Insider’s Guide to Texas Reservations
The first coolfront of Fall is in the forecast. What a great time to go camping! You check the park website - everything is booked. Your plans are crushed.
If that sounds familiar, read on. I spent a decade working in Texas State Parks - here are my outside insights to always have a Texas campsite when you want it.
Know when to book
National Park Camping - 6 Months Ahead; 9am Central Time
Texas State Park Camping - 5 Months Ahead; 8am Central Time
Texas State Park Day Passes - 1 Month Ahead; 8am Central Time
Memorize that timeline and you’re in the top 10% of Texas campers. Or sign-up for our newsletter and we’ll share important reservation windows: when to book to see the Fall meteor shower, hit the perfect spring weather, and things like that.
Sneak In the Sliding Window
I’m not proud to share this one. Here’s how you can treat a “cancellation penalty” as an “early booking premium.” Reservation bookings for your arrival date start 5 or 6 months ahead (see above) - this is your “booking window.” But your check-out date can “slide” into the dates not yet reservable.
Let’s say a holiday weekend is 6 months and 2 days away. Right now, you can book to arrive in Big Bend 6-months from now but with a 3 night stay (which would include our holiday weekend in this example). Boom, you’ve reserved a premium weekend by arriving earlier than anyone would normally plan to and staying longer.
If you aren’t actually going to use those early arrival dates, you can (and should) cancel them once you’re able to. You’ll incur a cancellation penalty intended to disincentivize this behavior, or you can think of it as an early booking premium. You can do this 14 days out (Although I typically risk only doing 3-4 days ahead because I think it’s even less cool to block into other popular weekends.)
Notifications if You Missed Your Reservation
You missed your window - someone booked your dream site. Bummer. But there’s still a chance. The Texas State Park Reservation System offers free notifications. Want a specific site on a specific day? Set a notification. You’ll get an email if someone cancels. National Parks and other sites managing reservations through Recreation.gov don’t offer a native notification system. Enter Campnab. With a modest fee, you can set your notification and receive a text if a site opens (I snagged two nights in Grand Teton National Park in my first 48 hours). Campnab might also help with your state park reservation if a text notification allows you to act faster than the other person waiting for an opening. (I personally use and recommend CampNab. You can support Lone Star Parks when you sign-up with this link.)
Camp Here, Go There
Here’s a good example of the camp here, go there mentality. Everyone wants to camp at Lost Maples during peak fall foliage. But with 28 car-camping sites, it’s one of the smallest campgrounds in Texas State Parks. Those sites are gone as soon as the 5-month window opens. But the park offers hundreds of day passes (450 as of this writing).
So if you want to see fall colors, but don’t have a campsite, here’s your plan: when the park’s 1-month day pass window opens, book it. If you still want to camp in the area, find a nearby second-choice campground like those on HipCamp, the AirBnB of campgrounds. (I really like HipCamp! When you use code LoneStarParks, you can save $10 on your first booking, and it’s a small way to support us too.)
Hidden Gems
Remember this next time you’re feeling deflated about not getting the campsite you want: Texas is HUGE and there’s always somewhere to camp. Don’t give up! Here are our favorite options if your national and state park choices are already booked up:
Recreation.gov has over 100 campgrounds, mostly regional parks, National Forests, and other federal lands. If you’ve only camped in Texas State Parks before, your campground list just doubled.
The LCRA manages 11,000 acres of well-funded parks along the Colorado River. I count 20+ with camping. They’re amazing.
Wildlife Management Areas - TPWD has more land in WMAs than state parks. They’re largely to protect wildlife populations and allow hunting and fishing, but more than 20 also allow camping. Their booking process is weird, normally just calling the manager to get approved.
National Forest Dispersed Camping - Several National Forest areas allow dispersed camping with no need for reservations, although many are off limits during Oct-Feb hunting seasons.
Final Thoughts
Parks have never been more popular, but that’s a good thing - the world is better when people are camping. If you know the reservation rules, set notifications, and discover the hidden gems, you’ll always have a starry Texas sky to sleep under.
