Campsite cancellation alerts, explained

We watch the official Parks Canada and BC Parks reservation systems around the clock. The moment a sold-out campsite frees up — almost always from a cancellation — we email or text you the campground, the dates, and a direct link to book. You grab it yourself on the official site. spotsnap never books for you; it just makes sure you're the first to know.

No. spotsnap only sends you an alert — you complete the booking yourself on the park's official website, exactly like any other camper. We never reserve, hold, or hoard sites, and we never use bots to book. We just tell you the moment a spot opens.

Plans change constantly — people overbook "just in case," weather turns, trips fall through. When someone cancels, their site drops back into the public pool, often for only a few minutes before someone else snaps it up. Most campers never see these openings because they come and go so fast. spotsnap watches for them so you don't have to refresh the booking page all day.

Yes. "Sold out" almost never means "no one will cancel." Popular campgrounds like Banff's Two Jack Lakeside or Tunnel Mountain see cancellations every day, especially in the weeks before arrival. The hard part is being there in the brief window when a spot reopens — which is exactly what spotsnap automates.

spotsnap monitors Parks Canada (reservation.pc.gc.ca) and BC Parks (camping.bcparks.ca) — hundreds of campgrounds between them. You can search any park on either system right from the new-watch form. Support for more provincial systems is on the roadmap.

Yes — all front-country Parks Canada campgrounds, including Banff (Two Jack Lakeside, Tunnel Mountain), Jasper (Wapiti, Whistlers), Lake Louise, Yoho, Kootenay (Redstreak) and Waterton, plus BC Parks like Kikomun Creek and Golden Ears.

Not yet. Those run on different reservation systems (Alberta uses Aspira; Ontario and Québec's SÉPAQ have their own). spotsnap currently focuses on Parks Canada and BC Parks, where we can monitor reliably. More systems are planned.

Yes — and it's free on every plan. You can watch a whole park, a single facility (like the Surveyors loop), or tap an exact site on the map. Many alert services charge extra for site-level targeting; spotsnap includes it for everyone.

Stack the deck: watch a flexible date window instead of one fixed night, include mid-week nights (far more cancellations than summer weekends), keep your minimum stay short, and watch a few campgrounds at once. And when an alert lands, act within seconds.

Fast — popular sites are often re-booked within a couple of minutes. Keep the booking site handy; our alert links you straight to the campground's map with your dates pre-filled so you can complete it quickly.

Two sweet spots: right at a park's cancellation-policy deadline, when people drop sites to avoid fees, and in the final days before arrival as plans firm up. The closer to the date, the more churn — so it's worth keeping a watch running right up to your trip.

It depends on your plan: every 10 minutes on Free, every 5 on Camper, and every 2 minutes on Explorer. Faster checks mean you hear about an opening sooner — which matters when sites reopen for only minutes.

Yes — the Free plan includes one active watch with email alerts, forever. Paid plans (Camper and Explorer) add more watches, SMS alerts, flexible date windows, whole-area watches, and faster checks.

Free is $0. Camper is $7/month and Explorer is $15/month when billed annually (or $9 and $19 billed monthly). See the pricing section on our homepage for the full comparison.

Yes, on the Camper and Explorer plans. The Free plan sends email alerts. A text is hard to miss when a spot opens, which is why it's part of the paid plans.

Instead of one campground, an area watch covers a whole destination — say, all the campgrounds around Banff — in a single watch. It's an Explorer feature, great when you'll camp anywhere in a region and just want the first opening.

Yes. spotsnap only reads the same public availability you'd see on the official booking site and tells you when something opens. We don't book, resell, or hold reservations, and we don't sell your data. Payments, when you upgrade, are handled by Stripe.

No. spotsnap is an independent service and isn't affiliated with, endorsed by, or partnered with Parks Canada or BC Parks. We simply monitor their public reservation systems.

No. spotsnap doesn't automate or bot the booking process — it only notifies you, and you book manually through the official site under your own account, like everyone else. We deliberately don't replicate the booking flow or try to gain an unfair edge.

No. We check politely and at sensible intervals — far less load than a single person hammering refresh on the booking page all afternoon.

By email on every plan, and by text on paid plans. Each alert names the campground (and the specific site when available), the dates, and links you straight to the booking map so you can grab it.

No. When lots of openings appear at once, we roll them into a single clean summary — "we found 12 matching openings, here are the soonest" — and we cap how often any one watch can fire. You get the signal, not a flood.

Cancellations depend on other people changing plans, so there are no guarantees — and we won't pretend otherwise. You can improve your chances by watching flexible dates and a few campgrounds, and by keeping the watch running closer to your trip, when cancellations peak.

Anytime, from your dashboard. Pausing a watch frees up the slot so you can point it at a different trip, and you can delete watches whenever you like.