Is this happening everywhere?

[babock]

Was riding my bike in Malibu today. 70°F outside and maybe 10% of the campsites occupied at Leo Carrillo State beach. This is why I camp during the week!

[frank4711]

Originally Posted by babock

Was riding my bike in Malibu today. 70°F outside and maybe 10% of the campsites occupied at Leo Carrillo State beach. This is why I camp during the week!

We have had little trouble booking for next year ... if needed we make Saturday a travel day and stay the night at rest area or Loves then check in Sunday afternoon for a 3-4 night stay or a week if it is a full vacation week ...

[formerFR]

we've traveled extensively, over 100,000 miles in under 5 years, all over the U.S., including Alaska, and even most of the provinces in Canada, including PEI(Prince Edward Island)... and have experienced a lot of different 'camping' scenarios, whether at a traditional 'rv park', a private 'campground', a local, regional, state, or federal campground, private rv sites, bookdocking, or just overnighting in a big box store parking lot(including also the family driveway overnight).

Camping itself has a lot of differing 'definitions', and many of these forums have us complaining about 'our style' not being easy or as available 'anymore'. Some of us are discussing the typical problem of 'weekend' camping, but that in itself is so totally different than those discussing camping during the week, at least 'normal' week days, not holiday weeks. Some of us are even discussing actual 'RVing', in the sense that we are 'traveling' in our RV, across the country, and looking for places to stay for the night, or a few days, etc, during our travels.

All three of these types of 'camping' are going to have challenges, they really always have.
If you are referring to 'weekend' camping, then yes, you are going to be challenged because there are SO MANY normal, everyday, working people who consider 'camping' as a weekend only activity. They are going to leave as early as they can on Friday after work, and return as late on Sunday as possible. The whole 'weekend' at the campground is going to be as much 'activity' as possible!
If you are referring to camping during the week, then you will most certainly find it much easier to get places and sites that you want, and you probably will not have the hub bub of activity - it'll be a much quieter location, but you'll also probably see other RVrs who are not really 'camping', but are 'living'. They may be long-term RVrs who are close to their work, especially if they are contractors or moving around for business reasons.
If you are discussing 'RVing', as a more traditional term, then you are probably less concerned with a specific campground or rv park, and more with the nightly price, the ease of location during your travels, and maybe less about 'amenities' since you probably have a more self-contained RV. Having a 'resort' or nice campground is a bonus, but the real desire is probably less about that and more about location to your travel direction.

I don't really see the changes that most complain about, and yes, there are certainly more campgrounds and rv parks being built out, but the reality is also true that more RVrs that come onto the scene create more space issues, especially on the weekends. It's like heavy traffic at 7:30am going to your work place - it's quite different at 10:30am when everyone is 'already there'. Weekenders are always going to have challenges, but I'll bet the rest of us are going to find it much less challenging to find places during our travels, at least as long as you are not also trying to find that 'perfect' or 'touristy' campground during the weekend or on holidays or during the summer travel months.

We also have those friends who leave their camper at a local lakeside rv campground during the whole spring to fall months - going 'camping' every weekend. That site is tied up during the whole of every week, yet they are never there during that time, taking that ability away from other campers, if that's the way you want to look at it.
Some would say that you 'paid' for the whole season, so it's yours to use as you wish. Many on these forums who complain about 'lack of sites' would probably disagree and wish that those who are not actually 'camping' should not be taking spaces for those who want to be there. True.

[TitanMike]

Originally Posted by formerFR

We also have those friends who leave their camper at a local lakeside rv campground during the whole spring to fall months - going 'camping' every weekend. That site is tied up during the whole of every week, yet they are never there during that time, taking that ability away from other campers, if that's the way you want to look at it.
Some would say that you 'paid' for the whole season, so it's yours to use as you wish. Many on these forums who complain about 'lack of sites' would probably disagree and wish that those who are not actually 'camping' should not be taking spaces for those who want to be there. True.

If it's in a privately owned campground it's up to the owner of the facility to do as they want. Most owners have expenses they have to cover so a long term rental means less nights the space is empty and more money to pay the bills with.

When it comes to publicly funded campgrounds in State Parks or National Park/Forests there are varying length of stay limits so people can't treat these sites as their own personal summer vacation spots.

FWIW, this "shortage" of camping spots was predicted way back in the 70's and many "Camping Clubs" were introduced to the public. Some are still in existence, many are gone.

[Iwannacamp]

Around here(TX) our local COE is $24 a day(water/30 amp) which is $8760 per year if allowed. Arkansas local $15 day(50 amp/water) and $5475 year if you could.

