Prospecting for Campsites ?

[Miriam C.]

To me, it is mainly a matter of how close they are. I'm more than willing to drive a reasonable distance to avoid an unpleasant surprise. I don't mind an imperfect park (like most), I just don't much care for surprises. A few bucks worth of gas and some driving is well worth the effort.

I agree Butch! I heard about this campground about 45 minutes from my house...people just loved it and all it had to offer. I went take a ride and the campsites were on top of each other, seriously. You could barely fit your vehicle next to your trailer. Glad I visited before I wasted my money.

Mike and I went driving to see some of the campgrounds on Elk river and Big Sugar in MO and didn't find one suitable for teardrops, at least not yet.

My daughter and I looked on Google maps, found a small lake and went looking in the off season. Great small lake and we have North Central groups there..One of the other members took a drive by too and camped there. Crawford State fishing lake has a great group area...but it is a good and safe place for individuals.

[Engineer Guy]

I use a combo of inputs for recon including drive-bys; info from pals and Homies at the local Dog Park; Newspaper write-ups; and Google Earth. Last October or so, I did a Satellite level - not Street level - flyover of Page AZ and Lake Powell surroundings. The perspective when you flyover deep Canyons is really something; almost vertigo-inducing. The 'elevation' readout at the page bottom is useful; you can get a sense of Topography. I roughly plotted miles to unmarked turnoffs, and got a sense of numerous dry washes to assess how far back in I wanted to go while solo.

I zoomed in on spots like the Campground at Lee's Ferry and could see spacing of Campsites; amenities; and the stone's throw distance to the CO River.

Invoking the 'Panoramio' function on Google Earth lets you see pix Tourists have uploaded. Very kewl. Linked 'Trip Advisor' Reviews critique everything from Road conditions to Campsite details to Ranger helpfulness. I could see what Stores and Eateries were in Page and plan for re-supplies accordingly.

My recon didn't take any fun or mystery out of it for me; quite the opposite. Having good baseline info allowed me to branch out and hike or photograph more and find neat surprises at ground level once there.



This zoomed-in pic of Lee's Ferry doesn't show the stunning Cliff formations, or the CO River just to the right [East] of the pic. You can zoom in/pan/tilt further on line.

[CAJUN LADY]

I know this is small but it's the only picture they had up on the site...can't blame them...the sites suck. That's 3 trailers right next to each other - no room!

Myakka State Park campground:

[doris s.]

Becca,

It's funny what people think is a "good" campground, isn't it? We went to an RV show this past weekend and was amazed at the different kinds of campgrounds that folks go to. Some are kid oriented, some are drawing customers because of the location to a historic site.

I want to camp near home this year and looked at a few campgrounds in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and was blown over by the price per night. Tent sites are $44 bucks a night. What are they thinking? I can camp at state parks for $25 bucks a night with a huge site that has trees on it.

It is always interesting to see what folks think are "good" campgrounds.

Doris

[john]

Here is our Myakka campsite taken a few years ago. We enjoyed ourselves, though I believe we were lucky with our site even though we arrived quite late.

One should remember Myakka is a very old park.

[Beachbuggy]

Becca,

It's funny what people think is a "good" campground, isn't it? We went to an RV show this past weekend and was amazed at the different kinds of campgrounds that folks go to. Some are kid oriented, some are drawing customers because of the location to a historic site.

I want to camp near home this year and looked at a few campgrounds in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and was blown over by the price per night. Tent sites are $44 bucks a night. What are they thinking? I can camp at state parks for $25 bucks a night with a huge site that has trees on it.

It is always interesting to see what folks think are "good" campgrounds.

Doris

Stopped off at a state park on a trip across Texas this summer.
We were not aware at the time, just drove in-- the campground had cently been destroyed by a flood.
We paid $9 for the entire park---had it all to ourselves re

[john]

Your lucky to be in Wyoming slowcowboy.

