The Happy Camper: Camping Reservation Chaos Continues In Ontario Parks
It’s that time of the year again—Ontario Parks has opened their online reservation system for the upcoming camping season, and I get to be interviewed on countless morning radio shows giving advice on how to beat the broken system because, simply put, Ontario Parks won’t respond to media requests.
It’s not an easy task, and the only fun part for me is to hear what opening music the rock station’s radio host plays before my interview. Most popular has been “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey. A great tune with a title that matches perfectly what is on every camper’s mind when they try to make a campsite reservation for this season.
Yep! Reservation hoarding is still a major issue with Ontario Parks.
Unscrupulous campers reserve preferred sites for the maximum allowable stay with absolutely no intention on pitching their tent or parking their RV there for the full number of days. They just take the prime dates, which are most likely on a holiday/long weekend, and pay the minimal cancellation fees for the others, or just pay the full amount and don’t bother showing up.
To make matters worse, these deceitful campers even add on to the booked dates. Most newbie campers don’t know this tidbit of information, but once you have booked the first night, you can just keep adding on dates to that. This act of pirating prevents anyone else from booking these sites in advance.
Now you know why you’ll see a quarter to even half the campsites empty even though the park will tell you everything is totally booked.
Some shady profiteers even go so far as to make a profit on the problematic reservation system. They’ll reserve a site for the full amount of days and then sell it off for financial gain online for three times the regular amount or they rent it out. It’s like scalping rock concert tickets. It’s against the rules, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t doing it.
The reservation system is definitely broken. It allows sites to be freed up too late for other campers to plan a camping vacation in advance, keeps the most desirable sites empty during peak dates and provides a boundless benefit to wealthy campers who can easily afford to pay cancellation fees or simply eat the cost of a no-show.
It’s self-interest in its highest form!
Ontario Parks has done some things to hinder the devious ones. For people who would book their site for 23 days, five months prior, have their perfect long weekend holiday and then cancel the remaining days at the last minute, Ontario Parks have limited the length of stay at a number of prime provincial campgrounds from 23 days to only seven. However, it’s important to note that not all parks are limited to just seven days. It’s just the most popular ones: Algonquin, Bon Echo, Killbear, Sandbanks and Pinery. Most of the others (63) will have a 14-day camping limit. Sixteen of the least visited parks remain at a 23-day camping limit per visit.
An investment of $60 million in 2025 also went towards adding 300 new campsites and upgrading over 800 existing sites, with the majority of them getting electrical service. The recent scuttlebutt on that, though, is that the construction at the sites are delayed and that will cause more issues booking the most popular campgrounds in 2026.
Ontario Parks online system also added a “Notify Me” button. Click on your desired site and you’ll get an email notifying you when the site becomes available. I used that numerous times last season, and it worked for me.
They also have a “Similar” button to click on which will let you know what’s available in another park that’s nearby.
Also, there’s a “Calendar View” button. If you click on your desired site, a calendar will show you when that preferred site is open.
All these are good measures to enhance the Ontario Parks camping experience. Hats off to them for trying…and time will tell.
But I’ve got to say that reality certainly set in quick for this principled camper when I was recently attending an RV camping show. I was given the job to present and promote front-country camping to newbies. Between presentations, I went to chill out at the dedicated coffee room for speakers and vendors. I was sipping on some mint tea and, ironically, was reading the book War and Peace, when I overheard a group of recreational vehicle sales reps sitting nearby. They were all debating about this very same issue, and I’ll never forget what some pompous guy’s view was: “If you play by these new Ontario Parks reservation rules, then you’re just an idiot.”
Wow! Self-interest truly is going to be the demise of the human species…and good luck getting a campsite this season.
Rather than being a negative nanny, however, here are some suggestions sent to me from my fellow front-country campers that remain ethical through it all:
- Increase penalties from late cancellations to discourage reservation hoarding.
- Reduce maximum stay length at more parks to allow reservation periods during busy seasons and free up more desirable campsites.
- Start a waitlist system to alert campers when cancellations open up a previously booked site.
- Conform reservation windows to random times to prevent structured exploitation by a few shrewd users.
- Be ready at the gate, coffee brewing and high-speed internet at-the-ready to do the advance booking five months prior at 7 a.m.
- Be as flexible as a veteran yoga instructor and choose less popular parks, camp during the week rather than the weekend or try Ontario’s southern conservation authority campgrounds or the private sector.
- Keep monitoring the reservation website for last minute cancellations.
- Follow the Facebook page Ontario Parks Cancellations for legit cancellation opportunities that don’t ask for extra cash.
- Paid apps like CampNab to do the work for you.
- Add more parks, connect more people to wilderness values and protect the wild places we have left before they’re gone.
The subject line hooked me – curious what chaos could come from camping reservations but then read about these real issues not unlike ticket hoarders/scalpers. Interesting but more enlightened to see what the industry has done to mitigate these habits and the proposed solutions from stakeholders. Great Read!
Interesting info. I am planning a trip to Lake Superior Provincial Park in August and I want one of those lake shore sites and I cannot book till early March somertime I need to check the exact date so I can book ASAP
Unless I’m mistaken the “Notify Me” button doesn’t tell you when a specific site becomes available – it searches the entire campground / park which is almost useless.
Kevin’s first sentence says it all: Ontario Parks won’t communicate. I expressed my frustrations to OP with not being able to book any sites for May, 2026 at Killarney when I tried to use the five month advance reservation window. The reason then, which they didn’t explain until recently, are the new George Lake campsites that are [were?] to be complete (ironically) on April 1, 2026. I think that the same thing is going on in sections of Grundy Lake. One would expect that if the work is to be done April 1, then you should be able to make a reservation for May1? Nope.
OP is not allowing any site bookings at Killarney in 2026 even still, as Kevin shows in the article. I am presuming that will be the case until at least April 1. And probably later if the project management slips. Sounds like they don’t think that the work will be done on time and they’d rather open the flood gates to reservations at a later date when the park actually opens. I normally book as early as possible — as do many other people. They wouldn’t even respond to my request that they open reservations for existing sites conditional upon the park being open! So I booked my first camping trip of 2026 trip in Algonquin.
I’ve been camping at Killarney for forty years amongst other parks. I continue to love camping at Ontario Parks but its not because of the OP organization or how it treats its clients. OP management takes its customers for granted with in/actions that message: “They provide a service, we just need to accept what we get or go somewhere else”.