CampFinderFrequently Asked Questions
Short answers about how CampFinder works. Anything missing: contact us.
How often do you check?
Every 30 minutes, around the clock. That catches most cancellations, but at the few campgrounds that refill within seconds an opening can come and go between two checks, so CampFinder can miss the race there.
Will I definitely get the site?
No. An alert means a night was available when we checked; someone else may book it before you do. To improve your odds: keep your Recreation.gov or state park account logged in on your phone, turn on email notifications so the alert reaches you right away, act within minutes, and watch a wide date window so you get more chances.
How many campgrounds can I watch?
Up to 100 active watches per account, free. There is no paid tier and no per-watch fee; for comparison, Recreation.gov's own availability alerts stop at 3 campgrounds. The cap of 100 is purely an abuse guard, so if you genuinely need more, email hello@campfinder.site and we will lift it.
Is it really free?
Yes. CampFinder is a solo side project with no subscription, no fees, and no ads inside alerts. It costs one server and some email, which the developer pays for.
Do you sell my email?
Never. Your address is used only for sign-in links and the alerts you asked for. It is not sold, not shared, and not added to any marketing list. Every alert has a one-click unsubscribe link. Details in the privacy policy.
Do you book the site for me?
No, and we never will. Automated booking bots are what make campsites unfair: they grab cancellations before any person can, and the US BOTS Act exists because of exactly that behavior in ticketing. CampFinder only tells you when a night has opened; you book it yourself on the official site, like everyone else.
Which reservation systems are covered?
Recreation.gov, the US state and county systems on the UseDirect platform, and the GoingToCamp systems, which include Washington State and many Canadian systems. The full current list is on the coverage page.
Do you cover Alberta, Saskatchewan, or Quebec?
Not yet. In Canada, CampFinder covers BC Parks, Ontario Parks, and Parks Canada, plus Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. Alberta Parks and Saskatchewan both book through ReserveAmerica, on their own older booking sites, so they are not covered yet. Quebec's Sépaq is a deliberate exception, for the reason in the next answer. The coverage page has the live list.
Why isn't Quebec's Sépaq covered?
Their terms of use rule it out. Sépaq prohibits using a robot or any other automated device to monitor or copy pages of their site, and their booking pages are built to admit only real web browsers. There is no public API and no availability feed to use instead, so there is no way to watch a Sépaq campground that respects both their terms and their site. Sépaq's authorization or a data feed would change that, and Quebec goes live the day we have either. Until then we would rather name the gap than quietly work around it. The coverage page lists every system we do watch.
Do you cover ReserveAmerica or Yellowstone?
Yellowstone, yes: the five campgrounds run by Xanterra inside the park (Bridge Bay, Canyon, Fishing Bridge RV Park, Grant Village, and Madison) are watched like any other campground, and alerts link to the Yellowstone National Park Lodges booking page. ReserveAmerica, not yet. It is the big gap and the next system up: it runs the state parks that Recreation.gov and UseDirect do not, including New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Oregon and about twenty more. Support for it is written and tested, and it is not switched on yet because ReserveAmerica refuses connections from data centres, which makes every check far more expensive to run than on any other system we watch. Alabama and Maricopa County are listed as limited because their hosts currently reject our checks. Coverage changes are posted on the coverage page as they go live, so a system marked coming or limited is not something to rely on today.
What do Available, Open, and NYR mean?
On Recreation.gov, Available means you can book the night right now. Open means first-come-first-served, so it cannot be reserved online. NYR means Not Yet Released: the booking window has not opened. CampFinder only alerts on Available nights. More in our guide to Recreation.gov statuses.
What is the weekend openings email?
An optional daily digest for a handful of famous, chronically sold-out campgrounds, grouped by destination (Yosemite, Yellowstone and Grand Teton, Zion and the Grand Canyon, Glacier, the Pacific Northwest, Big Sur and Joshua Tree, Acadia and the Smokies). Every morning we check which of them have a Friday or Saturday night bookable over the next eight weekends and email subscribers only when a night has opened since the last email. It is a heads-up, not a race: for a specific weekend, set a watch and we check every 30 minutes instead. See weekend openings.
How do I stop alerts?
Click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any alert to pause that watch, or sign in and delete the watch. Weekend digests have their own unsubscribe link, and you can toggle lists on the homepage. To delete your whole account, email hello@campfinder.site.