A year and a half ago I took my family on the national park circuit so we, of course, made our way through Wyoming on our way to Yellow Stone and the Tetons shortly thereafter after having visited Glacier .

Anyway, of the states we visited Wyoming was one of the most alluring. Living there may have been different, but we fell in love.

[Engineer Guy]

Out our Kitchen Window is the 'endless' Gunnison Gorge BLM Land shown below. The San Juan Mountains and Ouray are in the distance. Dispersed free Camping; a few Fire Rings to be found/re-used; plenty of Timber in the distance, not obvious in this pic. 860 sq. miles of the Grand Mesa at 10,500' elevation ~40 minutes 'behind' us in this pic. The Milky Way as [too] few have seen it; right down to the horizon. Not much Wind. Pretty Avatars.

[CAJUN LADY]

Here is our Myakka campsite taken a few years ago. We enjoyed ourselves, though I believe we were lucky with our site even though we arrived quite late.

One should remember Myakka is a very old park.

You got lucky!

I hosted a gathering at Silver River State Park in the Ocala National Forest in the beginning of February and have never been to this park before but was told how nice it was. It was as good as described! The campsites were big and the majority of them were private with lots of trees and covering between sites.

The rangers were very, very nice and helpful. It's a park that is high on my list to return to.

[Beachbuggy]

Hey how do you save a screen capture from google earth into a jpeg?

I want to show just how horrible my last campsite was

[Blumie]

We've also had some recon luck looking at county parks along a proposed route, by simply googling "Inyo County Park campgrounds," for example.

When we teardropped cross-country 3 years ago, I used internet and AAA guides to make our own campground guide. We had three definite places we had reservations; the other days we consulted my guide to see what campgrounds were within driving distance by nightfall, and made our choices as we went. Only once did we end up parked on a gravel parking lot - and it was rented out as a campground!

[Engineer Guy]

Beachbuggy ~

Zoom into the final Google Earth image you want to save. Using the icon at the page top, e.mail it to yourself. Open that e.mail and save the Attachment [the pic] to your P.C. Hard Drive. It saves as a .gif. Then, I uploaded it to my Album here and posted it above just like any other Album pic. Instructions on doing that are above.

If you absolutely want a .jpg for some reason, you should be able to open the .gif on your PC with your Photo Processing Application of choice, then re-save it as a .jpg.

Bad taste is timeless. Can't wait to see the Campsite you mention!

As did blumie above, I made my own Camping Guide and selected from 'too many' options once I got to Page AZ. The weather forecast included the possibility of Rain. I shifted the order of my 3 Camp stops to avoid being >20 miles out on Lake Powell's 'Ahlstrom Point' shown above with nothing but impassable Mud between me and the Highway.

[Beachbuggy]

Beachbuggy ~

Zoom into the final Google Earth image you want to save. Using the icon at the page top, e.mail it to yourself. Open that e.mail and save the Attachment [the pic] to your P.C. Hard Drive. It saves as a .gif. Then, I uploaded it to my Album here and posted it above just like any other Album pic. Instructions on doing that are above.

Uggh, it won't e-mail to me and so I sent it to my husband and he sent it back but it came as a link directly back to google maps, no attachment.

[Engineer Guy]

After clicking on the e.mail icon on Google Earth, a Dialog Box appears w/3 choices. Click on the top choice to e.mail a .jpg of the desired current view. The 2nd choice is a link to the current view instead; not what you want. It sounds like that's what happened.

After e.mailing it to yourself, downsize it in your PC to the maximum size allowed on this Forum: 820 x 652, or some round number of pixels just below that size. Then, you can upload the .jpg image to your Album here, and link to it in a Post.

See an image of Hoover Dam processed this way just now:

[Beachbuggy]

Okay, it took a while I could not get the google maps to give me the options, had to go a round about way to get the picture.

So here's the campground.
As you can see it's just a parking lot.
Those greyish roofs are the picnic tables, off on the left is the tent area, just as bad and just as crowded.

When we went it was crowded! the lot was full!