Our system continuously monitors campground availability across 256,000+ campsites and notifies you the moment a site matching your criteria becomes available. Free accounts scan every 5–15 minutes (60 seconds during peak cancellation windows). Paid plans scan every 1–2 minutes, with 60-second scans during peak windows. Notifications go out via email, push, in-app, and (on paid plans) SMS within 30 seconds of detection.

Yes. Free accounts get 1 active campground alert with smart scanning (5–15 min normally, 60 seconds during peak windows) and email + push notifications. Premium Supporter ($12.99/month or $129/year) gets 5 alerts, 2-minute scans (60s during peak), SMS notifications (capped at 100/month), and 100 Camp Sage AI messages per month. Power Camper ($19/month or $189/year) gets 12 alerts, sub-60-second peak-window scanning, unlimited SMS, and 500 Camp Sage AI messages per month.

We monitor all campgrounds on Recreation.gov (national parks, national forests, BLM lands, Army Corps of Engineers) plus state park systems including ReserveCalifornia, ReserveAmerica, and many others. We also cover county and regional parks across California, Washington, and Oregon. This includes popular destinations like Yosemite, Joshua Tree, Big Sur, Yellowstone, Zion, Grand Canyon, and thousands more.

It depends on the time of day and your plan. We've learned that most cancellations cluster around predictable times — for example, Recreation.gov processes unpaid reservation cancellations right after the 4 PM ET cutoff each day, releasing a flood of available sites in seconds. Our system scans more frequently during these "drop windows" and conserves resources during quieter periods. Paid plans scan as fast as every 60 seconds during drop windows; free plans scan as fast as every 5 minutes. Notifications go out within 30 seconds of detection. A note on overnight hours: most cancellations happen during waking hours, so we scan less aggressively from 9 PM to 6 AM Pacific. If a site drops at 3 AM, you'll still get the notification — just within ~15–30 minutes rather than seconds. Most users would be asleep anyway.

Yes. Most campgrounds (Recreation.gov, ReserveCalifornia, ReserveAmerica, and most county/state parks) get the smart-polling cadence above — fast during peak cancellation windows, slower overnight. A small group of campgrounds run on reservation systems that take substantially longer per check than typical providers. Rather than burn through alert costs running these every two minutes, we check them on a slower fixed cadence: roughly every 4 hours on Power Camper, every 8 hours on Premium Supporter, and once a day on Free. This currently affects San Mateo County Parks (including Memorial Park), Sonoma County Parks, Idaho State Parks, and Alabama State Parks; Yellowstone gets a milder slowdown (every 2–6 hours). When you set up an alert for one of these campgrounds, the alert wizard tells you the actual cadence you'll get before you commit. Most cancellations at these parks are still caught within the cadence window — they're just not as last-minute as Recreation.gov alerts.

No, we don't book campsites for you. When we detect availability, we send you an alert with a direct link to the official reservation site (Recreation.gov or the park's booking system). You complete the booking yourself - no middleman, no extra fees, no markup.

Outdoorithm lets you start free, then upgrade only if you want faster scans and higher limits. We monitor 256,000+ campsites and offer SMS, email, push, and in-app notifications while keeping you on the official booking system.

Set up alerts early and be flexible with your dates (weekdays have more cancellations). Be ready to book immediately when you receive a notification - have your Recreation.gov account logged in and payment info saved. Most cancellations happen 1-2 weeks before the reservation date. Setting alerts for multiple campgrounds increases your chances.

You can set alerts for entire campgrounds or filter by specific criteria like site type (tent, RV, cabin), amenities, or loop. This lets you target exactly the kind of campsite you're looking for rather than getting notifications for sites that don't meet your needs.

Recreation.gov reservations typically open at 7:00 AM Pacific Time (10:00 AM Eastern), 6 months in advance on a rolling basis. ReserveCalifornia reservations open at 8:00 AM Pacific Time, also 6 months in advance. Use our free booking window calculator to find the exact release date for your target campground and set alerts for both new releases and cancellations.

Yes, using campsite availability alerts is completely legal. We simply monitor publicly available information on Recreation.gov and state park booking systems, then notify you when availability changes. You still book directly through the official reservation sites using your own account. We don't bypass any systems or make bookings on your behalf.