15 ms·

Recreation.gov

• xur17 7y ago
  Are the maps failing to load for anyone else?
  • dvt 7y ago
    I had to disable Brave Shields (essentially ad block) to see the map. It's probably doing some cross-site stuff.
  • OrgNet 7y ago
    The map doesnt load and it's missing many camping sites in my area
    • bchanudet 7y ago
      I think something is wrong with the map or some sites' coordinates, because some POI are in the Atlantic, west of Europe. Also the Netherlands memorial is located in Belgium, but in the "How to get there" instructions it is said to be east of Maastricht.
• abhiminator 7y ago
  This is fantastic. The search RP displays parks and sites in the increasing order of distance as well as the price from the input zip code, and pulls together places from different government agencies like Fish and Wildlife Service, NPS, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, etc. They also seem to have a nice collection of KB articles under the 'Help' link [0] in the header. [0] https://recreationonestopprod.service-now.com/external https://recreationonestopprod.service-now.com/external
  • oefrha 7y ago
    I can't be the only one who's not a fan of being served close to a megabyte of JavaScript for some support articles (site is useless without JS). To add insult to injury, the landing page has a 2118x1415, 2.6MiB background image.[1] Doing a `-quality 70 -resize 50%` conversion to JPEG results in a mere 176KiB. Although, having experienced service-now.com in other settings, it definitely could be worse. [1] https://recreationonestopprod.service-now.com/83f45a56dbbbab009bf57d0e0f961946.iix https://recreationonestopprod.service-now.com/83f45a56dbbbab...
    • kristopolous 7y ago
      Luckily the movement towards a sanity of legible, functioning websites seems to be picking up steam. Let's just hope it continues.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • fasdjfaslfj 7y ago
      Fixed
• BubRoss 7y ago
  Is this peak hacker news where the titles have regressed into just the base url that's repeated to the right?
  • OnlineGladiator 7y ago
    What do you think would be a better title?
    • BubRoss 7y ago
      "Recreation.gov is a travel site for the USA's national parks with easy access to maps, permits, tours and activities." Really though anything would be better than just linking a site and repeating its URL. That is just lazy clickbait that implies something so special that no description is needed. I'm not sure why this site seems to be infatuated with mystery titles with no description at all.
• 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
  They REALLY need recaptcha on park reservations, or some sort of other automation. I'm 90% sure that botting is the only realistic way to get campsites in some high demand areas (such as lower and upper pines of Yosemite). I'm convinced the only reason there's not MORE scripts around to do it is because their API/web framework is impossibly ugly and not intuitive.
  • par 7y ago
    I had to write a script to be able to find an opening for Yosemite *Pines campgrounds. It was really the only way to find anything without booking months in advance (which all get snapped up immediately anyway.)
  • electriclove 7y ago
    Any good bots or services you would recommend?
  • chrisseaton 7y ago
    Why don't they run a lottery rather than first-come-first-served on a website?
    • fingerlocks 7y ago
      They do for some areas, such as The Enchantments in WA state. But they have limit on how many lottery tickets can be purchased for each sub-area.
    • mceachen 7y ago
      Because that would be fair and reasonable.
      • dx034 7y ago
        Probably because it would increase cost (programming the system, administering it) and they're severely underfunded?
• throwaway5752 7y ago
  Recreation.gov has been around for years and it doesn't seem to have been updated substantially recently. It's a great resource and I hope people use it to visit US wildlife areas, but I am curious why it has been submitted.
  • dogecoinbase 7y ago
    My hypothesis was that a lot of folks (myself included) have started going hiking/etc on Black Friday instead of participating in the commercial aspects of the day? Anyways, I upvoted. Our parks/wilderness are one of the really great things about America.
    • throwaway5752 7y ago
      That is a fantastic idea.
    • lancefisher 7y ago
      I really respect REI for closing their doors on Black Friday. https://www.rei.com/opt-outside https://www.rei.com/opt-outside
    • ilikehurdles 7y ago
      Outside of southern states, a lot of us are well past the hiking/camping season this time of year, except for folks well experienced and equipped for winter recreation or just heading to local city parks.
