(CHARLOTTE HELSTON / iNFOnews.ca)

The countdown is on for campers waiting to reserve a provincial site for the upcoming August long weekend and the competition to snag a spot is expected to be fierce.

BC Parks campsites can be reserved four months in advance of the selected date, which means at 7 a.m., April 5, thousands of people will go through the government's reservation system to vie for a campsite for August 2 to 4.

Demand exceeds supply at popular campgrounds where reservations for summer weekends and long weekends can disappear within minutes.

“It’s very difficult to get a campsite in the Interior on a long weekend,” Leah Moss of Kamloops said. “I tried to book for August long weekend last year and ended up only having two sites available for the weekend, and of course I missed out at both them.”

Moss said people will book the sites a week or two ahead of the long weekend and leave them vacant for days until they get there, as most f BC Parks’ campgrounds allow bookings up to 14 days.

“It’s extremely frustrating for locals that we can’t just go camping on the weekend, I set my alarm for 6:45 a.m. to book my campsites and don’t know if I’ll get one,” she said.

Last year more than 420,000 reservations were made at BC Parks, up 3.5% from the year before, with the August long weekend accounting for more than 9,500 of those reservations, according to a statement from the Ministry of Environment and Parks sent to iNFOnews, March 28.

Sites for long weekends at the more popular parks like Rathtrevor Beach, Golden Ears and Cultus Lake typically are reserved as soon as they become available.

“To increase the chances of getting a site at a popular campground we suggest people try booking mid-week or avoid long weekends,” the ministry said.

When campsite reservations open, users arriving to the BC Parks website are put into a virtual waiting room starting at 6 a.m. and at 7 a.m. the users are randomly given a place in line and an estimated wait time. When a user gets to the front of the queue the page refreshes to the website’s main landing page and a reservation can be made.

“For very popular campgrounds, the demand often outweighs what’s available and reservations fill up very quickly, within the first 10 to 15 minutes,” the ministry said. “We place a high priority on ensuring everyone has fair and equal access to camping reservations.”

The BC Park’s website has a 'Notify Me' feature to make bookings easier where people on waitlists can sign up for five email alerts informing them when sites become available for their desired date and location.

There are few things you can do to increase your chances of securing a site, according to Off Track Travel.

Starting as soon as the reservation system launches, being familiar with the system and creating an account ahead of time are a few tips, along with having a few different options for dates and locations.

The online system holds reservations for 15 minutes, which means if the sites are gone at 7:05 a.m. it's possible another will open up 15 minutes later.

Reservations get cancelled all the time so you find a spot by checking the reservation system regularly and you can also check for cancellations on the day in person.

Campers can also try their luck at finding first-come, first serve sites. Of the nearly 11,000 front country campsites — those are campsites easily reached by car — managed by BC Parks, approximately 55% are reservable and the remaining are first-come first serve.

When asked if people attempt to resell their site reservations, the ministry said most people follow the rules and anyone attempting to resell a reservation is unsuccessful because name changes are not permitted and ID checks are done in parks.

“If someone who is not on the reservation attempts to check in at the park, they will either have to vacate the park or pay additional camping fees. Any individual caught attempting to resell a campsite will lead to cancellation without a refund,” the ministry said.

To prevent bulk bookings the reservation service only allows three bookings at a time in the online shopping carts and also prevents users from overlapping bookings.

The demand for reservations has risen over 200% over the last decade and BC Parks has added more than 2,000 new sites across the province since 2017, including new sites in provincial parks at Rolley Lake, Fintry Park and China Beach, and will be adding more.

iNFOnews.ca checked availability of three popular sites on March 28 for the August long weekend. At Fintry Provincial Park, more than 5% of the sites were already marked unavailable, at Ellison Provincial Park that number was more than 10%, and at Shuswap Provincial Park 20%.

Go here to book a BC Park's campsite.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Shannon Ainslie or call 250-819-6089 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. SUBSCRIBE to our awesome newsletter here.

News from © iNFOnews, 2025