Let’s Talk About Camping Bots

April 28, 2021

Let’s talk about campsite booking bots. There’s growing concern that such bots are snapping up all the campsite reservations before regular people can. This idea is relatable: who hasn’t been shocked to see campgrounds sold out, within seconds of opening for reservations?

Although this fear over campground booking bots is widespread, it doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. In this video, I’ll look at what many think bots are, and why such a possibility isn’t a significant concern. With that out of the way, we’ll examine what the more likely issue is—and how we might remedy it, together. 🤙

​Introduction

Hi—

I’m Eric from Campnab.

This video will be different from the ones I normally put out. It’s a bit more of an opinion piece. I’m likely to meander a little bit.

And I’m going to be looking down at my notes—because I don’t want to miss anything.

​What prompted this discussion

This all starts from this message [pictured in video]. It seemed kind of mean. It didn’t make me feel very good.

I did end up engaging with this person, and we actually had a pretty good back-and-forth. And by the end he apologized for misunderstanding what we do, and for lashing out as he did. But really, his comment isn’t uncommon.

​Bot-related fears are widespread

There’s a lot of fear out there that bots are stealing all of the campsite reservations and making it impossible for people like you and me to get these spots.

This isn’t the case, but it does get headlines. Because, it’s kind of exciting, right? Additionally, it kind of gives people a clear answer.

You try to book and everything is gone in a second, and you go: “like, how could this happen? Something is working against me.”

I’m here to assure you that it’s not.

But I’m also going to talk about why campsite booking is so difficult these days.

​What people think a bot does

So, first, let’s talk about what people think a bot does. The common idea is that a computer is set up, and on opening morning it logs in faster than a human.

It grabs all of the spots, and then allows the owner of this bot to sell all of these spots for wild amounts of money. Yeah, I get why people think this could happen.

​Campnab only looks for campsite cancelations

Now, before I go any further, I want to specify what Campnab does. Campnab scans parks after the opening date. That’s really when it becomes useful.

It goes and looks for spots that have been canceled, and then lets people know that they’ve been canceled.

We don’t book spots, reserve them, hold them, hoard them, resell them. We will not resell your spot for you.

All we do is identify availabilities. You can do this yourself. It’s a really complicated process. You go to the park’s website, and you hit Refresh. And then you hit Refresh again. And then you do it again. And again. And again.

That’s effectively what our system does. It doesn’t do it like that, but—you don’t need us. You can do it on your own.

The reason I want to say this, is that I want to avoid that confusion of what we’re doing, before I go into this whole spiel.

​Could someone build a campsite booking bot?

Is it possible for someone to build a bot that would find an availability and grab it immediately? Yeah. It’s possible.

We haven’t seen much evidence of it. There was this one Kijiji ad recently, which sounded alarm bells all over. That someone had created this “camping bot” that was going to get spots for people. And it was all announced via a Kijiji ad.

That was the first thing that struck me as odd. It didn’t say it would find you any spot. They just listed a set of specific spots that this bot had found, and you could buy them at a premium.

And it was all delivered on a Wix website. I don’t know many developers who would build a platform on top of a Wix website builder.

And if they have this bot, why wouldn’t they let you pick the day you wanted to go—and grab those spots? None of it really added up.

​Why we doubt most bot theories

I’m going to tell you why I’m so dubious about one company going and holding on to all of these campsites.

​You need a unique user ID

First, is that in order to book a campsite, you need a unique user ID. If you suddenly went and purchased up 300,000 campsite reservations… I think the park would probably know you were doing it. I don’t know… it’s crazy… but, I think they’d get on top of that one.

​Captchas are in place

Next up: there are captchas in place of purchasing any campsite reservation. That kind of combination of a unique user account and a captcha… It’s pretty much going to block out any nefarious group from going and hoarding all of these campsites for resale.

​Most times you can’t transfer a reservation

Next up: Transferring of campsite bookings. More than half of the parks will not allow you to transfer a booking.

So, if you purchase under a user name and then try to transfer it to someone else. You probably will not be able to.

In some areas you certainly can, but, this is something that’s getting squeezed out, it seems, from most booking systems.

​Booking so many campsites would be costly

My fourth one comes down to money. Campsites aren’t exactly cheap to reserve right now. I know when I go book, I’m like: “Wow—I could stay at a hotel sometimes, for the same price.“

Well, not quite… and not a great hotel… But, you get what I’m saying.

For some entity to go out and book up thousands of campsites and hold them for resale? I guess it could happen, but that doesn’t seem that probable to me.

​Where are these campsite resellers?

Now, my next one is that, I don’t know where to find that group. Sure, there’s the Kijiji ad… But, where are all these campsites being resold? I don’t know where they are. And I’ve gone looking for them.

Let’s just think about this: There’s some group that goes and books all the campsite reservations.

They get past the captcha; past the parks watching for this sort of thing. They hoard up hundreds-of-thousands of campsites. And then they put them for sale somewhere that none of us can find. Sure. Yeah. That holds up. Sure. Right.

​People keep on canceling

Now my final one, is if all of these campsites are being held like this, for profit. Why does a product like Campnab see thousands of cancelations every day? It just doesn’t hold up.

If someone’s grabbing them all for profit, they’re not going to dump them for free. I think you can agree with me, none of this really adds up.

​The real problem with camping shortages

I’ll tell you what’s more probable: A lot of people want to go camping and there are only so many campsites.

Keep in mind, when people say, “It was different 30 years ago.” The world population was smaller than it is right now.

More people want to get out. More people want to go camping. Throw in a pandemic. And, yeah, there’s a shortage of supply.