      • Kihashi 7y ago
        If you're day hiking (and not camping or backpacking), this time of year is still great for hiking even in the northern states. Most people I know that go hiking in the local parks won't stop doing that until a few weeks from now. Further, it's the start of hunting season in a lot of places, which means lots of people are out hiking and camping to hunt.
        • 7y ago
• kylebarron 7y ago
  FYI recreation.gov also has an API: https://ridb.recreation.gov/ https://ridb.recreation.gov/ Edit: the National Park Service also has its own API: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/developer/api-documentation.htm https://www.nps.gov/subjects/developer/api-documentation.htm
  • mbrameld 7y ago
    As far as I can tell it doesn't provide availability information, though.
    • mceoin 7y ago
      there is definitely an availability API. I helped lobby for it! We also implemented it at Hipcamp (If you can't find a signup form on the rec.gov website just contact them directly and ask for access. I think their team was rolling access out slowly as they hadn't finished building a fully fledged login system but last I checked they do want 3rd parties being able to build on top of that data)
      • kylebarron 7y ago
        That's super interesting. I didn't know about that. Any links to it?
        • mceoin 7y ago
          email me and I can send you what I have if you are interested. eoin - at - sfdevlabs.com
    • atwebb 7y ago
      Availability is available :) Booking is not.
      • mceoin 7y ago
        Not yet. It's part of the RFP spec that was written by USDS in the contracting phase. Unfortunately the language is non-binding so it wasn't introduced at Go-live for the new rec.gov site. It's in good faith that a booking piece will come, and much of the details need to be negotiated between govt, Booze, and 3rd parties since it is uncommon (unprecedented?) to have startups accepting payments on behalf of the federal govt (and in effect, on behalf of the treasury). Implementation details, revenue and commission details, etc are all to be worked out; the most important thing is that all parties get a fair shake (i.e. terms for one 3rd party extend to all 3rd parties so it's an open system instead of a closed partnerships-driven system). So far I've been impressed by the open communication of the Booze team and all signs point to their being good faith actors. Note: If anyone has examples of startups accepting payments on behalf of the government please include them here. It helps with research. (Tax filing companies are the ones that come to mind... looking for other examples.)
• rbritton 7y ago
  Not reCAPTCHA, please. It’s horrendous in any environment that blocks any real amount of tracking. Rate limiting would solve the bot issue without inconveniencing regular users.
  • tjohns 7y ago
    Rate limiting would not prevent individuals running their own bots, or a service that uses a different IP for each request.
    • nedwin 7y ago
      Which is exactly what's happening.
  • folkhack 7y ago
    As someone with lots of anti-anti-botting knowledge - both are ineffective. Even if it's a "global rate limit" I'll find out the value (never ran into someone randomizing it) and jump on the web request faster than anyone else RIGHT as it comes up. With CAPTCHAs I'll bypass with a solving service and/or computer vision if it's easy, or even just get past the noCAPTCHA solutions with primed browser instances from credible networks. But don't kid yourself - that would not solve botting at all.
    • carty76ers 7y ago
      > But don't kid yourself - that would not solve botting at all. What would solve it? Or rather, what is the best defensive measure these days?
      • folkhack 7y ago
        At this time - I honestly don't know. Even the reputation-based stuff is laughable and one can hide a Puppeteer instance with good originating networks, and spoofing a ton of details in the browser. Even if that's a no-go you can also automate plain-old-Chromium/Chrome with extensions and run it in a headless session through something like Xpra. I'm experimenting with Firefox solutions as well. All-in-all, I've never been stopped - and that's not me stroking my ego... there's TONS of resources out there for this stuff that are just a DuckDuckGo search away. The biggest thing is if they start aggressively fingerprinting bots, they're going to start blocking user real people. It's all based on a score - and getting a good score is just a matter of a credible proxy, CAPTCHA bypassing services, and making a browser look highly credible. --- For a "real" answer of some value - as a web developer myself, I'd try to make it as expensive as possible for them. Which specifically would be to implement a non-standard CAPTCHA solution and do rate/conversion-limiting per-network. The reason I didn't say this up-front is because it's not a solid solution - it's just increasing the barrier of difficulty and cost for those that are trying to automate around your solution.
