Camping guide

What to write down about a campsite so you can rebook the good ones

Most campgrounds let you choose your exact site, and the difference between a great one and a poor one in the same loop can be large. Memory is a bad system for this. A few lines written the day after the trip are worth more than a vivid recollection a year later.

Published October 31, 2026

Why bother

Booking sites are built around photos taken in good light and a list of amenities. They cannot tell you that site 22 floods when it rains, or that site 31 is the only one in the loop where the phone works. You find that out by staying there, and then you forget it by next summer. A simple note fixes that.

It also helps with the opposite problem. When you remember a campground fondly but cannot recall which site, you either book blind or give up on it. Writing the site number once is the cheapest thing on this list.

What to record

1. Campground and site number. Write both. “Loop B, site 14” is something you can book again. “The nice one by the lake” is not. Record the date you stayed too, since sites change.
2. Shade. Note when the shade was good, not just whether it was. Afternoon shade on the tent side is different from shade over the picnic table. Record the season, because leaf cover changes.
3. Pad: level or not. A sloping pad means a bad night in a tent and a trip to the leveling blocks in a camper. Write “level”, “slight slope toward the back” or “needed blocks”. Also note the ground: gravel, packed dirt, grass or sand, since that decides whether stakes hold.
4. Hookups. Record exactly what the site had: electric amperage (30 or 50 amp), water, sewer. Note where the post sits relative to the pad, because a short cord on the wrong side is a real problem. For tent sites, “electric only” is worth noting too.
5. Cell signal. Write the carrier and the strength, for example “Verizon: one bar, text only”. Signal differs by carrier, so two families can come home with opposite memories of the same site.
6. Noise. Record the source. Road, railroad, generator loop, dumpster, a playground, or a neighbor loop with a late fire pit. “Noisy” helps nobody. “Train at 2 am and 5 am” does.
7. Bathhouse distance and condition. Write how long the walk was with a child, and whether the building was clean. A site that is two minutes away may be far better with a three-year-old than one that is nicer but far.
8. Site size and fit. Record the pad length and width, and what you fit on it: tent, canopy, camper, the second car. If you hit a low branch or a narrow entry, say so.
9. Privacy. Note how close the neighboring sites were and whether trees or bushes sit between you. Sites on the outside of a loop are often more private.
10. Water and the camp layout. Where the spigot was, the water pressure, and which direction the pad faces. A site that faces west gets sun at the table at dinner.
11. Rate and the cost. The nightly rate, any extra fees (second vehicle, pets) and what the stay cost in total. Later this lets you compare campgrounds fairly.
12. A rating and one sentence. Give the site a score you can compare, and add a sentence that you would want to read next spring: “Great for kids, but skip it on holiday weekends.”

When to write it

Write the notes before you leave the site, or the next day. A sentence on your phone while you are still sitting at the picnic table is enough. Add details when you unpack. If you wait a month, you will remember the highlights and none of the practical things, like the slope or the train.

A small sample

Make the rebooking decision easy

Once you have two or three trips recorded, a pattern shows up. You will see that you always rated the end-of-loop sites higher, or that the places with the bathhouse nearby are the ones you return to. Keep a short “book this site first” list, and when the booking window opens, you already know which site to go for and which two to use as backups.

Keeping it where your whole group can see it

If you camp with another family, they will remember different things, and some will have stayed there without you. A shared record is better than one person’s memory. A shared note, spreadsheet or a camping log works. If you do not want to set one up, you can use CampCrew for this.