How to book campsites in Yosemite

This post outlines everything you need to know about booking campsites in Yosemite National Park.

It’s really, really competitive. It used to be worse, but it’s still very difficult. They used to release most of the summer’s reservations all at once on New Year’s Day. So if you happened to be up early that morning you could snag a campsite otherwise, good luck!

Now, they release the campsites on a rolling basis 5 months out at a time, on the 15th of every month at 7am PST.

Below I will walk through the instructions on how to successfully book a campsite. Unfortunately, some of it comes down to sheer luck but hopefully this primes you for success.

Before we jump in, I’m sharing some other popular resources related to this topic you might find helpful.

• Hiking Yosemite’s Panoramic Trail
• How to Hike Half Dome
• How to enjoy wintertime in Yosemite

And while you’re in the area, you might want to consider some of the other amazing national parks nearby:

• Lassen Volcanic National Park, a few hours north
• Mt. Whitney, the tallest peak in the continential USA, a few hours south
• There are a lot of hot springs in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, so you might want to check out the top 10 hot springs in California.
• Other great hikes and areas of California to explore on this bucket list

Alright. Let’s get into it!

Step 1 to book a campsite: plan ahead

Mark your calendar every month for the reservation window available that month. For example, on January 15th I had a 7am calendar event that let me know that campsites would open up for May 15-June 14. The night before the reservation, I looked at my personal calendar and decided which weekend in that window would work best for me. You only really get one good shot at the booking attempt per computer, so think wisely!

Pro tip: avoid booking the first weekend in the reservation window. For example, May 14th technically didn’t become available until January 15th. However, May 13th was available on December 15th, and it’s likely someone booked through the weekend (i.e. May 13th – May 16th). That means less of those sites will likely available. This can also work in your favor if you book a window that ends on a day of the week that you can then book through the subsequent reservation window, getting you a campsite on dates that have’t even be released.

Step 2: Prime your computer screen

You have to be ready to pounce when the moment arrives, so I’m going to outline my setup. Another thing you should definitely do before the window opens is log in to your recreation.gov account. If you don’t have one, set it up beforehand!

I set up about 15 minutes before the reservation time and I have 2 frames:

In the first frame, I choose a couple of campsites at random. There may be a better way to do this but I have yet to figure it out (please let me know if you know!). If when I try to book the first I get rejected, I will quickly try the second and third options. It helps to have friends who are going to camp with you do this as well on their computers, because it is really a probability game at this point. Make sure to actually pre-select the dates you want.

In the second frame, I go to time.gov, which is the official time in the United States. The booking is precisely at 7am so you better be counting down the seconds!

Step 3. Book!

When the clock strikes exactly 07:00:00, pull the trigger (i.e. click the ‘book now’ button). Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don’t, depending on if someone else has this exact same setup on the exact same campsite as you. This is why having as many people as possible do this at the same time works in your favor.

Step 4. Success or Failure

Did you get it?? If you do, you’ll see something like the below image. You now can rest and relax and have 15 minutes to book the site.

If you didn’t get it, you’ll know because you’ll see the below modal. This means someone else beat you to it.

Step 5. Abandoned reservations

Don’t give up yet! Did you notice that 15 minute reservation period countdown on the success modal in the top right corner?

This means you have 15 minutes to reserve. However, lots of people (and they SUCK) somehow luck out and reserve multiple sites, but maybe don’t need them all. So once 15 minutes passes, and they haven’t paid for the sites, those sites become available again! So keep checking for up to about 20 minutes past the reservation hour. You might get lucky if something becomes available!

Plan B… and C, D, and E

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again! Start trying to book at the beginning of the camping season (April) and try each month. Statistically, you are bound to luck out at least once, right?

Another way to be successful is try to book non-weekends, or be willing to book non-weekend and weekend dates.

Remember that in-valley campsites are the most competitive (Upper pines, lower pines, and north pines). There are other Yosemite campsites though, including lottery/first come first serve (Camp 4) and many in further reaches of the park like Crane Flat, Wawona, and Tuolumne Meadows (note that the road to Tuolumne Meadows is usually impassible until later in the summer).

Finally, if all else fails, you can set up a scraper to alert you to campsite availability through websites like Wanderinglabs. I have had mild success with this in the past!

Why share these secrets?

Well, I think that this process is ridiculous and unfair, and I want to make it more transparent. Of course, that probably means I’ll now be competing with you for campsites, but I think it’s worth making this process more fair and available to all. I remember being upset when I couldn’t book sites before I figured out how to do it this way. You can always invite me to your camping party if you get a reservation and I don’t :).

Yosemite Lodging

If you need some information about where to stay in and around Yosemite, because you can’t secure a campground, I recommend:

• Tenaya Lodge in Fish Camp – a beautiful lodge option!
• Best Western Plus in Oakhurst – a practical option not too far away!
• The Ahwahnee in the Valley – a historical hotel in the heart of the valley!
• Autocamp Yosemite – Midpines – a fun outdoor/indoor adventure experience in an Airstream!