About CampgroundsDB
I'm Nicolas Sartor, and I built CampgroundsDB after too many trips where "campground" turned out to mean something different from what I expected: a paved RV loop with hookups, or a first-come dirt pullout with a fire ring and no water. The listing rarely said which, or how to actually get a site. So I built the thing I wanted to exist: one page per campground that says plainly what's there and how you book it, if you can at all.
The problem
Picking a public campground should take five minutes. Finding out what one actually has usually takes an evening:
- Every agency books differently. Forest Service and BLM sites may be on recreation.gov, state parks use their own reservation system, and plenty of campgrounds are first-come only, with no single place that tells you which is which.
- The basics are scattered or missing. Site counts, hookups, water, showers, RV length limits, and the season end up on different pages, in PDFs, or nowhere at all.
- Review and listing sites contradict each other and the agency, often with hookups, fees, or reservation rules that changed years ago.
- The practical questions go unanswered: where's the nearest grocery store, fuel, or propane, and how far is the nearest emergency room from a campground an hour down a dirt road?
CampgroundsDB does that legwork once: it checks each campground against the agency that runs it, sides with the agency when sources disagree, leaves a fact blank rather than guess, and puts the nearby supplies and emergency care on the same page.
What you get here
- 2,280 public campgrounds so far, across Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Arizona, with more states coming.
- Per campground: who manages it, how to get a site (reservation system or first-come), fees, site counts, hookups, water, toilets, showers, RV length limits, and the season.
- A map on every page, and the lake, national forest, or state park the campground sits in or next to, linked to its own page.
- For every town: the campgrounds nearest to it, things to do nearby, and where to find groceries, fuel, propane, a pharmacy, and the nearest emergency room.
Where the data comes from
Campground facts come from the agencies that run them: the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, state park systems, and recreation.gov. Town supplies come from OpenStreetMap, and emergency rooms from the federal hospital registry (CMS). Every section cites its sources and the date each was checked. When no source says something, the page leaves it blank rather than guessing.
Who's behind this
It's just me working on this on the side, no team and no editorial board: one person reading agency records and writing down what they say. CampgroundsDB is one of a group of sites I write and maintain under the Wild Atlas Media network, all built on the same idea: take the federal and state data that's already public, put it in one place, and make it easy to use.
Sister sites: Public Lands DB for who manages the land and its camping rules, closures, and fire restrictions, Fishypedia for fish stocking reports and lake-by-lake fishing, and ReservoirFinder for reservoir water levels against full pool. Boat ramps and swimming holes are next.
Tell me what's missing or wrong
If a campground near you isn't accurate, one is missing, or there's a feature you wish this had, I want to hear it. Email nicolas.sartor@wildatlasmedia.com.