Campsite Availability Notifications: Pro Tips to Make the Most of Your Campsite Tracker

Many campers know about campsite notifications and use Campnab to help them find newly canceled campsites and permits at sold-out parks. This is awesome! We’ve been working on campsite alerts for nearly 6 years. It’s nice to see more campers find campsites through this method.

There is a gap, though, and that’s what I want to talk about today. Signing up for a campsite alerts service is only the first step. The way you set up your alerts can make the difference between receiving few (or no) alerts and getting the spot you were after. Every day I help campers optimize their scans so they can get more alerts. Following are the tips I share with them. Make these changes to your scans too, and you’re bound to receive a lot more alerts for newly available campsites.

TL;DR

Are you in a rush without much time to read? Here’s a summary of how you can get more campsite alerts, in point form. If you want more detail, just scroll down and you can find a full explanation relating to each of these recommendations.

How to get more campsite alerts

1. Sign up for a membership
2. Use all of your scan slots
3. Select more campgrounds
4. Scan all campsites
5. Apply filters sparingly
6. Use only one type of filter
7. Turn on Flexible Dates
8. Set a shorter minimum stay
9. Start your scan early
10. Scan a little closer to your arrival date
11. Create new scans when your current ones expire
12. Consider upgrading to a higher-frequency scan tier
13. Respond accordingly to unlock and real-time alerts
14. Know your regular alerts from your unlock alerts
15. Set a custom ringtone

As I skim the above list, I realize that I’ve hit you with a whole lot of points. Let me go into each of those in detail. Some of these tweaks may apply to your scan, whereas others might not.

Sign up for a membership

Pay-per-use scans allow you to pay once and monitor a specific park and date for openings. These scans are great if you camp infrequently (let’s say once or twice a year) as they’ll keep running right up to your arrival date and produce alerts whenever an opening matches your criteria.

If you camp seasonally, though, a monthly membership allows you to run more scans. Sure, this only really helps if you camp more than once a season. If you do, though, the ability to run multiple scans for different dates and parks will help you spot more availabilities. (You can learn more about the difference between pay-per-use scans and memberships in this video.)

Use all of your scan slots

Each membership allows for a set number of scan slots. Each of these represents a scan for a park and date (or date range) you can run at the same time. On the Good Plan, you get 3 scan slots. The Better Plan offers 5 scan slots. Our Awesome tier opens up 7 slots. (We have tiers with more scan slots, but these are overkill for most campers.)

Here’s the thing about scan slots: If you don’t use them, they can’t offer any value. For this reason, we recommend that you make sure these scan slots are always working for you. 💡 Pro-tip: Set up multiple scans for the same weekend at different parks. That way you can reserve a campsite somewhere, even if your first pick doesn’t work out.

Select more campgrounds

I appreciate that you might prefer some campgrounds within a park over others. Nevertheless, at busier times of the year, it helps to expand the number of possible matches in your campsite search. Besides, some campgrounds are small (like 5 or 6 campsites). Limiting your search just puts the odds against you.

You can scan up to 6 campgrounds in a park, per scan. So, select as many of these as possible to help widen your net. Sure, some campgrounds won’t work. For example, if you have an RV you probably won’t want to camp in a tent-only campground.

If it’s a big weekend, though, being open to the possibility does open up some additional options. Besides, you could park your big rig for the weekend and try something a little more primitive. 😉 (Personally, I’d rather get to camp in a pretty good campground than not get to camp in an awesome campground.)

Select all campsites

Filtering is a helpful feature (more about campsite alert filtering in this video) on Campnab. One of the options we provide is site-specific filtering, which allows you to identify the exact campsites you’re interested in—and only get alerted to openings at those. This is a useful way to root out campsites that don’t suit your needs.

The problem with filters is that they can work a little too well. I sometimes see campers set such specific filters that they filter out a lot of otherwise workable campsites. For example, scanning just one campsite in a park has a low probability of working out for you.

For this reason, I encourage you to set up most of your scans to monitor all sites. That way you have a chance of getting something. Once you have a campsite booked, you can keep scanning for any better openings that might come up. (If you do book something better, be sure to cancel your previous reservation so another camper can use it.)

Apply filters sparingly

Attribute filtering allows you to specify the type of site, length of site, and amenities you prefer. (These vary from one park to the next, depending on the underlying booking system.) So, let’s say you need hookups for a 30' rig. Setting a filter with those parameters will filter out any openings that don’t match that spot.

The challenge with attribute filtering is that folks tend to get a bit carried away with it. Almost every time I hear about someone missing alerts, it’s because they got overzealous with filters. So, go a little easy on filters. For most RVers I recommend only setting the vehicle length filter as that will prevent missing out on any workable sites that they’ll fit in. Tent campers can typically camp in almost any kind of campsite.

Use only one type of filter

As I just noted, Campnab offers both site-specific filtering and attribute filtering. You can use either of these with your Campnab membership. Sometimes folks use both site-specific filtering and attribute-based filtering. I don’t recommend using both at the same time.

Setting both types of filters is redundant and can inadvertently block certain alerts from coming through. So, I generally suggest using attribute-based filtering on its own. If your heart is set on a specific set of sites, use that instead. But, it’s generally a good idea to avoid using both at the same time.