If you "just wanted an OK place to park it" then I would buy or lease a piece of "farm" land and get after it. Cheaper than park rent here.

[TowPro]

this is why I finally walked away from Thousand trails.



We joined in Hershey, we knew all the rules and it made sense.


all most as soon as we purchased, they they called Hershey "high usage" and changed the rules. that was OK, we could live with the new rules.


than they added a new membership that had 120 day reservations and if you had the bucks to upgrade you could. It got harder to make reservations on holiday weekends at Hershey, OK, we can live with that.


as those couple years went past it just was getting harder to get a spot at Heshey. you had to arrive on Wednesday to get a nice spot for that weekend. OK, we can live with that, so we started coming for only long weekends.


We needed to get 15 days usage to break even on the yearly dues, OK, we were doing that plus some.



Next they bought OutdoorWorld resorts. YES, this will lighten up the load on Hershey and give us more opportunity with new places to came. WRONG, only if you wanted to pay $5000 to upgrade. Nothing changed at Hershey.


next (after yet another company bought them out) they started bringing these bottom of the line 30' campers, used from some other park they were upgrading, then parked them on all the prime 30a sites. Now we can't get prime sites no matter how soon in advance we show up.


Next they started selling Thousand Trail memberships on line, for less per month they were were paying, that included both outdoor world Plus thousand trails.


we didn't have to think that long to discover that our only child was now in Collage and our camping davs voer weekends went way down. With Daughter gone we were doing longer week long stays in OBX and not using Thousand trails.


I was one of the lucky (smart) ones, I could just walk away from my membership with a written 30day notice to headquarters. So we did.


looking back I made more off buying and selling the stock for Thousand Trails than My membership cost so I was ahead of the game anyway.

[itat]

Originally Posted by larry2c

We've been camping for longer than we've been married (35+ years) and graduated from on the ground to the luxury of a nice memory foam queen in our latest TT. Usually 3 or 4 times a year we would go to a local campground that has 100+ spaces about half of which are good for RV's and maybe 25 or so full hookups and the rest water and electric. It is on a nice little lake, is usually pretty quiet because fisherman go to bed early I guess. Being only 10 miles form our house it was perfect for a quick weekend get away.

Over the last couple of years we have noticed that there are more camp hosts (at last count 8) and a lot of working campers and other "full timers". The results of this seems to be that I can no longer get reservations there. Just for grins I looked out at mid February during the week - there were only 2 sites available. The following week there were zero (I'm not counting the tent sites - still plenty of those).

So, are other folks that regularly visit the same CG's seeing this trend? It really is pretty disappointing for us since during the school year (DW is a teacher) going out of town is a bit more challenging.

Up here in Ontario, Canada, Provincial Parks (PPs) have been crazy hard to book a site during the peak summer time (July 1 to Labour Day weekend) for many years. Trying to get a reservation on an electric-only site at the most popular PPs during that time has been nearly impossible for many years. Last year DW and I sat on separate computers at 7:00 am (when the reservation window opens), 5 months in advance of the arrival date we wanted, trying to book at site at our favourite PP. We got beat for the site we wanted on 2 separate weekends. Very frustrating. So we've been venturing to other PPs further away from home and expanding our experience to places we've never been before. Now that we are essentially empty-nesters, we've come to enjoy camping in the Spring and Fall when the parks are much less crowded and easier to reserve sites. Unfortunately, with climate change many of the PPs are getting significantly flooded every Spring which breeds a lot of mosquitoes so we've decided we won't try to camp at a PP as early in the Spring as we have in the past. Victoria Day weekend (around May 24th) is the earliest we'll book a PP site now.

Other than Provincial Parks, we camp mostly at KOAs. Other private campgrounds tend to be old and/or full of seasonals so there isn't a lot of choice. Fortunately, booking a site at a KOA is not usually a problem any time of the year as long as you reserve a few weeks in advance, and cancellations usually don't cost anything if you cancel at least 2 days before the arrival date.

[Gunslinger1]

Originally Posted by larry2c

We've been camping for longer than we've been married (35+ years) and graduated from on the ground to the luxury of a nice memory foam queen in our latest TT. Usually 3 or 4 times a year we would go to a local campground that has 100+ spaces about half of which are good for RV's and maybe 25 or so full hookups and the rest water and electric. It is on a nice little lake, is usually pretty quiet because fisherman go to bed early I guess. Being only 10 miles form our house it was perfect for a quick weekend get away.



