Traveling style-how much do you plan ahead?

[Urlauber]

I plan what I can ahead of time, now using BaseCamp and a Garmin GPS. BaseCamp has a bit of a learning curve, but once you have it figured out it is very flexible and you can fine-tune it to the minute.

I am glad most places can be reserved. Still having kids in school means you usually look for sites Fri/Sat eve and for the more popular places, there is no way (anymore) to just do first-come-first-serve. In that sense, I feel the reservation system is fair since anyone can plan their trips ahead of time and do the res.gov on the computer. Sure there is a small % of no-shows, but better than a long line of frustrated, turned away campsite-seekers.

Just getting up early doesn't do much good if you have a 30 site campground and 500 folks trying to get in. I remember playing silly games where I would drive to the campground Thursday evening, find someone friendly, ask if they will leave Friday, and if so if I could sneak in my payment slip underneath theirs, then come back Friday and hope they did not throw it into the campfire.

Maybe when the kids are outta here and I retire I'll think about it differently, but maybe not.

Incidentally, some of the better campsites we stayed at were dispersed places, or just parking spots at a trailhead. Not having neighbors (well, besides the local wildlife) while hanging out and gazing at the stars is fantastic. Still, these were very much planned out ahead and in detail to prevent any nasty surprises.

[Sensfan]

There is risk associated with not reserving, however our preference is to travel through remote areas, which facilitates a lot of boon docking and/or last minute reserving. For example, our Ottawa to/from Alaska trip, about 15,000 miles and 86 days, included only about 20 spent in a campground; and, most of these 20 were same day reservations.
Our favourite same day reservations are those beautiful lake side tent sites; we drive by non-lake side forested sites that were reserved months earlier for the Class As, Cs, fifth wheels and trailers.
This summer, Newfoundland camp sites had a lot of vacancies/no-shows, so it was very easy to same day reserve. Newfoundland and Alaska are as friendly as it gets and are great for boon docking.
We use a RV, Garmin, which often gets us lost. No big deal lol.

[avanti]

Our SOP when traveling is to look in areas where we are likely to spend each night a week or so in advance. You can learn to "read" the reservation patterns. If it is booked up, we look elsewhere. If there are only a few slots, we make reservations. If there are plenty, we forget about it and just show up. Almost always works out.

[Winston]

Originally Posted by Urlauber

I feel the reservation system is fair since anyone can plan their trips ahead of time . . .

Maybe when the kids are outta here and I retire I'll think about it differently . . .

Fair? Oh yes, we see. It's fair because we both have the same and equal opportunity to sit at our computers one year in advance of our planned travel and make our reservations.

For the working family the reservation system is ideal, it's a necessity. You sign-up on the office vacation calendar the preceding late summer or fall, you discuss with your spouse where "we should go next summer", then you make your on-line reservations. Perfect.

But is it really fair to expect those of us who have lived by schedules and time-clocks for 40 years and who have finally, in our retirements, earned the right to wander, to see what this county has to offer . . . is it fair to require that we continue to live by the dictates of the working family reality? And what about those who cannot - - due to illness and treatment regimes or responsibilities of care to spouses or other family members - - plan with such precision? Many must remain flexible.

What is really sad about this continuing debate is that none of us has to chose one extreme over the other. It would be simple enough to divide the available space into two blocks: a reservable block and a first come, first served block. This, of course, won't solve the overall shortage of campsites problem. But neither will making all sites reservable. But, by "fairly" splitting the available space, the needs of all styles of travelers will be accommodated - - each will have a chance at obtaining a site. Today, the impromptu/itinerant camper has no chance of obtaining a site at too many of our popular venues. The pendulum has swung too far . . . it’s time to return to a 'balance of fairness'.

[folivier]

I've been retired 12 years now, and traveling for about 10. In the recent past (before covid) we'd only occasionally book a campsite in advance. Usually when we planned to meet up with friends somewhere. Mostly we'd just head out in a direction for the summer. Frequently changing our plans and direction as we'd meet up with friends. About 2-3pm we'd start looking for a campsite for the night. Sometimes if we'd like the area we'd stay a couple days or a week. Never had a problem finding a site for the night.
Once after meeting up with friends at a rally we were planning to head into Washington and Oregon but decided last minute to follow a couple friends up into Canada. Great times.
Oh, this was in a 45' diesel pusher towing a fullsize truck. We were 72' total length and rarely had to unhook to get into our site. But things have changed since then. In 2020 we were in Colorado and decided to buy an RV lot at a place we really like. This was due to most campsites not being available in areas we wanted to travel to.
Now we have a cabin and mostly use the B to travel back and forth with a few shorter trips in different places. Times are different now.

[Davydd]

As I mentioned and Booster mentioned, there are 8 state parks with campgrounds on the Minnesota Lake Superior North Shore. You have to make reservations a year in advance. That is ridiculous. Some people have said they get on the line at midnight to make their reservations. We planned our recent trip about a month in advance for the state forest and the municipal CG.

I liked Arizona state parks. I don't know if it is still available but they allowed overflow camping in their parking lots. You didn't have to get on the road early to see if there were cancellations.

[MsNomer]

We've spent the last couple months mainly in CA and OR. OR parks are super nice. Can't say about CA because they are all full. What's chapping us, though, is that the USFS parks are being privately run for twice the price. I can remember nice motel rooms for the present regular price of a USFS camping spot with no amenities other than a table. Fortunately, most nights are boondocking.