Turn on Flexible Dates

Are you flexible about when you camp? Then Flexible Dates is perfect for you! This feature adds scanning for the two days before your preferred arrival date, and the two days after, which can surface a lot of additional campsite cancellations.

To turn on Flexible Dates, click/tap the toggle under the date picker. Sure, you might not be able to camp on all of the dates that this change alerts you to. It is kind of nice to see how many more alerts you can get by doing so, though. (This video explains how flexible dates work.)

Set a shorter minimum stay

One of the more problematic scan setup areas relates to your minimum number of nights. I get it—you’d rather camp for 7 days than 2, but scanning for campsite cancellations is all about probability. The shorter you set your minimum number of nights, the more alerts you can expect to receive.

I should also stress that setting a shorter minimum stay will still notify you of longer openings. There’s no change on that front; however, by reducing your minimum you’ll also be alerted to some shorter openings. Those with RVs sometimes make this work by moving between a couple of different spots within the same park, to put together a longer stay.

Start your scan early

Sometimes I see folks start scanning a campground on the same day they wish to arrive. Let me clarify: Someone will start a scan on May 4th for an opening on May 4th. Yikes! That’s just not a lot of time to spot cancellations. Worse yet, some parks hold same-day cancellations for those who’re already on site.

For this reason, we encourage you to scan at least a day in advance—but generally more than that. This is because the more time you have to scan, the higher the probability that you’ll see alerts. Plus, if you miss out on one you can just keep scanning and wait for the next one to surface.

Scan a little closer to your arrival date

This next suggestion might seem to contradict the previous one, but it isn’t meant to. Although cancellations can happen at any time, we tend to see more of them as the arrival date nears. As such, if you don’t receive many alerts 6 months out, don’t be too surprised.

I often encourage folks to hold off a little before starting their scans. I can’t say when someone else will cancel their reservation. However, common sense suggests that camping plans will change most as the arrival date nears—meaning you’re likely to spot the most availabilities at that time.

Create new scans when your current ones expire

Remember when I mentioned that you should keep your scan slots working for you? This also applies as your scans expire or you’ve successfully booked a campsite for that park and date. If you no longer need a scan you can pause it from your Dashboard. This moves the scan into your Paused scans section.

With this scan no longer operating, you can create a new one in its place. This can be for an entirely different park and date, or, you can just copy your previous scan’s parameters (including attributes filters and/or specific sites) and shift it to another date range. This video shows you how to duplicate a scan.

Consider upgrading to a higher-frequency scan tier

For a lot of folks, the Good ($10/month) and Better ($20/month) tiers are more than enough. These scan at 15 and 10-minute intervals respectively and are perfect for most areas. That said, some parks are more competitive than others, meaning that sites might get rebooked before you get to them.

If you’re clicking through on alerts immediately, and finding that spots are already rebooked, it might be worth bumping up to a higher scan tier. This might just give you that little edge you need to get to the opening first. Also note that you can shift your plan tier up or down as your needs change.

Respond accordingly to regular and unlock alerts

Campnab sends both regular alerts and unlock alerts. Regular alerts are for campsites that are immediately available. These alerts start with the words “Hurry!” or “Yay!” and you need to act on these as quickly as possible. (Check my custom ringtone suggestion later in this article.)

Unlock alerts are for sites scheduled for future release. These are pretty common on Reserve California and Florida State Parks. These alerts start with the words “Heads up!”. With this type of alert, you need to go to the park’s booking site at the time noted. (Actual release time varies a bit, which I’ll talk about in an upcoming article.)

Set a custom ringtone

My last suggestion is about how you assign a custom ringtone to our number. This can stand out from other messages and remind you to act quickly. Here’s a step-by-step walkthrough of what’s involved:

How to set a custom ringtone for your campsite alerts on Android devices

1. Select the conversation from us (1-877-626-0108)
2. Tap the menu icon (three dots) in the top right
3. Tap Details
4. Tap Notifications
5. Tap Sound
6. Select a tone
7. Tap the back arrow, Save, or OK

How to set a custom ringtone for your campsite alerts on iOS devices

1. Select the conversation from us (1-877-626-0108)
2. Tap the arrow (beside the phone number) to expand options
3. Tap Info
4. Tap the info button
5. Tap Create new contact
6. (Optional) Type “Campnab Alerts” in the Company field
7. Scroll to Text Tone and tap
8. Select the Alert Tone you like
9. Tap Done (top-right corner)
10. Tap Done again

Now any new messages from Campnab will play the ringtone you selected, and let you know that you need to act fast!

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I hope these tips give you some new ideas for how to get the most from your campsite cancellation tracker—and help you book the campsites you’re after. If you’re ready to make some changes to your scans, visit your Scans panel and click Edit on any of the ones you’d like to modify. Please note that pay-per-use scans can be edited until you receive your first alert. On a plan, you can edit your scans at any time.

Additional resources

Following are some related articles and videos that you might find useful. Feel free to review them as they’ll help you get more value out of your Campnab membership. Got questions? Hit me up with an email and I’ll personally answer your questions. 🙂

• Find More Canceled Campsite Availabilities with the Help of Unlock Alerts
• 10 Tips for Setting up a Camp Alert that Gets You a Campsite Reservation
• How to Make a Last-Minute Campsite Reservation
• How to Get a Campsite When All the Parks Are Booked
• A list of Campnab alternatives

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