Chapter 3: Costs

Money is where group trips go sour, and it is rarely about the amount. It is about one person fronting everything, vague promises to settle up later, and no agreed answer for what happens when someone cancels. This chapter lists the charges you will meet, shows which ones are gone once paid, and gives you a way to split and collect that people accept as fair.

The charges, in the order you meet them

1. The nightly site fee. This is the main cost, and it is on the site's official listing. Group sites are not all priced the same way, so read the listing instead of assuming. For a sense of scale on standard sites, Yosemite lists $36 per night at eight of its campgrounds.

2. The reservation fee. Reservation systems add their own charge to each booking. Recreation.gov charges $8 for a reservation made online, $9 through its call center, and $3 in person, for camping and group sites alike, and it does not refund that fee. California State Parks says reservations through ReserveCalifornia carry a non-refundable processing fee. If you book four standard sites instead of one group site, that is four reservations, so budget for a fee on each.

3. Entrance fees. A campsite reservation and park admission are separate charges in many parks. Yosemite lists $35 per private vehicle, valid for seven consecutive days, charged apart from camping, and other entrance charges can apply; check the park's fee page for your group. Eight cars means eight entrance fees unless you carpool.

4. Permits. A ceremony or organized event may need its own permit. Yosemite charges a $100 non-refundable processing fee for a special use permit application.

5. Extra vehicles. If the site's parking limit is lower than your car count, ask the campground where the rest go and whether that costs anything. It varies, and the listing does not always say.

6. Shared supplies. Food, firewood, ice, propane, water containers, a rented canopy. The kitchen and gear leads estimate these.

7. The buffer. Something will be forgotten or will run out. Decide on a small cushion and say out loud that leftover money is returned.

What you lose if plans change

Read the cancellation terms on your confirmation before you collect a dollar, because they set your group's own cancellation rule. Recreation.gov's general policies are a useful example of how the penalties step up. Location-specific policies override them.

The original reservation fee is not refunded in any of these cases.

The line that matters most to an organizer is the second one. For a group overnight facility, the costly window opens two weeks before arrival. Set your group's final commitment date a few days ahead of whatever line your reservation has.

Three fair ways to split

Pick one and announce it before booking. Changing the method afterward is what starts arguments.

Per person. Add up shared costs and divide by headcount. Simple, and it suits groups of adults. Decide whether young children count as a full share, a half share, or nothing, and say so.

Per household. Each family pays the same amount. It suits reunions and groups of similar-sized families, and it avoids counting heads. It is unfair to a single camper traveling alone, so offer them a smaller share.

Site by nights, food by person. Split the site fee by person-nights, so someone who stays one night of three pays a third of a site share. Split food by the meals each person eats. This takes more arithmetic and is the fairest when people come and go.

Whichever you choose, keep entrance fees with the car that pays them. Carpoolers can settle among themselves.

An illustration

Suppose a made-up group site costs $120 a night for two nights, booked on Recreation.gov online. The site is $240 and the reservation fee is $8, so the fixed cost is $248. Shared food and firewood are estimated at $300, and the group adds a $40 buffer. The total to collect is $588.

With 16 people paying per person, each share is $36.75. Ask for $37, and return what is left. The $120 site price and the $300 supply estimate are invented for the arithmetic; the $8 fee is Recreation.gov's published online reservation fee.

Collecting without chasing

• Ask for a deposit before booking day. It turns "we're in" into a commitment and means you are not lending the group the site fee.
• One payment method, one deadline. Name the app or account, the amount, and the date in a single message.
• State the dropout rule up front. For example: once the site is booked, a household's share of non-refundable costs stays in the pot unless someone replaces them.
• Keep a shared sheet. One row per household: owed, paid, date. Give the treasurer and the deputy edit access so the record is never in one person's head.
• Close the books within a week. Post the receipts, the split, and each household's refund or balance. Then actually send the refunds.

Checklist: money

The checklists on this page print cleanly, one box per line.

• Nightly fee, reservation fee, and entrance fees looked up on official pages
• Permit and extra-vehicle costs asked about
• Cancellation terms read; group commitment date set ahead of the penalty line
• Split method chosen and announced
• Children's shares decided
• Dropout rule written into the deposit request
• Deposits collected before booking day
• Shared sheet created; treasurer and deputy have access
• Final accounting and refunds sent within a week of the trip