Reserve California Booking Tips & Tricks: The Complete Guide for 2023
Obtaining a booking for any campground on Reserve California can be a very frustrating process, especially for the more popular campgrounds such as Doheny SB or South Carlsbad SB. In this article I will lay out some Reserve California booking tips and tricks as well as provide a live walkthrough of the booking process.
By the end of this article you will have put yourself in the best possible position to snag those hard to get campsites. Let’s dive in!
Reserve California Booking Tips & Tricks
Below are a list of the top things you should do to put yourself in the best possible position to get a booking.
Tip #1: Do Your Research and Know What You Want
This is a huge one. It might even be the most important tip on this list!
Prior to the campsites being released at 8am (I like to do this around 7am), you need to figure out the following:
- List of campsites that will become available
- What campgrounds and facilities they belong to
- The length of stay available
Pro Tip Use our pre-availability tool that finds all of the upcoming pre-availability and puts it into an easy to use format. It’s as simple as finding the campground you want and then sorting through the campsites available.
Stop wasting your time clicking through dozens of Reserve California pages to find this info. If you want access, you can sign up for it here.
Once you have this list of campsites that fit your criteria, you then need to pick the top 3 campsites you want and order them from first to third. An example list might look something like this:
- Campsite #1 (Doheny SB): 2 night stay
- Hook Up Campsite #133 (South Carlsbad): 2 night stay
- Campsite #A5 (Seacliff SB): 3 night stay
Once you have this information you are now prepared to make quick decisions at 8am because you know exactly what you want. Every second counts!
Once we have this info, we can now move over to Reserve California’s website and begin prepping for the 8am releases.
Tip #2: Go to Reserve California 10-15 Min Before 8am
Give yourself ample time to navigate to the campground and campsites you want to book. I would highly suggest arriving around 10-15 min early to get all of your ducks in row.
Tip #3: Be Logged In
Once you have arrived at Reserve California, the first thing to always do is log into your account. The site will oftentimes randomly log you out so always confirm you are logged in.
Also, if this is your first time make sure to create an account. You will not be able to book anything unless you have an account.
Tip #4: Use a Clock App/Website to Keep Track of the Time
As I mentioned before, every second counts. So it is critical that you are ready to book a spot at 7:59 and 58 seconds. The best way to do this is to use something like clocktab.com, which will give you a clock to watch that shows the minutes and the seconds.
This will allow you to prepare and know exactly when to refresh the page for the best chance at getting the booking.
I like to have this on my screen along with the Reserve California. Below is the screen setup that I like to use
Tip #5: Complete Captcha Prior to Booking
Oftentimes you will be required to complete a captcha to prove you are not a bot before being able to book a campsite. One little trick that could save you some time is to complete this captcha prior to 8am so you wont need to do it later.
To do this, navigate to the campsite you are interested in booking and click on it. From there you might see the captcha form. If so, complete it now so when 8am comes around you wont need to redo it.
Note: sometimes you will still need to redo the captcha again but it is at least worth trying if you have time.
Tip #6: Avoid Campsites with Many “Viewers”
One cool little trick that a lot of people miss is going after the campsites that aren’t getting a lot of attention. On Reserve California, when you click on a specific campsite it will show you how many people are currently viewing that campsite.
You should try to avoid the campsites with a ton of people viewing it because they are competition. The more people viewing = the more people trying to book that campsite.
Your best strategy is to have a couple of campsites you are interested in booking and then whichever campsite has the least amount of viewers should be the one you try to book. This will give you the best chance at getting one.
Tip #7: Use a Laptop/Desktop Computer Instead of a Phone
If you can, I would highly recommend using a laptop or desktop computer to book campsites instead of your phone. Laptops/computers will allow you to navigate the site a lot quicker and easier.
There is a lot of scrolling and quick clicking needed to be fast enough to book a campsite which can be hard to do on a phone. If your only option is a phone, don’t worry too much about it but you will probably be at a disadvantage.
Tip #8: Keep Browser Tabs to a Minimum
This is another time saving tip.
Try to limit the number of tabs open in your browser as the more you have open the slower your computer will get. Ideally, you would only have 2 tabs open:
- ReserveCalifornia.com
- Clocktab.com
Reserve California’s website already has enough issues with it that cause it to load slow and/or give weird errors, so anything you can do to avoid them you should try and do it.
Tip #9: The Group Method
One way you can increase your odds of getting a campsite booking is to have multiple friends all on different computers trying to get a spot. At the end of the day, getting a campsite is just a numbers game and the more people you have will increase your odds.
Tip #10: The Delayed Booking
One often overlooked trick is to recheck all of your campsites at 8:15am to see if any of them have become available again. The reason this works is because people can only hold a campsite for 15 minutes before they either have to pay for it or it becomes available again. What happens is people book a bunch of campsites at 8am and then choose the one they want the most and release the rest.
You can also try it at 8:30am as all of the sites booked at 8:15am that weren’t paid for will become available again. There will be a much smaller amount of new releases the 2nd time around but it is worth trying.
Reserve California Booking Walkthrough
Watch the video below of me going through the booking process and successfully getting a campsite.
Why is it so Hard to Reserve a Campsite in California?
Simply put, there are significantly more campers than there are campsites available to book. Supply and demand are extremely out of balance, which leads to the current situation of it being difficult to get california campsite bookings.
There are only 15,000 campsites on Reserve California and there are millions of campers. You can imagine based on these numbers why it is so hard to get a campsite. If you would like a leg up on the competition, you can use our campsite scanning tool that will notify you whenever a new cancellation occurs that matches your search criteria. You can then go ahead and book it.
Contrary to popular belief, the issue is not bots. Matter of fact, Reserve California has done a great job at preventing bots and very few bookings actually occur from these bots.
What Time Does Reserve California Release Reservations?
8am.
Every day at 8am the new batch of campsites get released to the public for booking. If you follow the tips in this article you will put yourself in a great position to snag one of these campsites.
About the Author
Josh Shogren
Josh Shogren is the owner of Power Camper. He is a lifelong camper and loves finding the hidden gem campgrounds and camping sites!
