Last Minute Campsite
Camping for people who didn't plan six months ahead.
OUR STORY

The weekend that started this

The kids had been asking when we were going camping again.

We hadn’t gone once all year. Between summer activities, sports, work, and product launches, every weekend seemed to disappear before we could do anything with it.

About three weeks before Labor Day, we realized we could actually squeeze in one last trip before summer was over and everything got crazy again.

So I decided we were going.

There was just one problem: every beach campsite we wanted in Southern California was already booked.

A lit dome tent and a campfire at a hilltop campsite at dusk, with a river valley and orange sky beyond.
The photos are real campgrounds, but they’re not the specific parks shown in the examples.

I thought an alert would solve it.

Except the alert wasn’t enough.

I started using another campsite-alert service and figured I’d wait for something to open.

A site would show up, I’d go look, and it still wasn’t actually available. I couldn’t tell whether someone had it in their cart, whether the hold had expired, whether it had been extended, or when I should check again.

So I sat there refreshing ReserveCalifornia anyway.

And if you’ve ever tried to book a California campsite, you already know the other part of this...

8:00 AM

The alarm. The tabs open. The refresh button. And somehow that is also exactly when somebody schedules a work meeting.

I needed more than “a campsite opened.”

I needed to know what was happening.

Then I started watching one campsite.

San Mateo site 43 at San Onofre came up, but someone had it in their cart.

The hold was supposed to be 10 minutes.

Fifteen minutes passed but it was still locked up. 

So I started digging into why.

I watched the expiration change. I refreshed. I waited. They kept extending the cart hold. Over and over again. 

I watched that campsite go through five different holds. 

By that point, I wasn’t going anywhere.

When the fifth hold finally expired and I got the site, it felt like getting the Christmas present you'd already convinced yourself wasn't happening. 

I couldn’t wait to tell the kids: We’re going camping!!

WHAT SITE 43 DID WHILE I WATCHED
San Mateo site 43
San Onofre
In a cart
Someone else had it
Hold expires
Back in play
Extended again
Ughhhh
Held again
And again
Fifth hold expires
Still watching
GOT IT
Three nights, September 4

Somewhere in there, this stopped being about one campsite.

My husband had just built his first app, and somewhere around hold number four I thought: okay, maybe we can build this better. 

The service I was using wasn't bad. It just stopped one step short of what I actually needed.

I didn't need another alert telling me to go look. I needed to know what was happening when I got there. 

I didn’t want to spend my morning watching a reservation page.

I wanted something that could watch for me, check often enough to matter, tell me when something changed, and show me what was coming up next.

Because most families don’t know where they’re going to be six months from now.

Between practices, games, school events, missing assignments, work trips, and meetings that somehow land at 8:00 AM, six months from now might as well be another lifetime.

Sometimes you realize on Tuesday that next weekend is free.

Sometimes the kids ask if you can go camping and you think, you know what, we actually can.

That shouldn’t automatically mean you missed your chance.

That’s who we’re building this for.

Parents who can't tell you in February what the family calendar will look like in August.
Families who look up on a Tuesday and realize next weekend is actually free.
People who still want to camp even though they did not book it six months ago.

You still book directly with the park.

Last Minute Campsite is meant to do the watching we were doing manually: look for cancellations, keep track of releases and holds, and tell you when there’s actually something worth going after.

We just want to make it a whole lot easier to know when you have a shot.

Because “sold out” doesn’t always mean you’re staying home.

That’s the thing I learned staring at San Mateo site 43.

A booked campground can change.

A cart can expire.

Someone can cancel.

A site can come back tomorrow morning.

And sometimes, three weeks before Labor Day, you can still make the trip happen!

Maybe your next weekend isn’t booked yet.

We’ll watch for openings and let you know when there’s something worth going after.

Start a free Campground Search

Free during the beta. No card.

Our story | Last Minute Campsite