You Can Find An Open Campsite This Summer In BC & Alberta So Easily Now
This summer, everyone and their dog is going camping. There were so many people who wanted to snag a provincial campsite this year that booking sites were pushed to the limit point. Now, there's a free website that will help you find open campsites in B.C. and Alberta and it's made life in the great outdoors so much easier.
Adam Marciniak is an assistant instructor at BCIT but he loves to build websites and projects on the side.
When his friends started working on a website that showed you when travel restrictions were lifted in countries around the world, he thought he could do the same thing but for campsites.
Camp Alert makes planning your summer so much easier because you don't have to keep refreshing the provincial sites waiting for a spot to open.
"People don't always want to be checking the site every day," said Marciniak to Narcity. "With the new restrictions on campsites, restrictions on parks people want to be updated when they're open."
Pick which province you want to camp in, then sign up with your email. You just add basic info like when and where you want to go camping.
"The website shows you... the availabilities of the campsite that you chose," said Marciniak.
"Then, once a spot opens up because someone cancels or restrictions changed, then the website will email you within two minutes of it going free."
Then you can go book through the official provincial site, but you already have a heads up that the spot you want is free.
It makes snagging one of the highly coveted campgrounds so much easier this summer.
Right now, the site will let you know when spots open up in provincial campgrounds in B.C. and Alberta, but Marciniak hopes to keep adding to it.
"There are a few extra features that I'm slowly putting into it, for example, right now it doesn't search for national parks because they're on a whole different booking system, so that's in the works and then I'll probably expand it to parks in the U.S."
For anyone who didn't get the campsite of their dreams this summer, hope is not lost.
Marciniak said that originally, the website was just going to be for him and some friends.
"But now it's, why not just share it with more people, so everyone can have that advantage?" he said.