How to Get Alerts for Canceled Campsites at Florida Parks

Some of us who live in more northern areas are starting to pack up our camping gear for the season. I think this is a bit of a mistake, as fall camping is great, but that’s another story. I also recognize that those who live in, or are heading to, Florida are actively looking for campsites. This article is for all of you.

Popular parks like Anastasia, John Pennekamp Coral Reef, Bahia Honda, Curry Hammock, and Gulf Islands National Seashore get booked incredibly quickly. If you weren’t able to reserve a spot on opening morning, don’t sweat it! There will be lots of cancellations for those campsites. Here’s how you can get alerted to newly canceled reservations:

Get campsite availability alerts for national parks in Florida

We’ve been scanning parks for cancellations for years and can monitor most parks on recreation.gov for cancellations.

To use Campnab to monitor a park for cancellations, visit our homepage and enter the name of the park you wish to monitor:

Select the campground (or campgrounds) you’re interested in visiting:

Scan for all openings or set filters for the types of campsites that suit you:

Set your preferred arrival date:

Expand your date range if you’re flexible:

Set your minimum stay length:

Enter your phone number:

We’ll send you an access code, which gets you into our system:

Select whether you want a plan or a pay-per-use scan:

Choose a scan tier:

Enter your payment information and hit Subscribe:

Once you have, you’ll be alerted to new openings (via text message) whenever we spot an opening that matches your criteria. You can manage your Campnab scans from the Scans panel in your dashboard.

There aren’t a whole lot of national parks in the state of Florida. That said, here are some shortcuts to set up scans at a few popular national parks in Florida:

• Scan Gulf Islands National Seashore for cancellations
• Scan Lake Okeechobee for cancellations
• Scan Big Cypress National Reserve for cancellations
• Scan Lake Seminole for cancellations

Ringtones remind you to act fast!

Newly canceled campsites on recreation.gov tend to get rebooked pretty quickly. As such, you’ll want to move quickly when you are alerted to a new opening. Here’s how you can create a custom ringtone that reminds you to act fast:

How to set a custom ringtone on Android devices

• Select the conversation from us (1-877-626-0108)
• Tap the menu icon (three dots) in the top right
• Tap Details
• Tap Notifications
• Tap Sound
• Select a tone
• Tap the back arrow, Save, or OK

How to set a custom ringtone on iOS devices

• Select the conversation from us (1-877-626-0108)
• Tap the arrow (beside the phone number) to expand options
• Tap info
• Tap info button
• Tap Create new contact
• (Optional) Type “Campnab Alerts” in the Company field
• Scroll to Text Tone and tap
• Select the Alert Tone you like
• Tap Done (top-right corner)
• Tap Done again

Get notifications for canceled campsites in Florida State Parks

Florida State Parks’ campsites are reserved through the state’s booking platform. Just visit the booking site, enter your preferred park, arrival date, and preferences—and search for availabilities. If a campsite is open, book it.

If no sites are available, you can use our dedicated campsite cancellation monitoring service. With Campnab, you can monitor state and national parks in the United States—as well as many parks in Canada. Just sign up once and create all of your campsite scans in one convenient location.

Campnab allows you to create new scans easily from one panel, duplicate past scans with a click, and specify the exact campgrounds you’re interested in (if that’s your thing). With Campnab you can monitor longer date ranges, check for backcountry availabilities, and get alerts via text message. Plus, if you have questions or something goes wrong one of us is ready to lend a hand. (Our members seem to like this.)

Here’s a video that explains how to set up a scan on Campnab:

Following are some shortcuts to set up your scans at a few notable state parks in Florida. Given how many popular state parks Florida has, this list is a bit longer:

• Scan Bahia Honda State Park for cancellations
• Scan Anastasia State Park for cancellations
• Scan Curry Hammock State Park for cancellations
• Scan John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park for cancellations
• Scan Grayton Beach State Park for cancellations
• Scan Topsail Hill Preserve State Park for cancellations
• Scan Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area for cancellations
• Scan Henderson Beach State Park for cancellations
• Scan Fort Clinch State Park for cancellations
• Scan Jonathan Dickinson State Park for cancellations

Some canceled state park campsites in Florida get locked for future release

Florida State Parks holds some sites for release at set times. They let the others go throughout the day. So, we notify members of sites set to release immediately—as well as those locked for future release. Here’s a video that explains how unlock alerts work:

If you’re unsure as to whether you should act quickly, just check the start of the text message. Alerts that begin with the words “Hurry” or “Yay” are available immediately. Alerts that start with the words “Heads up” are set to release in the future.

Here’s the important part: We report the time that the booking system indicates they’ll release a locked site. That said, they sometimes release these early/late. So, it’s good to pull up that page up to 30 minutes in advance and keep an eye on it—and watch it for a while past the scheduled release time.

Here’s a link to a lengthy article I wrote about unlock alerts: Find More Canceled Campsite Availabilities with the Help of Unlock Alerts.

How extreme events impact campsite alerts

Extreme weather events wreak significant damage on parks. Parks in Florida often get hit hard by these disasters, which can impact the alerts you’ll receive for newly available campsites. I’ll explain.

In the event of a forest fire or flood, you might see a flurry of alerts for parks you can’t actually stay at. This is because alerts lack fidelity. Scans check when campsites switch from Unavailable to Available. They don’t see issues (like storms) that might cause broad cancelations. Alerts at times like these are largely useless, and sometimes seem in poor taste. These are unavoidable, though.

Similarly, after such events, parks might shut affected campgrounds or campsites down. They might even close the park entirely. If you have a scan running on one of these parks, you probably won’t receive any alerts at all—or, you might receive alerts for campsites that appear open but can’t be booked.

We try to update our monitoring so that affected parks aren’t listed as parks available for cancellation scanning. However, this information often isn’t reflected in booking systems, so, we don’t always catch these closures. For this reason, it’s good to confirm that a park is operating when creating a new scan.

To delve deeper into this topic, you can read my previous articles: How disasters and policies impact notifications and How storm closures affect campsite availability scanning.

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So, that covers a few different ways you can monitor parks in Florida for cancelations. Got additional questions on how to get alerts for newly canceled campsites? Send us an email, or click the Chat button (speech bubble) to the right of your screen, and we’ll lend a hand. 👋

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