Saylorville Lake · Iowa
Overview Cottonwood Recreation Area is a day-use facility located in the tailwater area below Saylorville Dam. The 26,000-acre Saylorville Lake Project stretches over 50 miles up the Des Moines River Valley. The lake provides a wide variety of recreational activities, including boating, swimming, fishing, hiking and hunting.
Sites at Cottonwood Recreation Area 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.
| Total sites | 9 |
|---|---|
| Site types | Group, Picnic area |
| Location | Johnston, IA |
| Book through | Recreation.gov |
| Official listing | Recreation.gov |
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 Cottonwood Recreation Area 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.
| Prairie Flower Recreation Area | Cancellation alerts available |
|---|---|
| Cherry Glen Campground | Cancellation alerts available |
| Acorn Valley | Cancellation alerts available |
| Bob Shetler Recreation Area | Cancellation alerts available |
| Cherry Glen Picnic | Cancellation alerts available |
| Walnut Ridge Recreation Area | Cancellation alerts available |
| Bob Shetler Picnic Area | Cancellation alerts available |
| Oak Grove Picnic Area | Cancellation alerts available |
| Lake View Recreation Area (Saylorville) | Cancellation alerts available |
| Sandpiper Recreation Area | Cancellation alerts available |
Page data refreshed 2026-10-29. Site facts come from the official directory listing for Cottonwood Recreation Area; cancellation statistics come from our own scanning logs.