NSW National Parks camping site booking feedback - open till 25/5/25

I believe Nat parks are actually responsible for the ghost bookings so they don't need to employ as many staff. Not as much rubbish to collect, less use of toilets and facilities, so much easier to manage. Many motels have been known to display no vacancy and have entire floors vacant as they don't have the staff to clean the all the rooms. I'm close enough to a national park to do day trips and a number of times found all the sites booked however going there for the day more than half the sites were empty. Before online booking every site would be full. I don't believe that many people would not show up. If Nat parks really want to fix it and really want people tocamp, simply go back to the first in best dressed and pay as you stay. It worked for many many years. They don't want the campers.

"pay on arrival using a QR code via a local WiFi node."
With Starlink and a captive portal I think a park local WiFi node for booking confirmation and amendments would be good. This would allow you to arrive at a camp and survey the most suitable site for your situation. If you identified an empty site you could submit a photo. If the site was empty for the 2nd or subsequent nights it could be released for you to book. If the original camper logged in and updated their booking their site could be held otherwise forfeited. This would potentially limit ghost camps in full parks to one night.

Wayne, please submit your support of this idea too. As you know we havve been travelling fulltime for the past 16 months and we predominantly stay at either State Forests or National Parks camps so have had a lot of experience using the booking systems - I have no idea how people manage it without Starlink and whilst we have that luxury - many don't and shouldn't have to. It's very expensive and as a business we justify the costs but most people aren't in that positions. For us, as long time tourers we rarely know 2 hours ahead where we will camp up for the night - but what we do each morning before packing up is use the Starlink service to look up the availability of the nearby national park camps that we expect are within range of the day's drive - you can get a good idea of popularity as they usually state 4/73 sites booked etc. So that tells us lots of sites and not many booked so we'll take our chances and turn up without a booking - check it out and if we decided to stay, book online via Starlink (most places we choose to camp are out of service). Alternatively, if we see a single availability in a popular or limited site destination and know its a bucket list location we'll def book it before arriving. We had a hard time in Victoria in March this year around the Otways and Great Ocean Road and at Wilsons Prom but we did expect that but we found free camps in the state forest (busy) but stayed put whilst we waited for availability at the NP - never eventuated over 2 weeks - despite visiting all the sites and "presuming" there was lots of ghost camping going on from what we saw. Campers shouldn't have to spend so much time fussing about booking. Camping is meant to be a place we go to disconnect and destress!
Michelle

It's not many don't have Starlink, more like most don't.
You can't have a booking system reliant on Starlink, it's fantastic for those who can justify it though.
WiFi nodes ? Wouldn't that require a mobile service or sat system?

Like you, we have our frustrations with contacting NPs for bookings.
Currently I'm trying to find out if a particular campsite in the Qld central Highlands will be open on a day after the current closure period lapses in several days' time (Michelle you were at that site last October by looking at it on Explorer).
Trying to find the right (responsible) NP office or get someone to respond to an enquiry through their official booking system is difficult and frustrating.
I do find the Qld system of full refund up to 48 hours before hand more encouraging for people to cancel their unused nights in advance to recoup their fees.

Mark

"For us, as long time tourers we rarely know 2 hours ahead where we will camp up for the night".
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This is a great dividing issue. Families tend to book and stay put for a time, 7-14days over school or holiday periods. Grey nomads and other groups stay for a day or few and don't have such fixed itineraries.
If you look at a couple of sites we have stayed at like Tom Groggin and Geehi both are deep in valleys with no cellular coverage and by reports can become quite busy in peek periods. Geehi has distinct camp sites, Tom Groggin less so. Both have sites that may or may not suit you depending on your shade or sun preference. We didn't see any National Parks presence at either. When in this area changes to bookings or making a booking is very difficult without Starlink. A camp based Starlink and WiFi with a restricted captive portal would be cheaper than a ranger for 9-5, 7days a week to enable booking and camp changes. We drove up to Dead Horse Gap to change our booking but the booking system was unresponsive while we were there, NOT HAPPY. As we are in the second group (grey nomad and other) we often change our mind based on circumstances at the time. I'm certainly not going to make a very significant drive again to find the booking system is dysfunctional.
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Yes I have responded to the survey.

HI Wayne,
Yes exactly - families visiting a base camp for a few days need to book in peak periods and be assured of a space available. For that reason I do agree with a booking system for those popular sites. But not all sites have to be bookable. Whatever the person's circumstances, if popular camps are located in offline areas that need booking then it would be great if they supplied the means to do so at the site with the Wifi node/QR code etc.

Funny you should mentioned the camps in the Kosciusko NP - we know it well! We camped at both Geehi and Tom Groggin only a few weeks ago (during the lead up to Anzac Day long weekend, which was during school holidays). We had no problem finding a vacant site at Geehi early mid week and then going online (yes with Starlink) to make our booking. We could not get any available sites from the Thursday - Monday of the long weekend anywhere in the region, including Thredbo Diggings.

In the end, because we wanted to ride the gravity trails at Thredbo on our MTB bikes, we decided it was too far to drive, so we booked into a Thredbo resort via Booking.com - turned out to be a lucky thing as I had an accident on Wednesday and was badly injured requiring hospitalisation (Cooma) so after discharge knowing I had the resort lined up for 3 nights over the busy period was a blessing (although I never did get to ride and wont still be riding for a few months still as I've done a good job on myself).

When I was staying at Yuraygir a few months ago, which is now a popular camping spot, a volunteer was camped there and it was their job to check bookings, clean the amenities etc.
I spoke to the volunteer and they were contracted to stay for a duration of time and their site is free gratis for the time they are there.
It is believed this option is on a case by case situation and not a state wide direction from Parks NSW at this stage.

A lot of people want to know where they are going more than 7days ahead. Delaying payment to say 7 days prior only exacerbates Ghost bookings for people wanting to confirm places in advance.
Payment upon booking makes people a little more realistic with their bookings.