Mississippi River - Pools 11-22 · Illinois
Overview The Mississippi River Project’s Muscatine Ranger Station has gone to a new way to pay for First-Come First-Serve campsites at the Blanchard Island Recreation Area. This new way is called "Scan & Pay". Blanchard Island’s open fee dates are May 15th through October 15th.
Sites at Blanchard Island 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 | 16 |
|---|---|
| Site types | Standard |
| Location | New Boston, IL |
| 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 Blanchard Island 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.
| Thomson Causeway | Cancellation alerts available |
|---|---|
| Grant River | Cancellation alerts available |
| Fishermans Corner | Cancellation alerts available |
| Shady Creek | Cancellation alerts available |
| Clarks Ferry | Cancellation alerts available |
| Blanding Landing | Cancellation alerts available |
| Bulger's Hollow Recreation Area | Cancellation alerts available |
Page data refreshed 2026-10-29. Site facts come from the official directory listing for Blanchard Island Recreation Area; cancellation statistics come from our own scanning logs.