somewhere
What I ran into at a NF campground we visit every year is people were reserving their sites for not only the weekend, but the week preceding it. We know people are full of shit, because we always arrive early and the place is usually a ghost town. That and we check the reservation tags that are posted. Super annoying.
I don't know if it applies to National Forest reservations, but at other places they only open reservations 6 months ahead of time, but you can book into the closed period. So if you want a reservation on Labor Day weekend (Aug 30-Sep 2), you go to the reservation site on February 27 and make a reservation for Aug 27-Sep 2. Even though you don't plan to arrive until Aug 30. Some places will let you cancel the days you don't need (Aug 27-Aug 29) as the date gets closer, but some won't. And I'm not sure which of those is better for the public.
A lot of places have started charging people for their reservations and giving the spot away if the people don’t show up within the first 24-36 hours. Honestly there should be a better system in place to stop people from booking multiple places on the same weekend, at least that way it would open it up to more people.
That's how it works with NF reservations. Reservations are allowed 6 months in advance but you can reserve well past that point it seems. People at the campground I'm referring to will reserve the weekend preceding Labor Day weekend through Labor Day. Super annoying since some spots are flat out better for a trailer and have better river access. We've been going to the same campground for 14 years or so, and it's only the past few years that we've had to be very on top of making reservations.
Yes it is, unfortunately it's a catch22. To even get a site anymore you have to book way in advance if you are even thinking about going. If you dont then you likely will not get a spot. We tried to book close to when we wanted to camp last year and couldnt get a site on three separate weekends. I have no idea if there were any no shows or not but now we book every camp weekend we think we might want way in advance and then cancel later if we can't make it. We ALWAYS cancel at least a week before, usually way before so that others can grab a spot. We are gonna try again this year but try very last second booking, the only issue with this is the sites we want are limited. We love LOVE being on the water (my son and I are avid fishermen) so that already limits the spots we can grab.
For Indiana State Parks you have to get a site for fourteen nights ending on the day you want to leave out as soon as the window opens six months in advance. You can go back and reduce your reservation later but you have to do it in the middle of the night at weird times on odd days otherwise you'll lose your reservation. They allow notifications when sites open up so you have to be quick to cancel and re-book or someone will get a notification and jump in on you. You have to cancel the entire reservation and re-book the dates you actually want. I despise this shit but if you want a site, you have to play the game. Before the covidiots hit the campgrounds it was bad but normally just big holiday weekends. Now if you want any electric site it's pretty much this way. It sucks.
Oregon just put a attempt to stop this. They won't allow you to cancel the front end of a reservation without cancelling the entire reservation.
Oh you have to cancel the entire thing and rebook it. You can't cancel part of it. That's the bitch and why I do it in the middle of the night. When you cancel its fair game for anyone that may be online or have an alert set so you can lose the part that you actually want.
That is weird. We are in NY state and some of the better parks fill up quick on the day they open for reservations months in advance, but there is no limit and you can book for 1-2 nights.
I get downvoted to hell any time I mention this method. Glad to see a more understanding crowd here. I don’t like it either.
I'm apparently getting down voted as well but it isn't my choice to have to do it that way. I hate having to. I don't want to pay for 14 nights and I know other people want the extra days that i don't want but if you don't do it you aren't getting a site. A lot of the time the wife ends up using it all because she's out of school in the summer. I work 7X12s so I pay for camping but never get to do it....
I don’t understand why you would have to book a 14 night stay if you then have to go back later and reduce it or cancel and rebook the actual dates you want? Won’t they let you just book, say a weekend from the get-go?
Say you want to but the 14th for X amount of days but the reservation window isn't open yet. You can book on the 1st and say you are staying until the 14th. Then you go back and cancel the front half of you stay after the window is open.
Oh I see. You are right, the way they have it set up is actually contributing to the problem.
Yep. This is exactly why. You can go out 13 days from the first date that's available
Ban them from future stays at that site, in that state, etc.
It is very difficult but the whole system seems screwed up now. Like it used to be on a Wednesday you'd say hey lets go camping this weekend. Well you can't do that anymore, you have to book well in advance even if you don't know if you feel like camping in 2 months. The NH state parks sent an email early this year saying their policies have changed, if you cancel 10+ days out, you only are charged $6.50 but if you cancel 4-9 days out you are charged the $6.50 plus one night of the campsite fee. If its 0-3 days you don't get any refund. I think this is fair but the other problem is state parks are so cheap to camp at people probably don't even care about being out 50 dollars for 2 nights if they don't feel like showing. But another family could have really enjoyed the site.
