Reserve America availability? What in the world...

rich67

Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's just the campsites I am looking at. I try to book campsites that (I think) should be relatively empty or are not that popular, and I find that on Reserve America it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find a free site on any given weekend at pretty much every campground I search on that site....until June of 2019! The weekdays seem to all be open, but the weekends are strangely completely booked almost a year out! Is this some kind of glitch or issue with Reserve America, or do things free up if you book last minute on that site? I have booked without an issue on the website in the past, but it seems like all of a sudden EVERYTHING is completely booked! Is it better to call the campground directly?

TomD

Rich67..when you live in California this is the norm. Camping is really popular now and the weekends are the favorite times for most locations. Also my experience has shown that the no-show rate is high which results in a lot of camp sites left open the whole weekend. The problem is not very many folks with reservations bother to call and cancel when they are unable to camp on the days they reserved. Everybody loses out when this happens

WilliamA

Rich,
My experience has been similar to yours. R.A. Is a good place to look but don't assume because they say they are full that they are. Many campgrounds only have a percentage of reserve-able sites but that doesn't mean they are actually full. Call and check. Lots of open sites are filled only by drive-up customers. Some also have overflow camping for a night or so. Just pays to let your fingers do the walking..
WilliamA

beaky

I've had excellent luck with https://reservecalifornia.com/CaliforniaWebHome/ log in and establish an account, we booked a trip in Santa Barbara and Morro Bay quite easily with a stop in Malibu on the way home. Beach front parks in SoCal are gonna be tough unless you go Sun-Wed

gto

Wow I could tell Reserve America stories. Just got through with northern trip using it. I found you could call them on a park for reservations, they would say none available. But when I went to the Reserve America site, looked up the park availability, it would show sites available and you could book online. That’s happened to me numerous times. Now the good news is Reserve America is going away soon to be replaced by another company which wii be...better? Anyway I feel any change is better for this.

Martog

I did a Reserve America for a state park in Indiana, basically the park had no spots on Saturday that I wanted to go but plenty on Sunday, but I bet that's due to people leaving. I found the mapping to be a bit buggy though which made it oh so fun trying to look over spots. The state park site pushed me to R.A. so I think that's there only online, but the Sunday check in (even at 5PM) is fine honestly as I'll only have had the trailer for a couple days.