One Of The Easiest Hacks To Book A Last-Minute Campsite In US National Parks

From the granite walls of Yosemite to the geysers of Yellowstone, national parks offer unforgettable campsites. But with millions of visitors every year, spots inside the top-visited parks disappear almost as fast as they open.  So, if you don't pre-plan your visit to the most popular ones, are you out of luck? Maybe not with this super simple hack: Monitor forums for late cancellations, and if you see one, jump on it immediately! 

But where should you be looking? Two places to start are the Reddit and Tripadvisor forums for the park you want to visit. Sometimes travelers post when they're going to cancel a reservation, giving anyone watching a heads-up that their spot is about to open up. You can also publish a post of your own, letting others know you're looking and asking them to share if they cancel. 

Another option is to refresh reservation sites regularly to see if anything pops up. For national and state parks, you'll probably use Recreation.gov or Reserve America. Flexibility is key, so choose a park rather than a specific campsite, and don't hem and haw over whether a site is perfect. If it's available at the last minute, it's a win! 

It sounds too good to be true, but if you want a piece of prime real estate in the best national parks for camping, you'll have to be a little crafty. So, here's our hack-within-a-hack. Head to Recreation.gov and check the cancellation policy for your chosen campgrounds. There, late cancellation fees typically kick in at midnight one day before your check-in time (though policies do vary). If someone has been hanging on to their reservation, they might dump it right before the late fee hits. Say you want to arrive on Saturday, Thursday is a good time to start watching for those last-minute drops.

If you don't have the time (or the patience) to refresh those sites constantly, there are services that will do the work for you. Hipcamp offers a free alert system that pings you when a campsite becomes available. Just sign up, choose your campground and dates, and wait! Other services may charge a fee, but ones like Campnab search for reservations in Canadian parks as well as in the U.S. Finally, the planners among you can check out our guide to how far in advance you should book your campsite to lock in your spot stress-free.