Canceling My Campsite Allows Someone to Use It. But There's a Fee.

Dear Sundog: While on a road trip, I reserved a public campsite online which cost $15. When the day arrived, I saw that we weren’t going to make it that far, so I went to cancel. I did not expect a refund, but learned that I would have to pay an additional $10 to cancel. My rule-following partner wanted to pay the fee, but I said forget about it. Who was right? —K

Dear K: Although Sundog is no couples counselor, this is one instance in which I can confidently say: neither of you is right, neither is wrong. Yes, I suppose it’s better to follow the rules. But throwing away any amount of money, even ten dollars, is of dubious benefit. I mean, when you pay a parking ticket do you feel like you’ve improved society?

But your conundrum wades into the murkier waters of what has become a national crisis: virtually all good campsites are booked solid, while many are half-empty, due to folks like you who either forgot to cancel or refused to pay the cancellation fee or simply got defeated by making yet one more online transaction (forgot the password, etc.) in our lives which seem increasingly dominated by dicking around on the internet.

We arrived at this situation, as usual, by believing that technology would make life easier. And I think we can all agree that going to recreation.gov and clicking a few boxes is much simpler than phoning a bunch of ranger stations across the country, being put on hold, having to call back during business hours, etc. But the unintended consequence is a system that greatly benefits laptop warriors with money to burn, and penalizes the people who actually pack up their gear and get offline and into the woods. Any competent iPhone user can secure dozens of campsites in a few minutes, six months in advance, paying a relatively small fee for the privilege. Many won’t bother to cancel, and won’t be able to arrive. Now the actual campers who roll through the loop at dusk are faced with reserved—yet empty—sites, and must travel on, likely to some undesignated sites where they will poop in a hole and leave a bed of charred sticks in a circle of stones.

Basically online reservation systems have created a moral hazard. We are encouraged to behave badly. The ease of reservations creates a false scarcity, so everything gets booked up within hours of becoming available. And as you note, there is a literal cost to do the right thing. The lack of real consequences for no-showing, combined with fees and hassles, encourages us to do what you did, K, and simply pay for an empty site.

So how can we end this? One solution would be to raise the costs exorbitantly. You’re less likely to eat a $100 per night fee than a $15 per night fee. And yet this would again favor people with the means and energy to waste money.

Sundog suggests an easier cancellation policy with more draconian consequences. It should be free to cancel up to the day of arrival. That would have made your decision, K, a no-brainer. After that, no-shows should be banned from rec.gov or whatever state platform they used for a full year. This doesn’t mean they can’t go camping for a year. Just that they have to show up and wait in line for cancellations like the rest of us. This system is already used for some coveted river permits, where no-shows are not allowed to enter the lottery for two full years. Banning the no-shows from rec.gov would not only discourage bad behavior, but it would also reduce the pressure on the platform, as the worst hoarders who make a ton of reservations would be blocked.

Sundog’s column on ratting out a neighbor’s Airbnb in a resort town sparked some feverish fan/hate mail. Sundog told the writer to go ahead and tattle. Readers replied in droves, even implying that Sundog supports Vladimir Putin (which, for the record, he does not).

You excoriate the speculator purchasing a property at market price, as determined by an unpressured agreement between a willing seller and a willing buyer. The seller is presumably, based on your article, a local person. Yet there is no mention or castigation of the seller in your article? Is there a reason for this discrepancy in assigning blame, or is it just hypocrisy? Presumably, the sellers are friends and neighbors of the people up in arms about the issue who still live in the neighborhood.  

Are you saying some government overlords should determine who can sell what goods and services and at what prices? Sounds rather Putin-like to me. Perhaps they will next seek to monitor and manage communication and various writings done by people, so as to not sully the minds of the population.

Are you saying the government overlords should dictate who can stay in a rental house? Apparently, per your agreement with the questioner, college kids and dirtbags are OK, vacationing families are not?

I didn’t see anything from the person complaining as to how the change in clientele of the house caused him specific harm. Perhaps that was omitted from the article for the sake of brevity?

I see you complaining about Amazon killing off bookstores and streaming services killing record stores, but you are just fine with accepting payment for on-line blogs with no concern for your participation in the death of print media? I guess it is OK as long as you get yours, eh? —D.R.

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Invariably, there were a few readers in Sundog’s camp:

Very refreshing to read a piece that does not genuflect to the predatory investment tools that are so in vogue by people that don’t want to do actual work… The comment about ski towns stood out because I live in one, Rutland, VT, near the Killington skiers’ paradise. Rutland is selling its soul to the highest bidder under the guise of replenishing population, but resulting in a drastic inequity in income. I am incubating a blistering opinion piece that probably will not see print because it will violate the requirement to be patriotic. —J.P.

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And this being America, all paths lead quickly to polarizing politics:

I just read your article on Airbnbs. I sit on the planning and zoning board for my quaint town. I appreciate what you have said and agree with you. However, I live in Florida, where local governments are no longer able to regulate tourist homes if it was not already in their code. The state also recently just passed a law that preempts local governments from banning home based businesses like massage parlors and vehicle repair shops. Just wanted to let you know what our POS governor is doing to us in Florida. He is single handedly making lives of every citizen worse off. 

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It terms of poetic brevity, this letter wins first prize:

Why does your article have ads for Airbnb? Pretty weird.

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