An oceanside campsite at Ruckle Provincial Park on Salt Spring Island, where you can reserve a camping spot through the BC Park website. (Government of B.C.)

By Jordan Davidson

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Mar 30, 2022 | 5:27 AM

NANAIMO — There is great demand for the great outdoors.

The B.C. government launched their revamped BC Parks reservation site on March 21, with over 19,000 bookings made on the first day, according to the Ministry of Forests.

While reserving a spot on the BC Parks site may be difficult due to the high traffic, there are other options available off the beaten path, to escape to the great outdoors.

Recreation sites in B.C. are sites authorized for public use for a variety of reasons, including hiking, boating, and even free camping.

However, unlike the provincial sites, there are no reservation systems and all sites are first-come-first-serve.

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Limited opportunities exist in and around Nanaimo and Oceanside, however the Port Alberni area features a number of free camping sites including Arden Creek, Father and Son Lake and Lowry Lake.

The province has a full list list available online of the nearest recreation sites, as well as what’s available at each location.

Common rules at recreation areas including cleaning up after a visit and not staying in one site for any longer than 14 consecutive days.

With near record registration through BC Parks sites, private campground operators are also seeing a similar spike in demand.

Rob Littlejohn, co-owner of the Living Forest Oceanside Campground and RV Park in Nanaimo said Easter weekend is usually their unofficial kick-off for the camping season, and he’s already anticipating a busy year.

“Through July and August the majority of our sites will be reserved…the long weekends are fully booked already and have been for a while, but mid-week we still have some availability and then other than the long weekends we got some availability still.”

He said they don’t have any first-come-first-serve sites and take reservations up to a year in advance. While they are not part of the provincial reservation system, Littlejohn said they still see an uptick when the government site goes up.

“There’s so many opportunities, everything from places where you can hike for five to six hours and get out in the middle of nowhere to places where you can pull in your 40-foot RV and have the luxuries of home… we live in such a great area for beautiful adventures of any kind.”

B.C. boasts around 10,700 public campsites with half of them available with a reservation, while the other half are on a first-come-first-serve basis.

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jordan@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @JordanDHeyNow