Campground Scam

Don’t Be This Guy IX

We had an interesting experience at our last campground. Like many campgrounds these days, they closed their office and store at 6 p.m. Why, I have no idea. Staying open a couple more hours seems like a nice perk for campers who suddenly realize they need s’more supplies or something else before calling it a night. But I digress.

We came back from our day’s activities around 6:30 and noticed we had a new neighbor on the site next to us. He was finishing his setup and already had his slides out, but was still hooked to his tow vehicle, so it looked like he was probably just there for the night.

Around 7 the next morning, he was outside packing up and getting ready to leave. He seemed like a nice guy, and we talked for a few minutes while he finished up. He asked if we had any garbage he could take to the dumpster since he was going to walk over. I told him the campground picked up garbage at the sites if you had it out by 10 a.m. He tossed his bag by the road and continued packing.

They pulled out around 8 a.m. and didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry.

Around 10, one of the campground workers came by on a golf cart. He saw the garbage sitting there and asked me if someone had been on that site the night before. I told him there had been. He looked at his roster and said there shouldn’t have been anyone on that site.

I explained that they were already there when we got back around 6:30 and had left around 8 that morning.

Maybe the campground simply hadn’t updated its roster yet. Or maybe we witnessed an interesting way to get a free night’s camping. Pull into an empty site after the office closes, spend the night, and leave before it opens in the morning. If someone happens to come by and question you, just say you arrived late and were planning to check in when the office opened.

I don’t know which it was, but it certainly made us wonder.