Are you wondering why it so hard to find open camping spots in 2021? And what about the confusing and always changing prices being charged for campsites?

The problems are widespread and growing.

And while there are a lot of causes, you have to wonder if the challenge of finding open camping spots this year is going to take a toll on the millions of new campers out there who are frustrated by overbooked, overfilled and expensive campgrounds.

That's what we talk about in Episode 350 of the RV Podcast. Be sure to keep reading this article for links and a transcript of our interview.

Click the player below to hear the audio version of the podcast.

Or click the video player below to watch our video on the RV Lifestyle YouTube Channel.

Open camping spots are rare this summer

We just returned from a trip along the Lake Huron shoreline in Michigan in which we tried six different state parks. We knew the weekends would be booked up, as they are almost everywhere.

But we've never had problems before finding spots during the week.

We did this year.

Eventually, we snagged spots in two state parks. But we couldn't put together stays of more than two days and even then we had to charge parks and spots.

But what really frustrated us was, once we were at the parks, we saw lots of empty campsites. Park rangers explained they were because of no shows. When people make reservations for several nights but don't show and don't notify the park and cancel their reservation, the park has to hold on to that site for two entire days...in case the people who made the reservation eventually do show up.

Grrrr.

But such camper inconsideration is just one problem

There are other factors at work that are also troublesome: The increasing corporatization of campgrounds and a nasty little computer-driven reservation scheme called "dynamic pricing."

Double Grrr.

In our Interview of the week, we talk to Mike Gast, a longtime executive with Kampgrounds of America and now the managing editor of news for RVTravel.com. Mike knows the campground industry inside and out. And he helps us understand what's going on.

After listening to Mike and reading the edited transcript of our interview, I think you'll go Grrr, too.

Interview of the Week: Why can't we fund open camping spots?

Mike Gast is our Interview of the Week, talking about the challenges of finding open camping spots

Mike Wendland: Let's start talking about what's happening across the country involving big corporations buying up smaller campgrounds.

Mike Gast: Well, it's gotten a lot of attention in the last few weeks. There are a lot of campgrounds in the market right now.

It's been a great time for the mom and pop operations, we'll call them, the smaller campgrounds that have been in operation for several years. The market's really ripe right now for turnover and change.