state parks

The calendar says winter, but the struggle to find spaces at summer campsites has already begun — especially at California state park system’s most popular campgrounds, where most booking begins six months ahead of a camper’s arrival date.

And this year, the rules are different.

In a bid to cope with that demand, reduce no-shows and open more campsites to more people, state parks officials have tightened policies on reservation changes and cancellation, while boosting penalties for no-shows. The new restrictions take effect on reservations beginning July 1, which became available for booking on Jan. 1.

Among the restrictions:

• Campers making campsite cancellations can get their site fees refunded if they cancel at least seven days ahead of their arrival date. After that, they will be required to pay a penalty matching the cost of the first night. No-show campers (and those who fail to cancel at least 48 hours ahead of check-in time) will forfeit all fees paid.
• If a would-be camper fails to shows up for their reservation three times in the same calendar year, that camper is to be banned from placing reservations for one year.
• No matter when a reservation is canceled, the system’s $8.25 reservation fee and $8.25 cancellation fee are nonrefundable.
• Over the last year, the state parks system has also adopted a lottery-style drawing system for select campsites at Malibu Creek, Morro Bay and McArthur-Burney Falls state park units. Travelers can apply to join the lottery up to eight months ahead.

With these measures in place, parks officials say, they hope more campsites can be rebooked after campers’ initial plans change.

Parks officials said campers with reservations who need to cancel should call their destination park at the number listed on their confirmation email. In most cases, the state parks website says, “canceled sites will become available for booking in the reservation system at 8 a.m. the day following the cancellation.” A state parks spokesman said the agency had no current statistics on no-shows.

Statewide, California’s campground system continues to open most campsites for online reservations at 8 a.m., six months ahead of the stay, on a rolling basis. (In other words, at 8 a.m. Aug. 3 the state will start taking reservations for stays on the night of Feb. 3.)

On line, most travelers use the informational site parks.ca.gov and the booking site reservecalifornia.com. Telephone reservations are still possible at (800) 444-PARK (7275). Reservation modifications are possible until 48 hours before arrival time.

Despite the high demand at many park units — especially those on the coast — statewide statistics seem to suggest a visitation slump in recent years. By the parks department’s accounting, California’s 280 state parks units attracted about 84 million total visitors in the year that ended June 30, 2023. That was a 9.9% dip from the year before.

Among people camping, the decrease was even steeper. The state’s tally of about 5.9 million “overnight users” of campgrounds in 2022-23 was a drop of 24% from the year before.

Here are the 10 most popular state park campgrounds based on 2025 summer occupancy, according to park officials.