Looking back at the 2022 camping season at BC Parks  

BC Parks has more than 235 parks with campgrounds including frontcountry, backcountry and marine sites. There are over 11,000 frontcountry campsites and over 1,000 backcountry campsites.  

Demand for camping has been steadily increasing year-over-year. Since 2019, there has been a 26.5% growth in reservations. This past season was a record year surpassing 300,000 reservations. 2022 was also a big year as we re-launched a user-focused, dynamic, and responsive reservation service. Through surveys and user research, we learned that the majority of people are satisfied with the new reservation service and we gained valuable insight into improvements for the future. 

Here are a few highlights about our camping services in 2022: 

• Since going live with our new system in March 2022, we have been conducting monthly system improvements in the backend. 

• The new reservation service included the call centre expanding services to assist people with questions and general information about parks. A total of 54,355 calls were answered. 
• We held user interviews about the re-launched reservation system and camping reservation policies – read more about what we heard here and how the booking window and no-show policies influence camper behaviour?   
• In 2022, of BC Parks’ 167 frontcountry campgrounds, 33 parks were 100% reservable in peak season and 82 parks had a mix of sites that offer first come, first serve (FCFS) and require reservations. 52 campgrounds remain off the reservation service for a full FCFS experience. 

Stay tuned for more updates about the 2023 camping season, including new reservable and FCFS camping options. For now – a reminder that we are reinstating the rolling 4-month booking window, so 2023 reservations for some BC Parks campgrounds are available starting on January 3. We wish you fun and memorable camping experiences at BC Parks next year.