Over the last couple of years we have noticed that there are more camp hosts (at last count 8) and a lot of working campers and other "full timers". The results of this seems to be that I can no longer get reservations there. Just for grins I looked out at mid February during the week - there were only 2 sites available. The following week there were zero (I'm not counting the tent sites - still plenty of those).



So, are other folks that regularly visit the same CG's seeing this trend? It really is pretty disappointing for us since during the school year (DW is a teacher) going out of town is a bit more challenging.

I spent almost two hours looking for a campsite at all of Ohio’s State parks for the 2020 season. There was not ONE site open! I was lucky and found a spot on lake a Erie at a private RV Park. It cost a little bite of dough but I have a spot for next year...

[bikendan]

Originally Posted by formerFR

I don't really see the changes that most complain about, and yes, there are certainly more campgrounds and rv parks being built out, but the reality is also true that more RVrs that come onto the scene create more space issues, especially on the weekends. It's like heavy traffic at 7:30am going to your work place - it's quite different at 10:30am when everyone is 'already there'. Weekenders are always going to have challenges, but I'll bet the rest of us are going to find it much less challenging to find places during our travels, at least as long as you are not also trying to find that 'perfect' or 'touristy' campground during the weekend or on holidays or during the summer travel months.

I agree with much of what you wrote BUT a lot depends on what region you are camping at.
We have been camping on the West Coast for 35 years. We have seen major changes over the years.
Yes, summers, weekends and holidays have ALWAYS been difficult, which is why we avoid camping then.
BUT what has changed is that it's becoming more difficult in the off-season, to get campsites without reservations at West Coast campgrounds.
There are numerous factors affecting this:
Ability to camp year-round, even in winter.
Retired Baby Boomers in RVs snowbirding.
Increase in younger people and families fulltiming.
High home/rental prices forcing many to live in RVs.
Increased population, for decades, without new campgrounds being built.

One of the most affected campgrounds, are California State Beach campgrounds. Many are booked through the winter, months in advance.

[Camp Monty]

Originally Posted by Gunslinger1

I spent almost two hours looking for a campsite at all of Ohio’s State parks for the 2020 season. There was not ONE site open! I was lucky and found a spot on lake a Erie at a private RV Park. It cost a little bite of dough but I have a spot for next year...

What dates were you trying to reserve? Ohio Sate Parks will only reserve 6 months in advance. So as of today you wouldn't be able to reserve anything beyond May 13, 2020. They do fill up quickly though.

[Feel Swift]

Originally Posted by Gunslinger1

I spent almost two hours looking for a campsite at all of Ohio’s State parks for the 2020 season. There was not ONE site open! I was lucky and found a spot on lake a Erie at a private RV Park. It cost a little bite of dough but I have a spot for next year...

Ohio has a 6 month reservation window. If you are trying to use an arrival date beyond May 13 2020 all sites will show up as unavailable. I just looked at the weekend of May 8th for 2 nights at Hocking Hills which is one of the most popular parks in the state and plenty of sites are available including some FHU's. The same at East Harbor on the lake near Sandusky. All the blue sites in the pic are available and the tan ones shown as not are mostly walk up only.

[larry2c]

I haven't checked back on this thread for a few days - we were camping out in the desert! But, like most places we want to go to, I had to get the reservation a few months ago.

I guess the disappointing thing I am taking away form this thread is that what I see here is pretty common in most other parts of the US. That concerns me because after years of being weekend warriors with an annual 10 day to 2 week trip, we are now approaching a point where we want to travel the country (DW will retire next year and all the weekday restrictions will be gone!). I don't want to try and plan every day of a 3 month trip and I was hoping we could reserve a few places that were planned destinations where we'd stay longer and then just wing it in between. Sounds like that part will be the challenge.

I don't mind the idea of pulling into a Wal-Mart once in a while for an overnight spot but that's definitely now where I want to spend a majority of my evenings. We'll be doing a 3 week trip up to Oregon and back next summer with several reserved stays, a couple friend's house stops and then I guess we'll join the great crap shoot for spots on the in between stuff. Who knows, maybe our travel the country trips will turn into flying, car rentals and B&B's.

[okie dokie]

Originally Posted by larry2c

I haven't checked back on this thread for a few days - we were camping out in the desert! But, like most places we want to go to, I had to get the reservation a few months ago.



I guess the disappointing thing I am taking away form this thread is that what I see here is pretty common in most other parts of the US. That concerns me because after years of being weekend warriors with an annual 10 day to 2 week trip, we are now approaching a point where we want to travel the country (DW will retire next year and all the weekday restrictions will be gone!). I don't want to try and plan every day of a 3 month trip and I was hoping we could reserve a few places that were planned destinations where we'd stay longer and then just wing it in between. Sounds like that part will be the challenge.