I think it was really evident, in Parks Canada opening up for bookings, last week. They instituted a queue system, just to try to book your spot. When I went in, I was roughly number 35,000. Lots of people wanted those campsites.

​Booking of “unreservable” dates reduces supply

Now, there are added complications in certain areas. Let’s take Ontario, for example.

In Ontario, you can book 5 months in advance. So, today is April the 23rd. I could go in, first thing in the morning, and book a spot for September the 23rd.

I couldn’t go book a spot for September the 25th. But I could book a multi-day stay, starting on September the 23rd, which would go out for a full 23 days.

And then what I could do is wait one month, and after that one month, I would be able to go in and cancel any of the dates I didn’t want.

A lot of people are grabbing a 23 day block of otherwise unbookable dates—and dropping the ones they don’t want.

When you go and look at what’s going to open up for the next day, you see that the full supply of campsites isn’t actually available. It’s only the ones where someone hasn’t pushed a multi-day stay.

When you go in opening morning and try to book something… you’re not getting the full supply. You might be limited to only 5 campsites, in an entire park.

​This is a human problem

So, if you have 30,000 people hit the website that morning—and there are only five spots available—they’re going to be gone in less than a second.

That doesn’t require technology. That is brute force, human beings’ camping desire unleashed.

And if you think it’s bad in Ontario, or anywhere in Canada, or in Michigan… You have nothing on California and Florida. It is far more competitive. And if you can get a spot, you’re doing very well.

​Everyone wants to blame the parks

What a lot of people tell me is, it’s all the parks’ fault. “They have the crappiest booking system.” “They don’t care about their residents.” “They have their heads up their butts.” (I hear this stuff all the time.)

No matter where you’re from, you’re going to tell me why your park’s system sucks.

And the reality of this: a campsite reservation system… it’s a hard thing to build. It’s a hard thing to manage. When you look under the hood, you go: “Wow—there’s a lot more going on here than I expected.”

There are accounting systems, point-of-sale systems, load management. There are just a ton of different things that a lot of us don’t see.

What about backcountry permits? Group sites? Picnic areas? All of these have different kinds of requirements. It adds a lot of complication for the park.

They’re all just trying to do their best, to get you out camping.

Before you go crap on your parks board, and the people who are involved in that… Think about this practically. A lot of people want to go camping. These folks are just doing their job. Lay off a little bit, right?

Sorry. I don’t mean to sound like I’m telling you what to do. I’m just… talking.

​Policy changes can help address overbooking

Things that can be done to minimize some of these issues:

Not allowing people to transfer their campsite reservations. That helped a lot in B.C., where I am. Folks simply can’t transfer a campsite reservation. So, that removes part of the problem.

Another policy that sometimes works is to not allow people to change their arrival date. This again can stop people from grabbing a big block of dates and then just taking the ones they want.

Let me be clear: If your jurisdiction currently allows these things and they take those things away (which are there for a reason). They are actually adding those in to help you. It’s just that some people are abusing a policy that’s supposed to help them.

If this all gets taken away tomorrow, you are not suddenly going to see more campsite availabilities. And that’s because the areas that already have these things locked out are still competitive.

The other thing: We are in the middle of a pandemic. We’re all tense, and we want to get outside. This is a really good time to breath in, and relax a little bit. Because it’s supposed to be fun.

​Other ways to book a campsite

Try creating a scan with Campnab, if you’d like. We see a lot of availabilities open up.

But you don’t have to use us, either. I drove across the country, with my family. We were staying in beautiful parks, making same-day reservations, just by calling the park and seeing what was available.

We never had a problem finding a campsite. We didn’t always get the best spot, but we certainly were able to camp.

You can camp in the shoulder season, drive a little bit further, go mid-week. All of these increase your chances of camping. There are all kinds of options.

You can check Facebook cancelation groups. Sometimes these can be transferred, at others, campers will just say: “Listen, I’m letting this one go, if you want it, come and grab it right now.” And then people can attempt to book.

You can always go to a private campground. You can also consider staying on crown land or BLM land. If you do, remember to please leave no trace—but I know you would anyways. I just feel like I’ve got to say that.

​Anger won’t fix anything

Let me wrap up with this: If you want to be mad, sure, be mad. There’s no shortage of things to be mad about. We think that’s just foolish.

We need to hear birds chirp, and smell that fresh air. All of us want that. Even those people booking who are going and grabbing that full 23 day block.

I’ve talked to those people. A lot of them are elderly people, who have a family tradition of going to the same park every year. And they just want to see their family.

If you want to be upset about someone like that wanting to uphold a family tradition… You can be, but, I think it’s silly.

​How to fix the problems

So, you want to fix this system? I am going to tell you how we can do that. We create more supply.

The first way you create more supply is if you can’t use your reservation, you cancel it.

If you’re grabbing that spot, that’s cool. But if you’re grabbing it and you’re not even going to use it… Awww… screw you, man.

Because there are lots of people who want to go use that spot. So, just cancel it. It’s no big deal. And you’ll even get some money back, most times.

When you do, that’s karma. That’s you looking out for your fellow camper, and hopefully they’ll do the same for you, the next time.

The second one, though. I want you to find the donation page on your provincial, state, or national park’s website. And I want you to send them some money.

Because, I tell you, the people I’ve met who work in parks—they’re often strapped by budgetary limitations.

And if we say parks are important, then we can put our money where are mouths are. And fund their ongoing development. So that we can get out there, and enjoy nature.

Wrap up

If you’ve got questions, please put them in the comments section on YouTube.

I only have one vantage point into this space. So, I don’t have all the answers. But, if I can answer, I certainly will help.

For more tips, ideas, all of that stuff, visit our YouTube page hit the Subscribe button.

That’s it for me, Eric K., over-and-out. Thank you!