Choose Your National Park RV Carefully

Above, The Beast in the campsite I found online in Yosemite National Park. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Since my 2015 Winnebago Minnie Winnie 22R ("The Beast") is 23' long, I have had no difficulty in finding a national park campsite that would accommodate it.

Back in 2016, I used an online reservation site to reserve a campsite in Yosemite National Park. It included a map of the open campsites along with aerial photos of each and I picked one that looked like it would fit my motorhome. Sure enough, when I arrived months later, it fit just right.

But there are others who have larger rigs and that makes finding a campsite large and long enough to allow a big Class A, C or trailer to fit.

National Parks Traveler has an article on this common RV conundrum.

They wrote (in part):

The rustic accommodations of national park campsites get us closer to nature than private campgrounds outside the park. But opting for that primitive experience often puts RVers like you and me in the middle of that classic Goldilocks conundrum. Without good planning, we just don’t know if a campground can easily accommodate our home on wheels. I can’t count the number of times we have spent an entire afternoon jumping from one open site to another, trying each one on for size until we found the one that fits just right – if we were lucky enough to find one at all. 

As the owner of a medium-sized fifth wheel, I’m always slightly envious when I see truck campers, vans, and small motorhomes tucked away in a cozy gem of a campsite that could never accommodate my rig. The truth is, bigger is not always better when it comes to RVing in national parks. The smaller your rig, the more campsite choices you have, including some amazing backcountry campsites where large rigs would never tread. 

It’s often said that the best RV type for national parks is a unit that’s 30-feet long or less, including the tow (or towed) vehicle. I agree, since the short, narrow parking aprons in most national park campgrounds make navigation difficult in anything bigger. That’s not to say your 40-foot motorhome won’t ever be able to camp in national parks, it just means that you’ll need to work harder to find a great campsite.

To read more, go here.