A quick Google search will tell you about current traffic delays or hotel vacancies. So why can’t we just as easily find real-time information on campsite availability?
Real-time information on campsite availability is coming soon. Photo by Jason Mrachina/Flickr
The thing is, federal and state-run campgrounds have had long-term contracts with private businesses. These contracts have given the businesses exclusive control over the online reservations for public land campsites, including the sites in national forests, on BLM land, and in our National Parks.
For example, Aspira, the parent company of ReserveAmerica, created the software that millions of campers use to reserve sites in over 4,500 public and privately-owned parks. In 2013, Aspira shared campsite data with websites like HipCamp, but after their contract came up for bid, the information was no longer available.
Consequently, the founder of HipCamp and other activists lobbied the government to make real-time campsite information available to the public. The grassroots movement grew to include more than 50 organizations like REI and the Sierra Club.
By July 2015, their lobbying efforts paid off. The federal government announced that the new contractor is required to provide real-time updates on campsite availability through an application programming interface (API), which is the same type of modern software used by other websites like Hotels.com. They also require that the new contractor work with third parties such as HipCamp, and other websites or apps, who want to make this information easily available to campers.
In October 2018, Booz Allen Hamilton, a Virginia-based management and technology consulting firm, will take over in Aspira’s place, managing online reservations for about 100,000 federal campsites. The state park campgrounds, however, are still an entirely different story.
Right now, 32 states still have contracts with Aspira, while the other 18 have deals with other vendors. Aspira’s CEO told Outside Magazine that they share campsite data with other vendors on a case-by-case basis, however Outside couldn’t find an example of that. Recreation.gov did offer an iPhone app, but as of August 7, 2018, it is no longer available to download.
Still, big changes are coming soon to how we find and reserve campsites on federal land, and that is at least a start. Sites that would have been otherwise empty because of last-minute cancellations will now be easy to find and book right away.
I will believe it when I see it….
Agreed..we began camping this spring after taking del of our new Casita Libety.. IMHO finding campsites should be easier that it is. Sad.
Being new to RV camping this year, we thoroughly enjoy staying in State Park campgrounds. They offer more space and privacy, are better maintained and have nicer helpful people compared to the “squeeze them in” noisey private campgrounds and chains. The only problem is the frustrating reservation system most State Parks use and how much money they are loosing to empty campsites that last minute campers can’t find online.
PET PEEVE: paying the $10 reservation fee EACH site. .. when I’m required to change sites during consecutive stay dates. Reserveamerica and Recreation.gov at least have a ‘date range availability’ tab.
Maricopa County Parks for example do not show which sites are avail for which dates, so when reserving for 10 days and no one site is available for all 10 its a day-by-day hassle.
Reserve America has been horrible. I hope the new system works out better. I know that many times spots were available but yet Reserve America claimed they were full. I know living near a campground that Reserve America managed so I spent several days visiting the campground in my Jeep only to find the same spaces empty.
We usually try to book Sunday thru Thursday so sites are easier to find.
The problem with the reservation system is that they book weekend stays that fill up the sites so it eliminates campers that are looking for extended stays. we owned a motel and we would only book a limited number of rooms for weekend stays it left room for people looking for extended stays. If you don’t limit weekend stays your full on weekends but have many empty sites during the week. Weekend stays are usually local people, we see this in our local National forest campground, half empty during the weekdays.
Reserve America and some other reservation systems require you to book 3 to 4 days in advance to reserve a spot. Being able to book online or by phone on the day of would be a blessing. Sometimes plans change due to weather or other circumstances. Isn’t that why many of us travel with our home attached so we can be flexible about where we sleep?
Call your state parks dept. and complain about factual accounts of how many campsites you have personally noticed that have gone empty. Most state governments are useless bureaucrats, who don’t give a hoot anyway. But, get the pressure up, it’s our land, not theirs.
I agree with Billy Bob Thorton that it is very frustrating to be at a state park that looks full on Reserve America but is half empty,, especially prime sites, on many weekends. Often my wife and I will look to book two different local state parks for weekend getaways between out of towns journeys only to be led to believe they were sold out and we land up staying home, only to talk to friends who stayed at these parks and to be told there were several sites available. Amazing how handcuffed the folks working in many state parks have no control over this, even to the degree of trying to make a change of campsites during your stay.
WE have four state parks in our county, literally hundreds of campsites and it has become very hard to get spot on a weekend. Once after being turned away because the “the campground was full” I went back the early the next morning and drove through the campground to find a lot of empty sites.
I stopped and talked to one of the camp hosts about being turned away because reserve america said the park was full and all the nonreserveable sites were taken. He told me this is normal all summer long, People will reserve multiple sites for family and friends 6 to 8 months in advance and then only use one or two of the sites ( money is no object to these people ) There was suppose to be some sort of rule to prevent this but its an easy work around with multiple accounts.
Reserve America likes family groups reserving multiple sites because they receive their $9 per site reservation, plus cancellation fees if folks back out of a site or two.
While there may be a park or two with exceptional and easy navigation when it comes to reservations, no one makes it simple to just input a length of stay, and have it return multiple ‘split’ sites if a single site cannot accommodate the whole time. This is where it gets dicey.
We certainly have enough exceptional ‘brains’ in this technological time that we could easily build this into our reservation systems…i.e., pick the site for the first so-many available days, then pick the site for the balance of the stay, etc. It’s not rocket science, at least I think.
I believe part of the ‘problem’ is that most of the reservation systems in the camping world are funded for the government – whether National Parks or State Parks, etc., so the ‘thought process’ for great and exceptional customer service may not be at the forefront. Not to say that ReserveAmerica is all bad, it actually has some fine points, but as long as the departments within the government don’t get out and ‘camp’ very often themselves, especially if making long-term multiple-nite stays, including and over a weekend, then it’s unlikely they’ll understand our aggravation.
And, yes, there’s absolutely NO REASON to justify the reservation system’s failure to be able to ‘book’ a site online that has already cancelled… but, that raises another ‘finer’ point – if the cost of cancellation is not high enough, then there is not enough ‘reason’ for anyone to worry about either calling or cancelling their prior reservation – leaving sites completely VACANT when others would love to use them.
I get that there are probably more things to consider here than just the ‘basics’, but nothing will change if the aggravations are not brought to the surface.
Let me have a meeting with ReserveAmerica and others, and I will be able to quickly relay many times during our 85,000miles of travel where their systems could be just a little more usable.
We did a 7,000 mile trip out West this summer with our fiver. One late afternoon we pulled into the Lewis and Clark State Park at Onawa, IA and noticed they had a sign out saying “Campground Full,” but the campground looked half empty. I was trying to locate the host when a fellow camper came up to me and advised me that most of the campsites were reserved for dates a few days later. In his opinion the hosts were just too lazy and rather than put in a little extra work and get campers in for the days before the reserved days they just put out the full sign. So we and some others that came after us found lots of campsites that were not reserved for that night and camped in them. That taught us something. We ran into this same thing in a few other places, too.
We live near a CORE federal lake and it use to be first come, first served. We liked it that way. Once they switched to the reservation process, we have stopped using it. I think we might have stayed there 2 times. If you reserve and have to cancel, it costs you $10, not to mention the fee for reserving it. I absolutely hate the reservation system.
Everyone please read “Bill Fisher’s” reply……. This is the true reason so many sites are empty during the week days. Private parks don’t have this problem because they want the extra income, government run parks by hosts who don’t get anything extra for filling the park simply post the “Park Full” sign because they are lazy.
Have fun & be safe.