Can a Third-Party Website Book a Recreation.gov Campsite for You?
Published October 10, 2026
Short answer: no. As of 2026, no third-party website, app or service is authorized to make a Recreation.gov campsite reservation for you. You still have to book on Recreation.gov itself, through its call center, or in person. Services that offer to book for you for a fee are working outside the rules, and the reservation they get can be cancelled.
That's not how it was supposed to go, though, and the story explains what third-party tools can actually do.
The plan for third-party booking
When the federal government rebid the Recreation.gov contract in 2016 and 2017, open access was part of the pitch. Officials described a system where the contractor would provide reservation data to outside companies at several levels, and outside websites could eventually sell federal campsites, with fees worked out between those sites and the contractor. The idea was that you could find and book a national park or national forest campsite from whichever travel or camping site you already use, much as airlines sell seats through Expedia.
Booz Allen Hamilton won the contract and launched the new Recreation.gov in 2018. Around the same time, a coalition of about 50 organizations called Access Land, started by Hipcamp's founder and backed by groups like REI, the Sierra Club and Code for America, persuaded the government to share live availability for roughly 100,000 federal campsites with outside sites. Hipcamp began showing federal availability and said it was working on direct booking.
What actually happened
The data opened up. The booking didn't. Outside sites can show you which federal campsites are open, but when you click to reserve, they send you to Recreation.gov. Nearly a decade later, there's still no approved program for outside companies to complete a federal campsite reservation.
California went the same way. In 2021 California State Parks shared real-time availability with Hipcamp, and bookings still go through ReserveCalifornia. California's reservation policy says plainly that there are no approved third-party partners for resale, and that any "resale, transfer, use, for profit activity, or memberships that are not approved in advance by California State Parks are strictly prohibited."
What about paid "we'll book it for you" services?
They exist, usually as bots or as someone booking on your behalf with your account or theirs. They're risky:
- Reservations can't be transferred. Recreation.gov doesn't allow transferring a reservation to someone else, and accounts caught reselling or using bots can be banned.
- You may have to hand over your login. Giving a stranger your Recreation.gov or ReserveCalifornia password puts your account and payment details at risk.
- The reservation can be cancelled. California says unapproved for-profit bookings are subject to immediate cancellation without a refund.
- Scrutiny is increasing. California passed a law aimed at campsite "scalpers" in 2023 (see AB 618 explained), and in 2026 a U.S. senator asked the Forest Service to ban bots from Recreation.gov.
What third-party tools can legitimately do
Outside tools are allowed to help you find a site, as long as you book it yourself. That includes:
- Campground directories and maps that show federal and state campgrounds side by side
- Availability search across many campgrounds at once
- Cancellation alerts, which watch a sold-out campground and tell you when a site opens up so you can book it yourself on the official site
Wandering Labs is a cancellation alert service. We never reserve, hold or resell sites, and we never ask for your reservation account login. When a site opens up, we send you a link, and you book it on Recreation.gov or the state's site like any other reservation. Read how campsite cancellation alerts work for the details.
Could third-party booking still happen?
Possibly. Booz Allen's Recreation.gov contract runs through September 30, 2028, and the Forest Service has already started the process of choosing what comes next. A new contract is the most likely moment for booking access, API rules or bot policies to change. See who runs Recreation.gov for more on the contract.