Camping in the Pacific Northwest can be difficult for the spontaneous, unless you are backpacking in and participating in “dispersed” camping. Dispersed camping is defined as camping anywhere in a national forest that is not a designated campground. There is a list of rules and how-to’s on the National forest website. I aspire to backpacking to a campsite of my choosing in the middle of the woods, but am not quite there yet.
When I decided last week that I wanted to go camping this weekend I had a very difficult time finding a spot. One way to find a place is to go on the state parks website and look for vacancies. I find Washington’s site easier because they have a state-wide map of all the vacancies. Oregon’s site requires you to know where you want to go. I don’t always know. Do you?
Another great resource is Reserve America.com You can put in a city, park, or state along with the dates you need and they will let you know what’s available.
On Memorial Day weekend all of the sites where I want to go are already reserved, so I have decided to head out on Thursday to try to snag one of the many first come first serve sites. These are plentiful but don’t leave on a Friday or Saturday, even early, expecting to find one because most campers will stay the weekend. Maybe I should head out in Wednesday!
When deciding where to stay there are some things to consider besides what’s available. You should think about:
- How far you want to travel
- Do you want to be in the mountains, a park, near the beach?
- What kind of activities are there? Swimming? Hiking? Skiing?
I ended up picking a spot in Washington, just north of Vancouver. It is still too cold to swim but the day-use area has hiking trails and a river for kayaking, fishing, and swimming. Setting up your camp and cooking take a limited amount of time so if you stay somewhere for several days you’ll want to think about that.
The campground I chose was beautiful; wooded and very clean. There were flushing toilets, showers, water spickets and fire rings with grates for cooking. When we found our site, however; I was dumbfounded by the very small, uneven spot smooshed in between two large, multi-generational groups.
I paced around a bit then decided to go ask if we could get a different one. I was prepared to pay for another site if I had to because that would have been very uncomfortable. My brother suggested we drive around to see if we could find one without a reserved notice, which we did, and the park rangers were very kind. We got a very nice spot right next to the park hosts.
Don’t be afraid to ask if you’d like something different (unless the park website specifically states that you can’t make changes). The worst that could happen is that there’s nothing else available. The change we made completely altered our trip.
It is often difficult to tell what the sites are like if you haven’t been somewhere before. Luckily there are a number of group campgrounds in the Pacific Northwest. Also, many campgrounds have maps and lot dimensions posted online, but there is always some guesswork involved.
In any case, your trip will be an adventure so get out there and have some fun exploring the great outdoors!
**The pictures above are from Paradise Point State Park campground in Washington state. Please note that the campground is quite near the I-5 freeway so the closer sites can hear traffic.
Yes it’s hard if you haven’t been there before .. and no I don’t always nowhere I want to go either 🙂
And the pics are stunning !
The pictures are amazing! Beautiful campsite. I feel like you give great pointers to anyone getting ready for a camping trip….especially those that may be a little new to the idea!
Thanks Leona! I added a couple more things to hopefully make the article more helpful.