Camping at the 1,250-acre Keystone State Park in Derry Township has been a family affair for decades for Jackie Donkin of Penn Hills, who was there this past week with her daughter-in-law Erin Donkin of North Allegheny and her brother, Tom Ruefle of Plum, and her seven grandchildren.

“This our favorite campground to come to. It was so close to home,” said Jackie Donkin, 68. The family had two large recreational vehicles parked at adjacent campsites, creating a family compound where the children could go between the two RVs.

Her early days camping were a lot more rustic than what the RVs have to offer the occupants, Jackie Donkin noted.

“It’s definitely family time. We have a lot of good memories camping, especially at Keystone,” said Julia Donkin of Murrysville, a recent Franklin Regional grad who will be attending the University of Pittsburgh this fall to study biology.

The Donkin family’s preference for camping at Keystone State Park contributed to the 32% increase from 2004 to 2025 in campground reservation at the park, which offers visitors hiking trails and a lake for fishing, boating, kayaking and swimming.

The increase in campsite reservations by those reserving space for tents, recreational vehicles and cabins highlights the demand for outdoor recreation in the state’s parks and forests, said the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which administers the state parks and forests.

“Generally, we have seen an increase in park and forest visitation since the covid-19 pandemic began, as people turned to nature for the physical and mental health benefits the outdoors provide. The positive note is that much of that momentum for getting outdoors has persisted and we’re seeing visitation levels holding solid at above pre-pandemic levels,” said Wes Robinson, a spokesman for the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

As of March, campsite reservations have increased 32% since the previous year’s 11-month booking period.

The state attributes some of the increase to the closing of federally operated campsites in the state. The popular campground at the Youghiogheny River Lake near Confluence has been closed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers because of staffing issues, as well as three campgrounds at Raystown Lake in Huntingdon County.

Even before the calendar turned to April, 24% of the campsites across the state’s 124 parks and 20 forests have been reserved for the peak camping season between Memorial Day and Labor Day, the conservation department said. The most popular destinations for the state’s 7,100 campsites are those with lakes, such as Keystone, where boating, fishing and swimming are available.

In the Conservation Department’s region from Erie south to the West Virginia border and from the Ohio line to Somerset, Westmoreland and Indiana counties, state parks have seen a 14% increase in reservations in March 2024 compared to March 2025. The state forests in Western Pennsylvania have seen a 42% increase in campsite reservations March 2024 compared to March 2025, but the raw numbers rose from just 36 to 51.

One of the most popular state parks for camping in Western Pennsylvania is Ohiopyle State Park in southern Fayette County, which gets more than 1 million visitors a year. In March 2024, campers made 440 reservations compared to 719 reservation this March, a 63% increase. Only Pymatuning State Park in Crawford County had more reservations this March, with 847 reservations.

‘I love camping here’

The proximity to Pittsburgh is a big reason that Craig Price, 66, who lives near Stroudsburg along the Delaware River, likes to camp at Keystone State Park, when he visits family in Pittsburgh. The park is only about 3 miles south of Route 22 at New Alexandria.

“I love camping here,” said Price, who has come to the park for the past six years. He said he taught his 9-year-old granddaughter how to fish, ride a bike and kayak.

“It’s a people kind of park,” said Price, a retired registered nurse who has a small camper — a far cry, he said, from his days of camping in the Army.

The increase in people camping and outdoor activities came with a corresponding increase in people buying camping and outdoor gear, said Barnabas Vaughn, a salesman at 3 Rivers Outdoors Co., which sells camping, backpacking and outdoors gear and supplies at its store in Pittsburgh’s Regent Square.

“We saw a massive increase in outdoors activities in general. It was definitely a surge” during covid, as people who had been inside because of the pandemic wanted to get to the outdoors, Vaughn said.

Longtime Keystone State Park campers Mike and Nikki Bachinski of Charleroi, who are serving as campground hosts this month, recalled the boom in camping during covid, when newcomers flocked to the park with their new equipment, unsure of how to set up a campsite.

As society opened up after about a year and a half, Vaughn said they noticed a drop in interest.

“They all quit,” said Nikki Bachinski, who said they have been camping at Keystone for some 45 years, from the time when their sons were growing up.

Roughing it in their recreational vehicle is what Nikki Bachinski jokingly refers to as “glamping” — a sort of glamorous camping — with the all the comforts of home. A recent drive to the campgrounds revealed campfires that were more for fun than for cooking food.

But now, five years after the covid shutdown, the pendulum has swung back.

“It does seem there is an increase in camping, backpacking and kayaking,” Vaughn said.

At the REI store in Pittsburgh’s Southside Works, department manager Evan Bray said the activity around the camping gear and equipment is definitely less than during the days of the covid restrictions, but is busier than it was before the pandemic began in March 2020.

There were those customers who took the opportunity during the covid restrictions to experiment with tent camping, only to find roughing it in the great outdoors was not to their liking, Bray said.

Now, some of the campers are taking advantage of the company’s tents and sleeping bags, Bray said.

“People took what they could get then” to get outdoors, Bray said.

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