The Hardest Campgrounds to Book in California, Measured

Everyone has an opinion about which campgrounds are impossible to get. We have data. We check the booking systems behind more than 600 California campgrounds every day, and this is the ranked list of the ones that are, right now, effectively full.

By CampsiteScan. Updated 11 September 2026. Rankings come from our own availability checks, not from a booking site or a survey.

Short answer

Emerald Bay SP, Big Basin Redwoods SP, Emma Wood SB and Westport-Union Landing SB had nothing bookable on a single night in the 20-night window we measured, which is a sellout score of 100 out of 100. Emerald Bay SP tops the list on size: all 98 of its sites were taken every night.

A campground on this list is not bookable by deciding to go camping next week. It is bookable the morning its dates are released, months out, or through a cancellation. That is the entire menu.

The ranking

Every campground below is measured over the same nights, so the rows are comparable. A night counts as sold out only when not a single site in the campground is bookable. Weekends weigh more than midweek, because that is when people actually want to go.

Sellout ranking

20 nights from 11 September to 30 September 2026

	Campground	Sites	Fri & Sat gone	Midweek gone	Score
1	Emerald Bay SPLake Tahoe and the high Sierra	98	6 of 6	14 of 14	100
2	Big Basin Redwoods SPBay Area and the North Coast	93	6 of 6	14 of 14	100
3	Emma Wood SBVentura coast	79	6 of 6	14 of 14	100
4	Westport-Union Landing SBMendocino Coast coast	78	6 of 6	14 of 14	100
5	Plaskett Creek CampgroundBig Sur and the Central Coast	43	6 of 6	14 of 14	100
6	El Capitan SBSanta Barbara coast	22	6 of 6	14 of 14	100
7	Mount Tamalpais SPBay Area and the North Coast	9	6 of 6	14 of 14	100
8	Tolowa Dunes SPNorth Coast coast	6	6 of 6	14 of 14	100
9	Manresa SBMonterey Bay coast	0	6 of 6	14 of 14	100
10	Andrew Molera SPBig Sur coast	0	6 of 6	14 of 14	100
11	North Pines CampgroundYosemite	81	6 of 6	13 of 14	98
12	Lower Pines CampgroundYosemite	74	6 of 6	13 of 14	98
13	Upper Pines CampgroundYosemite	235	6 of 6	12 of 14	95
14	Half Moon Bay SBSan Mateo Coast coast	44	6 of 6	11 of 14	92
15	Gold Bluffs BeachRedwood Coast coast	24	6 of 6	11 of 14	92

Score is out of 100: the share of Friday and Saturday nights with nothing bookable, weighted 65%, plus the share of midweek nights, weighted 35%. A 100 means we found nothing bookable on any night in the window. Campground names link to our page for that campground where we have written one, or to the booking site where we have not. One honest caveat: a campground that has closed for its season also shows as fully booked from outside the booking system, so a top spot late in the year can reflect a season ending rather than demand. In peak season the two mean the same thing to you: there is nothing to book. 6 of the 58 campgrounds we rank here could not be measured over this window and are left out rather than guessed at.

How we measure this

The ranking is computed, not compiled. Our checker polls the reservation systems behind ReserveCalifornia and recreation.gov throughout the day, every day, and records which sites are bookable on which nights. For this page we take a set of well-known campgrounds across the state, measure them all over the identical window of nights, and count the nights where a campground had nothing left at all.

Two design choices matter. First, a campground only counts as sold out on a night when every single site is taken. One open site anywhere in the park means the night counts as open, so the scores understate how hard the good sites are to get. Second, campgrounds the booking system returns no data for are left off the list rather than shown as sold out, because a closed campground and a full campground look identical from the outside and we refuse to publish a guess.

If you are writing about campsite demand and want these numbers over a different window, a different region, or as a raw export, get in touch. It is our data and we are happy to cut it for you.

If the campground you want is on this list

You have two honest options, and refreshing the booking page is not one of them.

Book the release morning. Both booking systems release dates months ahead on a rolling schedule. Count back from your first night, be signed in before the release time, and know exactly which sites you want. At the top campgrounds on this list, the good weekends go in the first minutes.

Catch a cancellation. Once the release has passed, cancellations are the only inventory. The campgrounds on this list produce them constantly, because plans made six months out fall apart at a high rate, and the returned sites are usually gone again within minutes. We built a free tool that watches your campground and emails you the moment a site comes back, which is the realistic way to be first.

Common questions

What is the hardest campground to book in California?

How is the sellout ranking measured?

We check the booking systems for every campground on this list several times a day. A night counts as sold out when no site in the campground is bookable. The score weights Friday and Saturday nights at 65 percent and midweek nights at 35 percent, so a campground that fills all week ranks above one that only fills on weekends. Every row is measured over the same nights.

How do people get sites at sold-out campgrounds?

Two ways. Book the morning your dates are first released, months ahead, or catch a cancellation. Sold-out campgrounds produce a steady stream of cancelled sites because plans made months out fall apart often, and those sites are usually rebooked within minutes. A free alert that emails you the moment a site returns is the realistic way to catch one.

Watching one of these campgrounds?

Pick the campground and your dates once. We watch it and email you the moment a site frees up, day or night.

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