Booking Your Summertime Campsite

By: Warren O'Hara

If you haven't already, you may still have a few hours or so to book your summertime campsite.

Maybe it's midnight right now and you think, I can't call anybody.it's too late. But the fact is, in today's technological times, just about anything is possible. 

All you need to know is where and when in order to find the immense possibility of destinations. 

Begin with where. Often choosing a summertime destination is based upon other's experiences, including your own.

When deciding on where to go, keep a few things in mind, such as: who is going; the family and their ages; friends; pets; everyone's personality; climate; food; laundry, etc.

You should also keep in mind how everyone will be entertained. 
Not withstanding any electronic gizmo, which may leave most modern families in the dark; as the new, young family would have their notebook or mini-Vaio decked with cd rom/movie drives and gaming graphic capabilities, the family of days-not-long-ago would have had a deck of cards and a few board games and everyone would have talked to each other, all of the time.

Being together on a vacation or get-away is "time" together. You can spend your time doing what it is you would do at home only in a different environment, or not. If your typical home consists of non-communicative children and lots of work for you and your spouse, then you may want to use this time a little differently. Talk. Or don't talk, but do things together. Sometimes everything is fine until we broach certain subjects, or speak in a certain manner and then tempers rise; so plan to be together with minimal time for conversations. This is accomplished by choosing the right activities while you spend time together. Don't be bashful about the truth of your family and their dynamics; everyone has them.

Activities are very important on a vacation. Whether your activity is walking, hiking, swimming or shopping, it is necessary to be honest with yourself and your group.

Find out what it is that all of you enjoy and are capable of doing, without injury. Be certain there are no heroes in your group. It is often all for one and one for all while on vacation and especially while in a foreign land or new city. If you're not booking with an agent who's itinerary is set, it is important to discuss these matters with your group. 

When deciding on where to go camping, you need to discuss the type of environment you'd like.

There are sites available by the oceans, lake, high desserts, forests, etc. It all depends upon, where you live and how far you would like to travel, and what type of atmosphere you'd enjoy; which also leads you back to the type of activities you would like to do during your vacation.

Also to consider, is the type of stay you and your group would enjoy.

There are State Parks that boast quaint cabins on the lake, tent access only and some Parks with backpacking-only campsites. It all depends. There is also of course, the Recreational Vehicle way; which most today enjoy.

RV's can also be rented online or you can go to the closest RV rental bricks and mortar site by finding them in your yellow pages. If you go in person, be certain to phone first for their availability of the dates of your campsites. Or, telephone them first for their availability and then book your campsite. At this late date only the last days of summer may be available and your first campsite choice may be long since reserved by another camper.

Let's begin and go through ways of booking our getaway/vacation.

As you may have guessed, the planning of our vacation, as all vacations, take discussions. 

Here is an example of how we booked our vacation, or in our case, a getaway.

We had already learned that vacations are what you make of them and this vacation we wanted a simple, traditional vacation.

We decided to take a family vacation with our older children, who are all of driving age. In our case every child wanted to bring a friend, of course, we understood what they wanted, but we denied them their request. What we did offer them was their own RV. This gracious maneuver endeared them to us and provided our family with a lot of alone, conversation and boardgame time.

Although we booked an RV for our children, we did not however book a campsite over 10 miles away from home. Clever, don't you think?

To say they are excited to have their own RV is a bit of an understatement. They were thrilled beyond belief.

They have told all of their friends and teachers and we are, as they still say, the "coolest" parents on Earth. We graciously accepted the title.

The entire family agreed on many points, such as the ocean, amenities didn't matter, acquatic activities, walking, badminton, campfires and fresh coffee and cocoa and smores. That was enough to begin.

When was the next main angle of topic for our plan. We discussed our schedules which led into how long we would stay. 

The way we figured it was, 7 days was too much, 1 day was too short, so 4 days and 3 nights seemed just right. 

 We first went to our state's Park website. We were offered a couple of different campgrounds around us, so we looked up their availability. It was easy to do and easy to navigate around the site.

The Park's site offered other thoughts such as visiting tourist spots and staying in a nearby campground. It even had warnings for a tree disease which was killing certain species of trees. The greatest asset was it allowed the user to see any campsite in any state. Which then allowed the possibility of flying to a destination and then picking up an RV. It was a thought, but in our case it would then mean having to let our eldest drive an RV in unknown territory and I don't think they make a strong enough tranquilizer for me to have that happen.

After we looked up the campsite's availability, we then looked for the availability for the RV's.

We went to our favorite search engine and typed in our criteria, "rv rentals in 'our town'. We immediately saw a company with a very close and easy distribution center. We continued through the "reservation" process only to find a stumbling block. We then notified the "info" and "webmaster" of the encountered processing error; certainly they'll be able shed light on why my on-line processing was thwarted. Also, I will be anxious to find where I erred. 

Meanwhile, we jotted down the telephone number and decided to "do it the old fashioned way" in the morning.

Determined to accomplish some task of this plan, we went back to our State Park's site and began to "book" our desired site.

After appreciating the maps and the numbering system, it was time to decide which campsite to book. We finally decided and then continued the process, to discover that you have to wait until you "check-in" to find and be assigned your RV space. All right, we took a deep breath and thought, they could have placed that disclaimer at the beginning, or maybe we just missed it on the first page.

We continued with our campsite request only to find out that on one page they offered, some of the campsites were available, and on another processing page, the same campsite requests were not available. At this point, we were willing to take the Primitive Campground with No Shade in the next County, just to insure our plans, of a summer getaway/vacation. We continued, but were unable, on this site, to even have our credit card go through for any campsite at any nearby location, during this processing.

The final task for the evening was an e-mail to the company engaged by the Park Organization to process their on-line reservations.

Meanwhile, using our pad and pen, we jotted down the Park's Reservation telephone number next to the RV number, and decided to have at it in the morning. 

In the morning we telephoned. It was all arranged and paid for by credit card and no morning time was taken up with wishy-washy talk of where and when and if, because it was all done in the peacefulness of the late evening, and in the calm of the household as the children slept.

We are all very excited to go on this getaway. 

We wish you good camping and a good fortune with your campsite plans.

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