A ‘Secret’ Hack for Getting a Campsite at a Booked Up Campground in Indiana & Kentucky

Love Camping?

I spent my childhood camping. We camped in tents. We camped in pop-up campers. We camped in air-conditioned campers with indoor plumbing. I'm here to tell you, the heated/cooled plumbed camping is the best camping. So, now we have a camper with all life's luxuries and we have the best time.

PRO TIP: Book Six Months Out

This will be our third year camping and I've learned a few things along the way. One thing I learned is that state parks open booking six months out. On big weekends, it takes about a day to sell out of spots so I literally set a reminder on my calendar and have it booked by 6 a.m. We don't play around. But I have been in the predicament of wanting to go to a Halloween weekend or holiday weekend and there just aren't any spots open.

A 'Secret' Hack to Getting a Spot a Booked Up Campground

I have discovered that there's a trick if you want to stay at a campground that uses Reserve America booking system. I thought everyone knew about this but after seeing the number of people in my local camping groups airing their woes about missing out on Halloween weekends, I thought that maybe it isn't common knowledge.

All you have to do is log into the system, and put in your dates and the type of camping spot you are looking for. If nothing's available, you can click the Create Availability Notification button to set up emails that will alert you when someone cancels. I've also learned that there are a lot of people who book a bunch of weekends and then cancel when they figure out which weekends they can't go.

I tested it out with Lincoln State Park on the Halloween weekends in October. I get cancelation emails every day. 

Now another pro tip, they are first come, first serve. The emails seem to go out around 2:50 AM and 5:30 AM so you better be on it if you REALLY want a spot!

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INDIANA CAMPGROUNDS ON RESERVE AMERICA