Bear Island Campground — how to get a site when it's sold out

Booking Bear Island Campground

Sites at Bear Island Campground are reserved through Recreation.gov. Sites here can be reserved in advance through the official system, and they are claimed fast — cancellations then trickle back all season, unannounced, at any hour of the day or night.

Site facts

Total sites	40
Site types	Standard
Location	Ochopee, FL
Book through	Recreation.gov
Official listing	Recreation.gov

The cancellation play at Bear Island Campground

Because sites are booked months ahead, a steady share of reservations get cancelled as trips fall through. Each cancellation instantly returns that site and those nights to the official calendar — first-come, first-served, no waitlist, no announcement. Refreshing the booking page yourself, every few minutes for weeks, works in theory. In practice, the people who get these sites are the ones who hear about the opening first.

itOpened scans the Recreation.gov calendar for Bear Island Campground around the clock. When a site matching your dates and your vehicle opens, you get a text with a direct link to it. You book it yourself, in your own account, at the normal price. We never book, hold, or resell — your fee pays for monitoring, and openings are first-come, so speed is the whole game.

Other campgrounds in Big Cypress National Preserve

Monument Lake Campground	Cancellation alerts available
Midway Campground (FL)	Cancellation alerts available
Burns Lake Campground	Cancellation alerts available
Mitchell Landing Campground	Cancellation alerts available
Gator Head Campground	Cancellation alerts available
Pink Jeep Campground	Cancellation alerts available
Pinecrest Group Campground	Cancellation alerts available

Page data refreshed 2026-10-29. Site facts come from the official directory listing for Bear Island Campground; cancellation statistics come from our own scanning logs.