State Camping Reservation Frustration
I want to book a campsite at Henry Cowell State Park for a weekend in July. I know they book up fast so I started checking the reservation website last month but it was too early, they weren't taking reservations. Now when I check the website I'm told there are no sites available. Aargghh!! How do I make this work? Also I get the feeling that people who book far in advance are doing it as a placeholder, they often don't use their reservation, but they also don't cancel it. Any advice on dealing with the state parks camping reservation system? Is their an FB group for finding state park camping sites? I know there are private camping options but I want to stay at the State Park campground this time to give my out-of-town guests the full California experience. Thanks for any input.
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I believe sites are posted at 8 AM six months in advance. They fill up super quickly and I remember reading a few years ago that people have built bots to automatically register fo them as they are posted! I have had luck literally setting a calendar notification and alarm for when sites get posted and then I can nab them. FYI Clear Lake and Caswell both still have sites available throughout the summer including 4th of July weekend.
It's probably similar to other coveted campgrounds that sites sell out within ten minutes of them becoming available. We have done this for years with Tuolumne Meadows (Yosemite) where we set an alarm and both my husband and I would try to snatch a campsite at 7am when they became available because by 7:10 they were sold out. In recent years it became harder because people are using bots to scrape reservations.
I have had the same frustrating experience. I heard from a friend of mine who is a journalist that travel companies book up campsites all over the state for the whole season, and may or may not sell them as part of travel packages. I know in the past you could even book campsites on Air BnB. I have often driven through "fully booked" campsites and seen more than a dozen empty sites. This makes me angry, but I feel that nothing less than organized political action would change it. write to your CA assembly member! They are sometimes surprisingly helpful! https://www.assembly.ca.gov/assemblymembers
According to the website:
California State Parks moved from a block or on-sale day reservation period to a rolling window. The public can reserve the highly sought-after campsites and lodging six months in advance from the current date.
So the reservations for your preferred date(s) in July opened on that date(s) in January - perhaps just days after you first checked. For example, checking now (Feb. 5) for arrival on Aug 4 (mid-week), there are many sites available, while the weekend before is completely booked.
Reservations typically open 6 months to the day in advance, at 7 a.m. on the dot. The popular places can literally book up in seconds, especially for reservations during weekend or vacation times. In theory, there is a way to ask the system to notify you if a reservation becomes available due to a cancellation, but I've never actually had that work for me. I would keep checking for cancellations, though, if you have your heart set on a particular day and location - you never know! Otherwise, if you can try booking a weeknight instead, you might have more luck. There are also other options, such as National Parks / National Recreation Areas (use recreation.gov for those). Or try a less popular State Park. It is frustrating, but I think one of the side effects of Covid was that a lot of people discovered the joys of camping (which overall is ia good thing!). Good luck.
ive had good luck using campflare.com - it alerts when sites are available - usually its when people cancel, you have to move fast when you get an alert but we've had good luck getting spots at campsite in popular spots. Good luck!