Looking for a place to pitch the tent? Start the search online

If you are thinking about a weekend of camping and surfing at, say, El Capitan State Beach near Santa Barbara, you’ll want to start planning with a little Web surfing.

Whether you are planning on pitching a tent at a federal or state campground, there are nearly as many resources on the Web as there are ants at a picnic.

Sorting official government sites from unofficial for-profit sites can be a challenge. Some sites appear official because of their names but are instead unofficial, unauthorized commercial sites. The information at such sites may not always be accurate. Adding to the confusion is the government’s reliance on online services through third-party, for-profit entities.

A good place to start the search for official information on national parks and campgrounds is the federal government’s site, www.recreation.gov. It provides good information about national recreation spots and links to official sites for reserving campsites online.

National park camping reservations are handled at the U.S. National Park Service reservation service (reservations.nps.gov). For online reservations at national forests, Bureau of Land Management and other federal campgrounds, the government works through ReserveUSA, a private company that charges a $9 service fee for each reservation.

For that trip to El Capitan State Beach (or any California state park), start at www.parks.ca.gov, the official state parks website. The state works with ReserveAmerica, a partner company of ReserveUSA, www.reserveusa.com, for all its online and telephone campground reservations. There is a $7.50 charge for each reservation.

Getting a state campsite requires luck and timing. State campsite inventory is released seven months in advance at 8 a.m. on the first day of the month for phone and online reservations. If you want to reserve a campsite in October, inventory will be released on April 1.

Many of the popular campgrounds, especially those along the coast, sell out on weekends within the first hour they are available. For the popular summer months of July and August, even midweek inventory is gone in the first hour, said state parks spokesman Roy Stearns.

“We own some of the best real estate in the state, and the demand is far outstripping supply,” Stearns said.

Of the 15,000 campsites in the state park system, 10,000 can be reserved. “If we had another 4,000 to 5000 campsites we’d sell them too, the demand is that high,” Stearns said.

More campers have been turning to the Web to help them secure reservations. So far in 2005, 63% of campground reservations were made online; five years ago only 42% turned to the Web.

“We’ve been working hard to improve the computer access,” Stearns said.

You can maximize your chance of scoring a California beachfront site with several strategies.

Know exactly when and where you want to go, but have two or three alternative campgrounds.

Have a friend work on other choices while you work online for your first choice. Once the magic hour arrives, go online immediately and “type it in as fast as you can type,” Stearns said.

“If that doesn’t work, go inland and north,” he suggests, because those campgrounds fill up slower than those in the south and on the beach. “Then look around for first-come, first-served [campgrounds], as there are some gems.”

First-come, first-served campgrounds tend to fill up on Fridays, so try to arrive on a Thursday or Wednesday.

Contact James Gilden at www.theinternettraveler.com.