![Eric Karjaluoto](/img/karj.jpg)
Eric Karjaluoto
I’m one of the two people working on Campnab. I like to run, ski, bike, and camp with my family and friends. (I love saunas.)
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When we started Campnab in 2017, each scan could monitor one date for cancellations. Almost immediately, members reached out noting that they had a bit of wiggle room on their arrival dates. They asked if we could add a day or two to each scan just to improve their odds of being alerted to a campsite availability.
We try to keep Campnab intuitive and free of too many buttons, options, and do-dads. So, our take on flexible dates was to introduce a simple toggle. Just flip the switch and add your scan will monitor the 2 days before and 2 days after your preferred arrival date. Easy peasy, right?
For many, this worked out pretty well. With one click they could scan the better part of a week. For summer travelers and full-timers, this was AOK. For weekend campers like me, it wasn’t optimal. I wanted alerts for Thursday – Saturday, but wasn’t interested in Sunday or Monday.
I fiddled with the date selector a lot and tried some different options. Most of these just didn’t work that well across all devices, though. Also, each of these approaches necessitated adding instructions, which made the process less intuitive.
So, we ditched the toggle and the “days before and after” approach in favor of a simple dropdown menu. If you’re set on the day you wish to arrive, leave the dropdown untouched at “Specific Day” and it’ll only monitor that one day for campsite cancellations.
Got a little flexibility in your arrival schedule? Add a day or two, from the dropdown and Campnab will alert you to openings on your preferred date and the ones you added.
Those looking to scan longer windows will now be able to add up monitoring for up to 6 additional days to any scan. This means that with the Awesome tier on Campnab, you can monitor a stretch of up to 49 days at any given time.
If you already have a scan running with Flexible Dates turned on, your previous arrival window selection will remain intact. Should you wish to add or remove days from your scan window, visit your scans panel and click Edit on the scan you wish to change. Then scroll down to the arrival date area and adjust your scan range as you’d like.
I hope this little addition gives you a bit more control over your scans and helps you get the spot you’re after. 🙂
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