Campsite and permit alerts
Campsite and permit alerts in Parks Manager watch one named Recreation.gov facility for the nights you pick, and send an email when something opens up.
Parks Manager never books and never enters a lottery for you. The email hands you a Recreation.gov link with your dates already selected, and you finish it there.
- 4kinds of watch
- 25active watches per account
- 2 minutesbetween Recreation.gov polls
- 9campsite filter dimensions
What one watch holds
A watch names one Recreation.gov facility, the nights you care about, and — for campgrounds — an optional filter narrowing which sites count. Parks Manager keeps up to 25 active watches per account.
The facility catalog covers all 63 United States national parks. Nights in the past are dropped automatically, so a watch stops polling dates that have already gone by rather than burning requests on them.
| Kind | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Campground | A reservable campground. A site filter can narrow it to particular pads, loops, or equipment types. |
| Permit | Wilderness and activity permits, including lottery apply windows and the quota left over after a draw. |
| Cave tour | Ranger-led tour tickets, which sell out furthest ahead in summer. |
| Timed entry | Dated entry and parking products for the parks that use them. |
Filtering down to sites you would actually take
A campground watch can carry a site filter, and the nine dimensions combine: a site has to satisfy all of them before an email goes out.
The reason is noise. Watching a whole campground unfiltered means being emailed about a walk-in tent site while you are towing a trailer, and after three of those the alerts stop getting read.
- Exact Recreation.gov campsite IDs, when you already know the pad you want
- Equipment the site permits, such as tent, RV, or trailer
- Recreation.gov campsite types, such as TENT ONLY NONELECTRIC or WALK TO
- Loop name
- Minimum party size the site is rated for
- Walk-in and walk-to sites only
- Toilet kind recorded by Recreation.gov: flush, vault, pit, composting, or none
- Accessible sites only
- Maximum vehicle length in feet, capped at 80
How the poller behaves
A Cloudflare cron worker asks Parks Manager to poll about every 2 minutes. Each tick takes an exclusive database lock first, so two overlapping ticks cannot double-fetch the same facility.
One tick reaches at most 10 distinct Recreation.gov facilities, picked by a round-robin cursor that wraps when it reaches the end of the watch table. Everyone watching the same campground shares that single fetch: the nights are combined, fetched once, then filtered back out per watch.
After a hard 429 or 503 from Recreation.gov, all facility fetching pauses for about 5 minutes. Hammering the source is how a poller gets blocked, and a blocked poller is a feature nobody has.
Lotteries and leftover quota
A permit watch covers the lottery apply window as well as the quota left unclaimed after the draw. Parks Manager emails when either appears; the application itself is still yours to submit on Recreation.gov.
Date flexibility is what moves lottery odds, so a watch that lists every night you could travel is worth more than one pinned to a single weekend.
Being awake when inventory first drops
Cancellation watches answer the question after a facility sells out. The other half of the problem is the first release, and that is a separate opt-in on each trip.
The Recreation.gov windows table on a trip offers two emails per row: one a week before the window opens, and one the night before. Recreation.gov usually releases camping at 7:00 AM Mountain Time, so the night-before message is the one that changes the outcome.
What it does not do
Parks Manager stops well short of doing the booking, and that is deliberate.
- It reserves nothing. No site is held, no ticket is bought, and no lottery application is submitted on your behalf.
- The facility catalog is the 63 United States national parks. Parks in Canada, Mexico, and Europe have no equivalent federal booking system to watch.
- Delivery is email only. There is no text message and no push notification.
- Popular cancellations are taken within minutes of appearing, so an alert is a head start rather than a guarantee.
- Recreation.gov waitlist positions are not exposed by the endpoints Parks Manager reads, so a waitlist cannot be watched.
Common questions
How many campsite alerts can I run at once?
Parks Manager allows 25 active alerts per account, shared across campgrounds, permits, cave tours, and timed entry.
How often does Parks Manager check Recreation.gov?
About every 2 minutes. One poll reaches up to 10 distinct facilities on a round-robin cursor, and everyone watching the same campground shares a single fetch of it.
Does Parks Manager book the campsite for me?
No. Parks Manager emails a Recreation.gov link with your dates already selected, and you complete the booking there yourself.
Can an alert ignore sites my RV will not fit in?
Yes. A campground watch can set a maximum vehicle length in feet, require particular equipment types, and name the exact campsite IDs you would accept.
Do permit lottery alerts apply to the lottery for me?
No. A permit watch emails you when a lottery apply window opens and when quota is left over after the draw. Submitting the application stays on Recreation.gov.
All Parks Manager features are indexed in one place.