Escaping Holiday Crowds - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Gpndavid · RV-Dreams Family Member

Escaping Holiday Crowds

Barbaraok · RV-Dreams Family Member

We use membership parks for holiday periods and arrive the week before, leave the week after.

el Rojo and Pam · RV-Dreams Family Member

We either arrange a spot early or stay on private property.

Dutch · RV-Dreams Family Member

Sometimes we use those periods to try out the less popular state and national parks that often have openings even over the holidays. Most of the time though, we try to plan far enough ahead that we can get a spot at a park we know and like. This year for the 4th of July holiday week, we're doing a bit of both. We have a spot at a NY State Park campground that's not well known or heavily used, but one that we've been to before and really like. As a bonus, it's close enough to our granddaughter and great granddaughter for a good visit while we're there.

Second Chance · RV-Dreams Family Member

Over holidays, we often use military campgrounds that are not "resorts" - i.e. they are on the military installation and are not a destination such as a lake, the coast, etc. This year we knew we were going to be in a specific place over the 4th of July, so we reserved a week with full hookups in a National Forest campground six months in advance. We've also found there is no problem over the Christmas holidays if you're far enough north... (and are hardy enough to do that!).

Rob

Gpndavid · RV-Dreams Family Member

Second Chance wrote:
Over holidays, we often use military campgrounds that are not "resorts" - i.e. they are on the military installation and are not a destination such as a lake, the coast, etc. This year we knew we were going to be in a specific place over the 4th of July, so we reserved a week with full hookups in a National Forest campground six months in advance. We've also found there is no problem over the Christmas holidays if you're far enough north... (and are hardy enough to do that!).

Rob

LOL. Probably the same down south in the summer. We had no problem staying at high end resorts cheap in Florida in the off season. Good call on the military campgrounds. We grabbed a Boondock spot in the Hiawatha NF for the next 10 days to get us through the holiday. Beautiful place and we are right on a lake. Sounds like the 5-P rule is the best option for holidays

(Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance)

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

Similar to what Dutch says, go somewhere less popular for holiday weekends. We have had some memorable experiences in places where the city folk would not be traveling to for a 3-day weekend due to distance. Glendive Montana was one, Thunder Bay Ontario was another. We also do what Barbaraok does, spend two weeks at a membership campground and deal with the crowds. Which is what we did for Memorial Day and will also do this Independence Day. We also learned the hard way that people who live in the southern US camp during winter holiday weekends, including Presidents Day in San Diego.

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

We either reserve early or make it a travel day, in the middle of the holiday weekend. We've had multiple times where the next art show was the weekend after the holiday so we drive on Saturday or Sunday, avoid the Friday / Monday holiday traffic and we still have a couple of days to enjoy the weekend before going back to work after the holiday. Those middle days of holiday weekends are usually very easy driving days, not much traffic, limited road construction, etc.

We've also found that sometimes city parks are great for holidays, we'll be staying at a city park that only have 14 RV/test spaces for 4th of July and last I heard they weren't expecting it to be full.. Why? Everyone is escaping Seattle for the holiday weekend and we're visiting friends in the area we used to live. I didn't even make that reservation until a month ago and got the exact site we wanted.

Neil and Connie · RV-Dreams Family Member

We have all of our campgrounds for the spring/summer/fall travel period picked out and reserved before we leave southwest FL in the spring…once we get our schedule figured out the holiday weekends are the first reservations I get.