On August 18th, 2016, after a long day of work, I was chatting with my friends sharing links as we usually do. I shared a photo of the Perseid meteor shower taken in Yosemite Valley. My friend Justin, who currently lives in the bay area, suggested a trip to the park during Labour Day long weekend.

After firing up all my favorite travel websites, I managed to get a flight to San Fransisco and back with points and $195 CAD. The trip was on…except we still had to book camping at the third most popular national park in America on the second most popular weekend of the year.

Time to get to work. I fired up Reddit, TripAdvisor, a couple of hiking websites, a few blogs on Yosemite, YouTube, and the National Parks website. After six hours of research, and successfully booking two wilderness sites around the valley, I learned the following:

Regular camping sites in the valley are booked months in advance

First-come first-serve camps in the valley exist, but you risk not getting a spot unless you show up a few hours before the ranger cabin opens. During the most popular weekend of the year, your chances of getting a spot is close to zero.

Other than a few popular trail heads, booking a trail head spot for wilderness camping around the valley is fairly easy, even during the second most popular weekend of the year.