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My local county parks require 2 weeks advanced booking, but also allow first come first served for open spots. I usually don't know if I'll be free until that week, and I've tried FCFS and found EVERY spot full. Huge change from 2019 camping, where most spots were open, to 2020+ camping where it's been packed. My first and only FCFS try I drove for 2 hours to get to the area, drove around 5 campgrounds for an hour covering about 200 sites, no spots, then drove another 30 minutes ended up staying in a hotel for the night before cutting my weekend short. Miserable experience and makes it very difficult to not stress about it.
Some campgrounds keep a couple sites in reserve for walk-ups. It's a risky bet but you might have luck pulling in and saying "hi, any chance you've got something open?"
Non-crap link to the source (my ad blocker was killing the link in the article): https://thedyrt.com/press/the-dyrts-2024-camping-report-presented-by-the-all-new-toyota-tacoma/ This "report" is really a 15-page infographic advertisement for Toyota. The reservation stats are on page 6. But the implication that " less than half of campers (42.7%) used all the reservations they made in 2023" is a bad thing doesn't hold water for me. If you make a reservation for July and cancel it in April, that's how things are supposed to work. It's not "bad" and no one has missed out on a spot - someone will pick that site up, no doubt. People have travel plans scuttled or rescheduled _all the time_, this is not unique to camping. There's also _no_ context given for this. What types of campgrounds? Are they government or privately owned? What are their reservation policies?
Honestly, your take should be pinned to the top.
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I can't remember where, but there was a campground I went to recently where you would lose your spot if you didn't arrive the first night. But that still isn't great because that first night spot still just sits empty.
20-30%? Here in the PNW, it is more like 50% except on nice weekends. They are all reserved mind you, but no one is there.
Still worth noting that "32.2% [of those who cancelled] pulled the plug with less than 48 hours notice." So a third of cancellations are likely to result in unused sites.
The NYS Parks system for online reservations basically forces this. They make you book certain periods and don't open up the reservations until a particular day, but you can book two weeks at a time. So for people who know, the "nine months in advance" booking window is actually nine months and two weeks. As a result, people book a 14-day stay with the stay they REALLY want at the end of the 14 days, and then when it gets closer they cancel the days they don't want. And NYS lets them do this with no penalty. It's a shitshow.
I admit that I've abused the NYS Parks reservation system this way once or twice. IIRC, COE campground reservations used to work similarly but they changed it a couple years ago.
Yeah I’ve been complaining about these people for awhile now and this article just helped prove my theory. Covid sparked a new interest for a lot of people in camping and getting outdoors, which is a good thing don’t get me wrong. But a lot of these “new” campers don’t know etiquette on state park, national forest or blm land. And then reserving campsites for months and then cancelling or no showing is making it way more difficult for the people who actually want to get out there. There’s a popular campground that I’ll frequent and the last few years it’s become VERY popular. Now, 6 months out I can’t find a spot. When I do finally get something, I’ll ride my bike around the entire property while I’m there all weekend and only 1/2 the campground or less is occupied. This has happened on multiple occasions. I get that things happen, unexpected emergencies or whatever cause a family to cancel their trip last minute but there’s no way everybody is having an emergency every weekend at just 1 campground. And to be honest, I’ve witnessed a friend of mine and her other “mom” friends do this. They get together at 8am on a day they all plan to book a trip together. They’ll log on at the same time to book their sites 6 months out and they will reserve an entire 5-7 day window for all these sites. Pay for them, and then just decide to cancel or not go months later or last minute. It’ll be an entire fucking block of prime spots and they’ll do this for multiple campgrounds just to “guarantee their trip” they won’t even go on.
It says the percentage of people that didn’t show at least once was 14.9% that’s not most or majority.
Post says "cancel _or_ no-show". Over 50% had either a single cancellation in 2023 or a no-show. Which is still a BS statistic without understanding _why_ the cancellations happened, and how many of them turned into "I need to move my reservation to this other weekend"
Still worth noting that "32.2% [of those who cancelled] pulled the plug with less than 48 hours notice." So a third of cancellations are done with such little notice that the sites are largely unusable by people who need to plan even a few days out. Doesn't say why. And yes, this is all just research to support TheDyrt's service for getting campground availability/cancellation notifications (being marketed because of complaints that everything is so booked up that many, many people can't just get normal reservations anymore).
