About CampFromTheCouch

What is CampFromTheCouch?

Good campsites sell out months ahead, and sometimes within minutes of the reservations opening up. (I'm looking at you, Lake O'Hara.) Cancellations happen just as constantly, someone's plans change, a site reopens for a few minutes, then it's gone again. CampFromTheCouch watches the official reservation systems around the clock and pings you the moment a site you want opens up. You still book it yourself, on the real site, same as always. Think of it as the friend who happened to be refreshing the page at exactly the right moment, and never gets tired of it.

How does it work?

Tell us a park and your dates, or search by location, or follow a park for its season go-live. We check the booking systems, politely (more on that below), and when a match shows up we ping you on whatever channel you've set up: Discord, web push, ntfy, or email. We don't book for you, hold sites, or touch your park account. That part is still all you. The full tour is on the How it works page.

Why does this exist?

As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. I kept missing trips, a great site would open up somewhere in the system, and by the time I refreshed the page it was already claimed by someone with faster reflexes or better luck. I needed a better way to catch those openings than staring at a browser tab, so CampFromTheCouch got built in whatever spare time was left over.

What's inside

Site watching. The core of it. Tell us a park and your dates, and we watch the reservation systems around the clock so you don't have to, pinging you the moment a spot opens up.

basecamp. A great hike is better shared, but wrangling a group means juggling everyone's busy schedules, figuring out who's actually in, and keeping fast-changing details straight, all without oversharing plans to people who don't need them or losing track of who agreed to what. basecamp is built for exactly that: planning a trip with friends without either extreme.

Weather. This one started as pure self-interest. I was already checking forecasts for wherever we were headed, and the nerd in me got curious how much those forecasts actually shift from one check to the next, since they never seem to say the same thing twice. Weather turns that curiosity into something everyone gets to watch, not just me.

What do we believe?

• No pay-to-win. Supporting the project never buys priority. Nobody pays to hear about an opening first. Donations only speed up how often your own watches scan, not whose ping arrives sooner. Call it a thank-you, not a fast lane.
• Be a good neighbour. We poll the reservation systems the way you'd want a guest to behave at your campsite: quietly. Shared checks, random jitter, per-site caps, and automatic backoff the moment a site looks like it's struggling. Being polite to the parks' infrastructure isn't optional, it's the whole reason this grows slowly and by invite.
• Free, and staying that way. The free tier is a real tier, not a trial: unlimited alerts on all four channels, no card, no expiry. Donations cover the time this takes, not a paywall you'll eventually hit.
• Your data stays yours. We keep what the features need and nothing more: your email and sign-in, your watches, your friends list, and whatever you save on purpose. None of it is public, none of it is sold, and your plans stay between you and the people you share them with. A location search uses your location once and throws it away. No ad trackers run here, and you can delete your whole account, everything included, anytime. The finer print is on the Privacy page.

Who's behind it?

CampFromTheCouch is one guy, Rob: nearing retirement (and looking forward to a lot more time in the mountains), a couple of adult "kids" of my own, a day job, and a serverless Cloudflare account I wanted to see what I could build with. No team, no office, no roadmap meetings. Just a campsite watcher built in whatever hours are left after the actual camping.

When did this start?

It started in August 2026, after landing a lucky booking at Mount Assiniboine and then finding nothing available for the hike-in night. That gap between "got the good spot" and "can't get there" is what got the whole thing built.

Where does it run?

On Cloudflare's infrastructure, workers and databases humming away right next to the same reservation pages it's watching, just with better manners.

How's it doing?

Just fine, thanks. Hope your next trip goes better than the one that started all this.

Unofficial

CampFromTheCouch is an independent project. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by any park operator or reservation system, we just watch the same public booking pages you would. Park locations © OpenStreetMap contributors. Topographic backdrop © Natural Resources Canada.

Questions or feedback? Check the FAQ. Want to help keep the servers polite and the lights on? There's a support page. Invites are how this grows: ask whoever sent you, or ask me directly.