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If you've noticed that campgrounds are getting busier, the data show you're right. A new report by the Center for Western Priorities, The Camping Crunch, finds that between 2014 and 2020, summer use of reservable national public lands camping facilities in the continental U.S. increased by an estimated 39 percent. The report includes state-by-state breakdowns and interactive maps to help you identify the most—and least—reserved public lands campgrounds.
The analysis found the COVID-19 pandemic helped drive a large bump in reservable campsite occupancy between 2019 and 2020. While reservable campgrounds in national parks remain incredibly popular, the report also shows that reservable campsites in protected areas—even excluding national parks and their immediate surroundings—are more occupied during the peak season than other public lands, demonstrating the popularity of all protected lands, not just national parks.
“More people visiting, camping on, and enjoying our treasured national public lands is certainly a good thing. However, the increase in visitation can lead to serious overcrowding and strains the infrastructure and resources on public lands during the peak summer season,” said Jennifer Rokala, Executive Director of the Center for Western Priorities. “The popularity of public lands—and especially protected areas—should urge leaders to keep a good thing going by funding our land management systems and designating more protected areas to distribute visitation across different sites and seasons.”
Compared to other regions, the Western United States saw the biggest increase in reservable camping activity. From 2014 to 2020, there was a 47 percent increase in estimated peak season reservable campsite occupancy in the West, compared to 39 percent nationally. Western reservable campgrounds in or near non-national-park protected areas were more popular than other public lands—which tracks with a massive 84 percent of Westerners who support creating new protected areas.
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You don’t get into the type of drought that we’re seeing in the American West right now just from ... missing a few storms. A warm atmosphere evaporates more water from the land surface (and) reduces (the) amount of water available for other uses, like people and hydropower and growing crops.”