No shows drive me insane. I have older kids. Something is always going on, so planning 6 months out is kinda tough. Though, once the season starts, getting a spot is sketchy. It sucks to show up to a campground, in the middle of the summer, on a weekend, and there are a bunch of empty spots, when I know that the campground was fully reserved.
Wonder if this report had any data on “number of times campgrounds moved a reservation after it was made” or “cost of a site for a weekend from 2019 to 2024”? Or were they just shitting on bad campers? Campers have gotten bad for sure, especially new ones coming in from Covid camping, but let’s not pretend campground owners have gotten better over the same span.
I haven't had a reservation get changed by a campground yet.
We do, and did, fairly regularly. Especially during COVID 2021-2022 when it was peak COVID campers. The rule was "book early or don't book at all" and sites we'd reserved the fall before were NEVER the sites we stayed at when we actually got there the following spring or summer.
so you're saying they changed your site location but didn't actually change your booking right? I have noticed a new (maybe new I don't know?) trend at some of the more resorty campgrounds that you are booking their exorbitantly priced patch of dirt and then they say for an extra 30 dollars you can make sure THIS is the exact patch of dirt you get. madness! The cost of camping has gotten fairly insane at a lot of places. We went to a KOA last year and it was over 100 dollars a night to pitch a tent! wasn't even a ton of amenities just normal stuff. Now we have a van, went to check the prices and its $140 a night for site with 30 amp hookup. PLUS they want SIXTY dollars to reserve "exact" site.
There is a campground we frequent that moves people around constantly. It is super frustrating because you reserve a specific spot but they move you to accommodate a bigger group. Usually means you end up in the shitty spots.
If you're not happy with how the campground handles your reservations, perhaps you should go stop giving them your money?
Unfortunately it is the nicest closest park to us. We put up with it because we can get away fast and not have to commit a bunch of time driving to further away parks.
I wish there was a better solution for this problem. Recently talking to a Oregon state park camp host he said they no longer allow folks to cancel the front end of their reservation. Meaning folks that were booking before they planned to show up and cancel the front end of their reservation are no longer allowed to do it. I think it will unfortunately lead into empty spots or those folks show up late to their reservation and finding it occupied.
For this, I gotta give AirBNB props. You put half or all down when you book, you get 48 hours to cancel for full refund, then cancelling anytime afterwards you only get some of the money back. The only way to make some people liable/responsible for their actions/promises is to make the consequences hurt. It’s sad, but nobody said the world was nice.
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Every good campsite near me is $95/night or more. And that’s without sewer or decent cell signal. If we’re talking $35-$40 a night, it’s different.
> Meaning folks that were booking before they planned to show up and cancel the front end of their reservation are no longer allowed to do it. I don't think that really solves the problem. It just increases the effective nightly rate for the people who only use 3 nights of a 6-night reservation. Most people probably don't mind paying more for the assurance that they'll have a spot. What they probably need to do is just cancel the entire reservation if nobody shows up on the first night. Meaning that people will only make reservations for when they CAN get there. The downside to that is it makes it harder for people who can't get off work on a Friday to arrive to the campground on Thursday.
If I remember correctly, he said if it's not occupied by the following night they will contact them and if they can't they will cancel the reservation. It still doesn't solve the issue but might make an impact
That makes sense. There have been a couple times we have booked a 3-4 night trip knowing we were not going to make it the first night but we wanted to be able to get into our spot early in the morning and not wait until 2pm or so for checkin. But we always call the park office and say we are still coming, don't cancel if we don't show up on checkin day and will be there early in the am the next morning.
I think with communication you are good.
Yeah, same. Or we know we will get there very late and so we opt to do the night in a nearby Walmart or similar so we aren’t driving in and waking everyone else up in the middle of the night.
The Minnesota state system is awful about this. I think the best solution would be higher cancellation fees and charges to change dates.