I don't mind the idea of pulling into a Wal-Mart once in a while for an overnight spot but that's definitely now where I want to spend a majority of my evenings. We'll be doing a 3 week trip up to Oregon and back next summer with several reserved stays, a couple friend's house stops and then I guess we'll join the great crap shoot for spots on the in between stuff. Who knows, maybe our travel the country trips will turn into flying, car rentals and B&B's.

On the in between stops, try the small towns. As we travel around the US we search out the small towns for overnights. Generally small fee, no reservations required.

I’m not a fan of the truck stop, Walmart noise. Spending 15$ for electric/water and quiet is worth it for me.

For COE and State Campgrounds. . Keep checking the reservation system for the park you are interested in. Cancellations happen all the time. Everyone making reservations a year or 6 months in advance don’t necessarily make the trip.

[moose074]

I live in the middle of the sand boom. 5 years ago we had maybe 100 rv spots in town and half were empty. Now we have close to 2000 and most are full. On room can go for 500 a week. Just finished 2nd pilot and now starting a Loves Rv spots are cheapest thing around

[direwolf2001]

Originally Posted by oldxr

I live in the San Francisco east Bay Area . All of the privately owned campgrounds are full of people working . With an old 1000ft house going for $500,000 you can see why . Went for a week in central Oregon last summer and stayed in 2 private campgrounds .70% to 80% of the trailers had not been moved in years . You know things are getting bad when blue collar labor has to live in rv’s. Most towns don’t want to zone for rv parks . Things will have to change . All over the Bay Area there are streets with homeless people living in broken down rv’s.

We were out in the greater LA area last spring. As we drove up highway 1, we commented on all the people "boondocking" along the side of the road. It wasn't until later in our trip we found out many (most?) were homeless people, as you mentioned. But hey, they live closer to the beach than I do.

[babock]

Originally Posted by direwolf2001

We were out in the greater LA area last spring. As we drove up highway 1, we commented on all the people "boondocking" along the side of the road. It wasn't until later in our trip we found out many (most?) were homeless people, as you mentioned. But hey, they live closer to the beach than I do.

I am curious where you saw this. Been up 1 many times in the last 6 months and didn't see this myself.

[direwolf2001]

Originally Posted by Nancyc7

I love boon-docking and people always say their wife doesn't like it. My husband doesn't very much. We even have a small solar panel and additional LP tank that attaches to the MH. Having much of a schedule chokes me.

Anyway, everyone has to be happy.

A great app is iOverlander. The site online is easier to use than the app, I think. We stayed right on the Bay of Fundy and had a beautiful sunset to boot.

Thanks Nancyc7. I added it to my favorites.

[bikendan]

Originally Posted by babock

I am curious where you saw this. Been up 1 many times in the last 6 months and didn't see this myself.

Maybe they're talking about the Rincon.
Stayed at Emma Wood a couple of years ago, in March, and there were a number of sketchy rigs there. One dilapidated Class C Motorhome came driving down the road late at nignt and the driver didn't secure the awning and hit a brand new Class A. It scratched the new paint and dented the side.
The driver ended up jumping in a pickup that was full of junk, following it. They took off after the Class A owner called 911 and abandoned their Motorhome. We saw the whole thing happen, from beginning to end.

[babock]

Originally Posted by bikendan

Maybe they're talking about the Rincon.
Stayed at Emma Wood a couple of years ago, in March, and there were a number of sketchy rigs there. One dilapidated Class C Motorhome came driving down the road late at nignt and the driver didn't secure the awning and hit a brand new Class A. It scratched the new paint and dented the side.
The driver ended up jumping in a pickup that was full of junk, following it. They took off after the Class A owner called 911 and abandoned their Motorhome. We saw the whole thing happen, from beginning to end.

I rode by the Rincon just a couple weeks ago on my bike. They have to pay for the spaces and there is a 14 day limit. I saw some older trailers but they didn't look like homeless people.

[direwolf2001]

Originally Posted by babock

I am curious where you saw this. Been up 1 many times in the last 6 months and didn't see this myself.

Babock,
It was up towards Malibu, on the north bound side. This was back in the April time frame, so maybe they did something about it. Looks like it was an issue as far back as 2017...

https://abc7.com/news/malibu-residen...g-pch/2001638/

Or it might have been down around coastline drive...they all kind of run together for me since I am not overly familiar with the area.