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The seasoned outdoor enthusiasts among us are all set. Since most campgrounds in the state start taking reservations at least six months in advance, those savvy folk likely had their laptops and smartphones out early in the new year, locking down the spot for their summer outing. According to the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, 75% of the campsites in the state are booked through the end of August.
What then is a person who is just starting their camping career or is late to the party to do? Fear not, friends—you have more choices than you might realize. All you need is a little flexibility, some searching savvy, and a healthy dose of luck.
The first step is not limiting yourself. Oregon Parks and Recreation may be the big name in the camping game, but it’ll be the first to tell you not to rely on it alone. “Oregon state parks are awesome, of course,” says Stefanie Knowlton, public information officer for the department, “but they’re not the only option. You can Google your ranger district and see what opportunities there are for U.S. Forest Service camping. The Oregon Department of Forestry has camping, Bureau of Land Management, and of course there’s county parks, too.”
While advance reservations are ideal, if you have wiggle room in your schedule and don’t mind driving a little bit, you could get lucky with one of the many first-come, first-served camping areas around the state. Oregon Parks and Recreation operates a number of such spots, primarily down south, like Goose Lake State Recreation Area, a lovely spot that sits on the border of California, and farther east, such as Catherine Creek State Park near La Grande and Bates State Park outside of John Day. As for other land managers, the website recreation.gov can point you to plenty of other first-come, first-served locations, such as scenic Salmon Creek Falls and the wonderfully named Piety Island.
The only wrinkle in first-come, first-served plans is that the camping spots themselves tend to be on the rustic side, meant for campers who enjoy bunking out in tents or relaxing in an RV or camper van after a day of exploring nature. If you don’t have the gear, you may be looking to snag one of the many cabins offered by a number of campgrounds around the state. But as you might guess, those are the spots that tend to get grabbed the minute they’re available. That’s where your tech skills and patience come into play.
“There’s a lot of cancellations,” Knowlton says. “People don’t exactly know what their lives are going to look like six months from now. So there’s a lot of turnover. A third of reservations get canceled.”
Taking advantage of this situation isn’t difficult to do. You can do the work of checking reservation websites regularly in hopes of netting that prized cabin, but you’d be better off letting technology do a lot of that heavy lifting for you. Over at reserveamerica.com, the site that handles all of Oregon Parks and Recreation’s reservations, you can set up an alert that will email you whenever a particular spot becomes available. Even better is the Reserve America app, which will send a push notification to your smartphone the second a cabin or other camping location opens up. Nice though it is to know that the spontaneous campers among us have some wiggle room to work with, as Knowlton emphasizes, make sure you have a backup plan in place in case your last-second plans fall apart at the last second.
“Especially in the summer, on weekends, it’s almost guaranteed that [a campground] is full,” she says. “It would be such a bummer to pack everything up and head out there and not be able to get in.”