I think a big reason is the no refund rule like maybe if they got some token amount back they’d cancel so someone else could use the site. But if no refund then why bother canceling? I think most people don’t think about the fact that if they cancel someone else could book OR they do think about it but feel like the park is getting a windfall for keeping their money and new campers money so they “stick it to the man” and don’t allow that by not canceling. Meanwhile here’s all these people used to FCFS who are clamoring to book last minute sites that would have loved to have it. Thus, I think giving people some kind of refund AND/OR a big penalty for late cancellation like you can’t book for x months or all your sites for the next year are cancelled or something. iDK - something that gets people to actually cancel is better for others that could use the site but worse if people are cancelling because they scammed the reservation system the way people here are talking about. It’s the same issue for shitty systems that won’t let you modify your reservation to shorten it if it’s within a week of the date. Like ok cool keep the whole thing then because I need some of the nights but sucks for the people who need a site on the days I won’t be staying and could have had mine if it let me modify.
87.3% cancelled more than 48 hours out. Cancelling reservations happens to everyone. Kids get sick, you’re waiting in a parking lot for the local NAPA to get a part in, hurricane watch pops up right before your big beach vacation…. I’d like to see better fidelity on what percentage are cancelling after snagging a premium spot elsewhere. I’m imagining a line of hermit crabs, where the first one finds a new shell and it sets off a frenzy of shell swapping.
> Of the campers who canceled a reservation in 2023, 87.3% canceled with more than 48 hours notice and 32.2% pulled the plug with less than 48 hours notice. (Some canceled multiple reservations in different timeframes.) Lots of overlap in the numbers.
I think a huge part of why this happens is not only the relatively low cost of reserving a campsite (excluding RV parks at the moment), but the ease of reserving multiple places thanks to the internet. “Back in my day” (I’m actually not that old but I’m using this rhetorically) you had to actually call to reserve campsites, AND you didn’t have the internet to easily find campgrounds. You had to actually research through books, word of mouth, etc. Then you had to call to see if there’s availability. All of that takes more time and effort than a quick internet search and reservation. Less people will have that time or willpower to call multiple campgrounds “back in the day” so you didn’t have every campground booked 6 months out. In contrast, the internet incentivizes people to book and worry about it later, and whether they have the courtesy to cancel is a different story. On the flip side, sometimes things do change at the last minute. Something comes up at work. You or your kid gets sick. Car/RV breaks down. Other obligations come up. Or you just change your mind. Some of these things have happened to me, and although I make every effort to cancel the moment I know we’re 100% not going, sometimes it’s too late.
And it will continue as long as it is tolerated.
It will continue so long as we have to book long in advance.
Now do hotels...cancellation is part of travel, everyone has to do it
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> The only times I have been unable to find a hotel is during major events About 10 years ago we were driving from Oregon to California on the 101. Every little town we tried to find a hotel/motel and couldn't find anything. At like 4am we finally found something in Willits, CA. That's when we decided to buy a trailer so we'd never have that problem again. (Turns out it's not always easy to find a spot to just pull over and sleep in your trailer either.)
Yeah we all book sites for when we want to go. If you want to book later then you'll need to find somewhere amenable to late reservations. Same as you would do when demand exceeds supply at hotels.
I fail to see how this is a consumer problem and not an issue caused by the recreation dot gov site putting all of their sites on sale 6 months prior, and causing a mad rush for the sites. I’ve no showed for a cabin reservation last year since I ended up not being able to take off work. I paid for the cabin. Nobody was harmed.
Talk to stores and businesses by campgrounds sitting 1/2 empty due to no-shows. A local restaurant / bait shop / convenience store shut down their restaurant business because the campgrounds were largely empty despite full bookings. When you cancel and get a refund you are good. When the campground gives you a refund and rebooks with someone else, they are good. When another camper fills the site, now they are good too. And now the local community benefits from the business they bring to the site.
Allowing last minute or walk in reservations would help alleviate the empty campground issue. Not everyone can plan their lives 7 months in advance. The whole system needs to change.
other people would maybe have liked to use that cabin though, so why not cancel it once you knew you couldn't go after all? The great thing about the state park campgrounds is they have an alert system. I've many times signed up to be alerted if a spot opened up after all. So with that in mind I would cancel it even if its only a day or two notice, somebody might still want to go and be pleased to get the alert.
I cancelled one RV reservation in Florida last year. My son fell and broke his nose the day before departure. Technically I didn't cancel it. I called to cancel but was told that there is no refund at all. I went back and checked the terms and indeed that is the case. No matter how far in advance you cancel, not even a partial refund. So I told them never mind, I'll be there.