I used to plan every single mile of a trip before I left, until a ranger in Yosemite told me 'you're missing the point'

3 comments

3 Comments

Oh man, that hits home. My buddy had a similar thing happen on a road trip out west. He had every campsite booked for two weeks straight, a real military operation. Then a huge storm washed out the road to his reserved spot in Yellowstone. He was forced to just... drive and find somewhere else. Ended up at this little first-come site by a river he never would have picked. Saw a moose and her calf at sunrise. He said it was the best part of the whole trip, and he would have missed it completely with his original plan. Sometimes you gotta let the trip happen to you.

val_craig371mo ago

Sounds like your buddy got really lucky. For every story like that, there are ten people sleeping in their car at a Walmart parking lot because the first-come sites were full by noon. William_garcia's point about a flexible plan is the real takeaway, not just hoping for a miracle spot and a moose.

robinl901mo ago

Actually, that's not quite how it works in Yellowstone. You can't just "drive and find somewhere else" if a site is full. The park's campgrounds sell out by like 10am, especially in summer. His backup spot was pure luck. The real lesson is to have a flexible plan B, not just wing it. Lots of people get turned away with no place to sleep.

-1