How well do reservation systems work on public lands?

Image: Austin Schmid via Unsplash

In recent years, demand for outdoor recreation has increased, reaching a record 168.1 million participants in 2023 again. Over the last decade, more campground reservations, recreation opportunities, and permits have gone through reservation systems like recreation.gov to help manage crowding and help visitors plan for trips. While reservation, permit, and lottery systems can be crucial for protecting popular places from being overcrowded or damaged, the systems to manage these reservations have at times become complex, costly, and can be a barrier to entry, especially for newer visitors to the outdoors.

A bill introduced by Senator Padilla called the RESERVE Act would explore how well reservation systems are working in order to improve transparency and equity in these systems. The bill directs a study of reservation systems, including campsites, hiking permits, climbing passes, river permits, and more.

While reservation systems are important in protecting public lands and waters, many outdoor recreationists have seen issues with these systems. These include problems like reservation-only campgrounds that have empty sites due to no-shows, experiences entering the same lottery year after year and never seeing your odds increase to win a permit, and concerns about whether more of the revenues from reservation fees should go back into supporting public lands.

The RESERVE Act asks for a review of reservation systems and a report within 18 months that would explore how these systems are designed, who is using them, how revenue from reservation systems is spent, and equity issues including the likelihood of winning a reservation lottery.

Outdoor recreationists are often heavy users of reservation and permit systems, and would benefit from a review of how well they are working and opportunities to improve them to become more efficient, transparent, and equitable. Outdoor Alliance supports this bill, and has shared feedback with lawmakers about important questions to include in the study and ways to make the research more efficient. You can read our letter to lawmakers here.