We all know how challenging could it be to find a campsite during a busy season. In this article we are sharing a great resource for anyone who is interested in camping in popular places!
The Beginning
Starting in November 2019, we began our full time RV life in a Cirrus 920 Truck Camper. You can read about our preparations here. Our plan is to boondock as much as possible and keep our costs to a minimum. However, there are many places where boondocking is just not an option. National parks and cities may not offer “free camping” in close proximity to where you actually want to be. From time to time a stay at a campground becomes necessary or simply more convenient. On our way to Florida we had our list of places that we wanted to visit. Many of them were in locations that boondocking spots would be hard to find. In general, Florida is pretty booked up in the winter, which makes sense.
Looking for a solution
We began to look for some options to help out with our trip through the Florida Keys. Sasha and I really wanted to avoid the very expensive RV parks. We found that boondocking in the Keys was almost impossible due to tight restrictions on overnight RV parking. Both of us also didn’t have much luck with Boondockers Welcome or similar membership programs. State Parks offer a nice balance between price and amenities. However, we found them to be impossible to get into unless you book 11 months in advance. Because of that we were ready to cancel our plans to hang out in the Keys. Instead, we though about take a drive to Key West for a day and head back to the mainland. Then we found the solution to our problem!
Our discovery
Sunrise at Bahia Honda
After many hours of googling we came across this little gem. It’s simple to use and VERY effective! This online service allows you to enter your desired campgrounds, date ranges, size of campsite needed (tent/RV length), the preferred day of arrival and the types of hookups preferred. This website will check for openings, usually due to cancellations, and then send you a message when there is a match. The free option checks every 10 minutes and will send you an email when something is found. If you chose to send a donation to the developer, you will get some premium features such as more frequent checking and notification via text message. When we sent in our donation, the faster check interval and text notifications allowed us to get the sites. If you find that you can’t get the sites that you want, consider upgrading to a premium account, it’s money well spent!
Tips that will help you find a campsite you want:
- You can setup your Reserve America (or whichever service you chose) account ahead of time.
- After that you save your login credentials in your browser or password manager so you can login to the site faster.
- You need to keep and eye on your phone, and maybe set a special sound or vibration when you get a notification from Wandering Labs.
- When you get a notification, just click on it, login, and hit reserve. The service will hold the site for you for 15 minutes while you figure out the details. If you hesitate for a few seconds, the site will disappear. Speed is critical! We have had our best luck early in the morning.
- Keep trying, you will get it!
We are happy campers thanks to Wandering Labs
Within a week, we had a week booked at Bahia Honda State Park and 2 weeks booked at John Pennekamp State Park. They were back to back and we were ecstatic! We now had 3 weeks to explore the keys and a nice place to call home!
While talking to people in person and online, we have gotten countless questions about how to find a campsite in the State Parks. Most people assumed that we had booked a year in advance, but we surprised them with the truth. With so much interest, we wanted to write a post about it to share with the camper community. Sharing this info seems to be a double edged sword, the more popular services like this become, the harder it will be to get a site, but we feel it’s best to share everything and help others find a solution to such a common struggle. Let us know if this information helps you, we would love to hear from you!