How Ruth kept her family tradition alive

Photo: Guy Hanford

Ontario’s booking policy is a bit strange. They allow campers to book campsites 5 months in advance. At that time, campers can select the last day of the reservable window and the following 23 (technically unavailable) days.

Those who book those dates typically don’t want all of them, so, they wait for a month (Ontario Parks doesn’t allow cancellations until 4 months before the arrival date). Then, they cancel all the days they aren’t interested in. This is a bit of a hack, and most parks restrict campers from this approach. That said, it’s common in Ontario.

We monitor a lot of jurisdictions, so, it’s hard to know all of the specific policies for each area (especially because these change over time). When Ruth from Ontario got in touch, she helped inform us of this scenario—and led us to do more research.

Turns out that in Ontario the longer you wait to cancel, the more of your initial payment you lose (you can read more on that on Ontario Parks’ website). So, the morning folks can cancel, they are quick to dump any days they don’t need.

This creates a unique situation in which a lot of spots are re-released into the system exactly one month after they were first booked. That said, there’s also a rush on these newly available sites.

In our talks, I noted to Ruth that I suspected these would be hard to get as others would be aware of them—and ready to pounce. I suggested that she stay patient, as more would likely come up closer to the arrival date.

Turns out that I was wrong, though. Ruth was able to use Campnab to book several spots at Killbear, months in advance—and keep her family’s summer tradition alive. 😎

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