CampHawk vs Campsite Tonight

Campsite Tonight watches booked campgrounds and tells you when a site is canceled. So does CampHawk. Rather than tell you what Campsite Tonight does — their site is the honest source for that, and it's right here — this page says exactly what CampHawk does, so you can check it against whatever else you're looking at.

What CampHawk does

• 15 booking systems, not just Recreation.gov

  8,000+ campgrounds across all 50 states, with state-park coverage in 34 of them — ReserveCalifornia, ReserveAmerica, GoingToCamp and 11 other state portals alongside the federal catalog — plus Parks Canada and 7 provincial and territorial park systems. Every source is named at /sources, so you can check the coverage for the parks you actually book before you pay.

• It can also try to put the site in your cart

  On Recreation.gov, the Auto-Cart plan signs into your own account and, at the same moment it alerts you, tries to add the canceled site to your cart. When it wins, you check out from your phone instead of racing a notification. It doesn't win every race, because a popular site can be gone in seconds, so the alert never waits on it. How it works.

• ReserveCalifornia sites are held at the 8am release

  California cancellations mostly don't go back on sale straight away — they are locked until the next morning's release, when everybody refreshes at once. CampHawk spots the site the night before, offers to be there, and carts it within a couple of seconds of it freeing, then hands it to you. Auto-hold is in beta. It has worked on real releases, and it can still miss — set an alarm for the release time and be ready to book it yourself.

• Checks as often as every 15 seconds

  Not a periodic sweep. Watched campgrounds are re-checked continuously, which is what makes carting within seconds possible at all.

• Flexible dates, and per-site muting

  Watch for "any two nights in this window" rather than one fixed range — which, on a popular weekend, is usually the difference between getting something and getting nothing. And if one loop keeps opening and you don't want it, mute that site instead of the whole campground.

• Two plans: alerts, or the carting too

  One plan alerts you; the Auto-Cart plan also tries to put Recreation.gov sites in your cart. You can stop either any time. See the plans.

What to ask before you pick one

These are the questions that actually decide whether a cancellation service works for your trip. Ask them of Campsite Tonight, of us, and of anyone else — and take the answers from each service's own site rather than from a rival's comparison page, this one included.

• Does it cover the booking system your campground actually uses?

  The single most common way one of these tools disappoints someone. A service that only reads Recreation.gov is no use for a California state park, and vice versa. Look up your specific campground before you pay.

• Does it only notify, or can it book?

  On a popular site an alert can be twenty people racing the same checkout. Ask whether the tool does anything after the notification.

• How often does it check, and does it say?

  "Real-time" is not a number. A tool that checks every few minutes and one that checks every few seconds are different products at the same price.

• Can it do flexible dates?

  If you can move a night either way, a service that only takes a fixed range is throwing away most of your chances.

• What happens when there are no cancellations?

  Sometimes there simply aren't any — a popular weekend can go quiet for a week. Ask what you are paying for in that case, and how easily you can stop.

Campsite Tonight is not affiliated with CampHawk, and we don't speak for them. Everything above describes CampHawk; for Campsite Tonight's features and prices, see their site.