Looking for a Florida campground available north or central Florida

Lawyerboy

As you may also experience in your neck of the woods, we cannot get campground reservations anywhere in a Florida state park before maybe next summer.  We love the state parks because you see trees and there is water, not like rv parks where you are camping a glorified parking lot.  I prefer trees and shrubs between my tab and the campers next to us.  Snowbirds take all the reservations and simply, we want to hitch her up and get out for a weekend here or there.  Any non state parks in north central Florida that you like?  Thanks tab families. Mark

ScottG

Florida's not my neck of the woods so I can't help, but I can sympathize as this is a problem in many places. Spur of the moment camping has been replaced by e-bay auction style stampedes at the moment reservations open for any popular state or national park.

I believe that is why long-time forum member and T@B mod enthusiast @Dalehelman eventually relinquished his camper for a houseboat. Much easier to find a parking space!  

Greenhil

Ocala National Forest has some decent campgrounds. Also, there are campgrounds in Florida State Forests (vs. state parks). I’m not sure of the reservation situation , but it’s worth checking.

GatorEgg

I don’t understand the no reservations thing.  We just spent a week traveling from the Tampa area to Pensacola and back.  We only stay in State parks, no KOA types for us.  We book our sites most of the time while on the road, the day of travel.  We stayed in Ochlockonee State Park and Big Lagoon State Park on the spur of the moment bookings.  And there were others open in NW central Florida area.
Just be open to adventure.

Lawyerboy

We have camped at Anastasia, silver springs, tomoka, hillsborough river but the reservation system for the state parks shows no two day weekend options until the summer.  So looking for maybe an rv park option that might resemble a state park rather than a parking lot of rv’s.

ChanW

No personal experience, but here's a northwest Fla guide I found: https://www.nwfwater.com And in the Suwannee River area: https://www.mysuwanneeriver.com/ Might have some ideas...

CrabTab

@Lawyerboy Here are two resources we sometimes use that may be of help.

The National Forest Service (looks to have places in Ocala and Osceola).
Interactive Visitor Map (fs.fed.us)

The Army Corps of Engineers (has camping at Lake Seminole in northern FL)
www.CorpsLakes.us - Corps Lakes Gateway (dren.mil)

I didn't check availability for you. These sites list camping areas across the country that are usually lesser known/used.

A park ranger here in Virginia told me last summer that the booking problem seems to be people making reservations at several locations for the same dates or several weekends at one location and cancelling what they decide not to use. They are booked up online and get last minute cancellations (because folks can change dates or face minimal fees).

SweetlyHome

Living in Florida we have experienced this situation for a long time and its worse every year.  After Thanksgiving through March or so is the toughest.  It's primarily a case of picking up cancelations at this point.  Looking to the north and inland areas (not near Orlando) might help your cause.  The snowbirds pickup southern cancelations quickly leaving openings to the north.

Lawyerboy

Thank you all.  Very frustrating to have this camper and simply be unable to find a place to go.  Happy holidays.

GatorEgg

Maybe a hint I shouldn’t throw out if I want to continue to find my own sites in my state.  FLSP website used to have an option to “camp this weekend”.  It would show instantly with one click all sites open statewide on a specific date. They did get rid of that option.  But opened up on booking page to be able to put in a date on the drop down without choosing a park.  This way if you want to go camping on xx date, it will show you everything open statewide on that date.