recreation.gov
Maybe it's just me, but the recreation.gov website is a bust. When I use Safari, the bottom "banner" crawls with vertical movement of the page, so some of the information on the page is blocked by the...
Forum Discussion
Active Networks subsidiary Reserve America again won the umbrella contract for Recreation.gov. That is for the web site hosting and computer services. I've been able to see the 'campground' side of the system - it is Active Networks software nothing like what we see on Recreation.gov.
The individual agencies award their contracts for campground reservation on different schedules. National Park Service, US Forest Service, US Army Corps of Engineers are all different contracts, though if they choose to leave Reserve America, their new provider would be required to provide interfaces to work with both the Recreation.gov user reserving system, and the Active Networks campground software. A difficult and expensive thing to do.
Individual contracts is why the US Forest Service charges a $9 reservation fee, while NPS and USACOE do not. Different contracts pay different amounts per reservation/ change/ phone call to the provider - Reserve America.
The Recreation.gov web site operator does not provide any data about campsites, details, pictures, etc. They do not own any of that data.
Individual agencies and regions have hired many contractors responsible for providing information about different campgrounds/ campsites. Some agencies/ regions/ campgrounds choose to use their own employees or volunteers to do such things as campsite descriptions/ photographs. Some hire contractors.
That part of the system is not standardized.
Plus, once an agency has new information, getting Recreation.gov updated is another somewhat complicated/ picky process. I've been told that updating one campsite photo requires a completely new set of campground photos. I offered to update photos of campsites at a NPS campground where I hosted, and was told it was too much work for them to bother even if I provided the photos for free.
The individual agencies award their contracts for campground reservation on different schedules. National Park Service, US Forest Service, US Army Corps of Engineers are all different contracts, though if they choose to leave Reserve America, their new provider would be required to provide interfaces to work with both the Recreation.gov user reserving system, and the Active Networks campground software. A difficult and expensive thing to do.
Individual contracts is why the US Forest Service charges a $9 reservation fee, while NPS and USACOE do not. Different contracts pay different amounts per reservation/ change/ phone call to the provider - Reserve America.
The Recreation.gov web site operator does not provide any data about campsites, details, pictures, etc. They do not own any of that data.
Individual agencies and regions have hired many contractors responsible for providing information about different campgrounds/ campsites. Some agencies/ regions/ campgrounds choose to use their own employees or volunteers to do such things as campsite descriptions/ photographs. Some hire contractors.
That part of the system is not standardized.
Plus, once an agency has new information, getting Recreation.gov updated is another somewhat complicated/ picky process. I've been told that updating one campsite photo requires a completely new set of campground photos. I offered to update photos of campsites at a NPS campground where I hosted, and was told it was too much work for them to bother even if I provided the photos for free.
