Are you having trouble finding campsites this summer well you're probably not
alone and with more rvers on the road than ever before is it still possible to find a campsite
without reservations we're going to share some of our experiences from just this last week in
this video so stay tuned we are charity ben dakota and trinity we decided we didn't want to wait for
a life of adventure so in 2017 we bought our first rv and set off to live a life of travel in the usa
we've visited over 38 states in three years and have many more to go
follow along to learn all the best places to see rv and travel tips and much more
so with campgrounds full to the brim it begs the question can you still even find a campsite
last minute in 2021 so we wanted to share with you some of our experiences that we've had so far but
also give you some tips on how to be able to find a campsite either on short notice but also with
longer notice tip number one is if you're trying to find a campground in a popular area maybe look
for some campgrounds that are just outside of that particular area recently we broke down outside
of the rapid city south dakota area now this is a really popular area because mount rushmore is not
too far away there's lots of things that people come to south dakota to do and to see and breaking
down meant that we were checked out of our campground that we had made reservations at and we
could not find a available campground anywhere in the rapid city area now this is a very long story
and we did a couple of different videos on exactly what happened and how we got back on the road so
i'll link those above but we were able to get into a campground in sturgis south dakota which
is about 30 minutes outside of the rapid city area they actually had several campsites that
were available on a weekend on super short notice that we were able to get into until that we could
get repaired and back on the road so good idea is to look maybe just outside of that area that
maybe you're wanting to visit to see if there's campgrounds that are outside of the area a little
bit further away that would have some availability number two one thing that we learned with harvest
hosts is we actually purchased a harvest host membership this year for the very first time and
one thing we did not realize about harvest hosts is that you actually have to have reservations
to boondock at those locations they're not just a list of locations where you can
pull in and camp for the night you have to make a reservation in advance so if harvest hosts
is something that you're considering make sure that you look now where you want to potentially
be at those locations and make those reservations right now all of the places that we were planning
on potentially boondocking that were on the list in montana and wyoming as far as farms
they're booked and so we're making other arrangements for boom docking such as a walmart
or a cabela's parking lot for the night because we didn't realize that when we bought our membership
we thought it was like oh these are places to boondock well yes with reservations so if that's
something that you have make sure that you're aware that that's the process tip number three
try apps like spot tonight or camp nab and i'll put those in the description below as well these
are apps that you can use to find campgrounds on the fly spot tonight is actually adding more and
more campgrounds every single day and so if you're watching this and you happen to be a campground
owner i'll put a link in the description below as well for you to be able to get your campground
connected with spot tonight it's a great way to be able to fill those empty sites on a one-off type
of thing for people that are looking for something on short notice check with places like fairgrounds
and city and county run parks most fairgrounds actually have camping available and some of them
with either partial hookups or full hookups and the majority of them actually do allow
then overnight parking so you can contact the local fairgrounds office for an area that you
might be in if you're needing a place to stay on the fly or in a pinch so tip number five
advanced planning is usually always best i actually developed a trip planning template
when we first started traveling in camping and i have a link below for you for that as well
you can download the template that i've developed and use completely free
and that really helps you to plan these things in advance the campground that we're staying at here
in the national forest in montana this is a spot that i reserved six months and one week in advance
and if you want to know more about that i'll put a link above for a whole video on just trip planning
but if you can plan in advance you've got that better chance of getting those really coveted
type of spots like where we've been staying this week here outside of the west yellowstone area
so planning in advance is always best if that's possible for you and your travel style so you'll
have to leave us a comment below and let us know what your camping experience has been like this
year we're always interested in knowing what's happening out there with what you guys are doing
with your rv journeys so leave us a comment below and let us know what your experience has been with
getting campgrounds this year and how full those campgrounds have been once that you've gotten
there we also wanted to make you aware that we do have a patreon group so patreon is a place
for us to get to know you a little bit better and where you can share more about your stories
and what's going on in your world and just help us to connect with you on a little bit deeper level
we put real-time updates on our patreon group the campgrounds that we're in just
tips and tricks probably the most exciting thing that we're able to do with our patreon members
is we're bringing monthly giveaways so last month we were able to give away an
awesome set of the travel towels that we love to use and i'll put a link below because these
travel towels are just revolutionary when it comes to rv living because they dry so fast
but we're able to do things like that for those of you that are supporting us over on patreon
so you can check that out at the link below or go to gratefulglamper.com forward slash patreon
and your support really helps us to focus on content like this that we'll always continue
to provide for free on youtube but we appreciate your support and couldn't do it without you. You'll
also need to let us know in the comments below what questions do you have about rv life about
camping about family travel we would love to hear some of the ideas that you have on what would you
like to see in future videos what questions do you have that maybe we could help answer or just
even share our experiences with you let us know below because we're always looking for feedback on
what it is that you're wanting as far as content here on youtube so leave us a comment below and
definitely let us know number oh bit by horsefly i don't know put a link in the description
well we're headed out of our campground in the national forest outside of west yellowstone
and i need to put on the hazards
but we made it with our tank situation and we didn't run out of water so maybe
dogs just maybe maybe more boom docking might be in our future maybe if you'd like to see
more about our recent breakdown story which was both horrible
and a wonderful experience in and of itself because of what we learned you can check those
videos out right over here and if you'd like to see more about rv tips tricks organization hacks
check those out right over here until next time we will see you on the road