America Needs More Campsites

Above, The Beast at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Since the pandemic began, camping has been the most popular and, probably, the safest way to vacation for people.

The rise in popularity is not abating and RVs are selling like hotcakes. 

There's one problem, there's not enough campsites to accommodate all these people. In fact, campgrounds have been closing over the past several years by the government.

From Outside Magazine:

One cold August morning last summer, my husband woke up before dawn, snuck out of our tent, and drove 40 minutes to Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. We’d been sleeping in a nearby national forest for the past few days, driving into the park each morning to try and snag one of Grand Teton’s permitted backcountry campsites, before we finally realized that our only hope was to get there before the park’s offices opened and wait in line for one. But getting anywhere early is tough when you have a toddler, so I stayed behind with our sleeping two-year-old while Jesse drove to Grand Teton. 

When he arrived, however, an hour before the backcountry permit office opened, the line was already snaking around the building. Some people had shown up at 6:30 A.M., waiting in the cold for two and a half hours just to secure a place to pitch their tent. Another 50 or so were queued up for one of the park’s equally coveted front-country campsites. And in the national forest where I waited, the scene was pretty much the same, with carloads of people competing for a handful of campsites like Black Friday shoppers vying for the latest electronics. 

This reminds me of one summer when my parents and I slept in the car in an overflow area so we can wake up early in the morning to get a campsite at a national park (I don't remember which). My mom and I slept in the car (thankfully, it was a 1968 Buick LeSabre with plenty of room) and my dad slept on the hood. We woke up early, headed into the park and, luckily, got a campsite.

Unless there are more campsites created, the problem will only get worse.

To read more, go here.