• ben174 7y ago
  I worked in the bot defense space for quite some time, and it’s insane how much of the bot efforts were dedicated to getting camping spots. I’m happy to see this being recognized because I had many summers ruined because I couldn’t just get my old favorite camp spot.
  • reagan83 7y ago
    Can you elaborate? This sounds interesting...
    • ben174 7y ago
      I don’t think it was some crazy bot net trying to make money off camping slots. It’s simply a bunch of Silicon Valley nerds that figured out how to automate the booking system for the most desirable camping spots in the bay. But a few of them got greedy I think. Not sure why. One of my coworkers wrote a bot and shared it around the company. Not sure how far that bot spread but I’m sure other people did the same. And by bot I mean a pretty trivial selenium script. The parks really should have had better defenses.
      • lotsofpulp 7y ago
        > The parks really should have had better defenses. Requiring a deposit payment at time of booking is a pretty easy one. Make it non refundable if it continues to be a problem. Increase the price if it still is a problem. If the goal then is to make it fair for everyone regardless of ability to afford it, require a legible scan of ID or passport and restrict each person to reserving 1 spot in the future at a time, and they must be the person stating in the camp site so someone has to verify their ID at the camp site too, otherwise they can now resell that reservation like ticket re-sellers. I don’t see other options of “fairly” distributing something with limited quantities. Trying to do it on the technical side by trying to prevent automated scripts is a losing battle in the long run.
        • mgkimsal 7y ago
          or... limit concurrency. I'm not sure if people were making concurrent reservations, but normal people don't need, say, 4 campsites on the same block of days at 4 different campsites. if this wasn't being abused, it probably will be at some point.
• leggomylibro 7y ago
  The NPS and BLM sites are also good resources for finding information about different areas and activities: https://www.nps.gov/findapark/index.htm https://www.nps.gov/findapark/index.htm https://www.blm.gov/programs/recreation/ https://www.blm.gov/programs/recreation/ As for campsite reservations, peak seasons will always be terribly crowded at major campsites. It's too bad that people are gaming the system, but if you need to rush to get a spot in line, you're probably not going to feel like you're out in the wilderness when you get there anyways. So if you aren't a huge fan of crowds and noise, try going during the off-season (like right now!) Also, consider checking out smaller state forests and parks during the summer months. And many forests and parks allow 'dispersed camping' in certain areas; you can usually find plenty of semi-maintained campsites along roads in those places when the maintained campgrounds are full or closed. And if you go to these areas regularly, an annual parks pass might save you money, even if they usually only get you discounts on federal land: https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/passes.htm https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/passes.htm
  • drsim 7y ago
    Great point. We stayed at a lot of campsites in California a few summers ago and wrestled with the bookings. In the end our favourite spot was a quiet campsite in Lassen Volcanic park.
• a3n 7y ago
  What agency are they under? Couldn't find it on site, just who they partner with. But who are they?
  • xxpor 7y ago
    >This website and the information it contains are provided as a public service by Booz Allen Hamilton under contract to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, and Recreation One Stop participating agencies. https://www.recreation.gov/disclaimers https://www.recreation.gov/disclaimers
  • mceoin 7y ago
    recreation.gov was contracted out to Booze Allen Hamilton via RFP from the National Park Service. Disclosure: I don't work at Booze but did collaborate with them loosely when integrating rec.gov's API[0] into Hipcamp.com The previous contractor was Reserve America. If you're interested in some fun reading on open data advocacy that led to everybody being able to access public parks data via API check out accessland.org [0] https://ridb.recreation.gov/ https://ridb.recreation.gov/
• xxpor 7y ago
  Lol at the copyright notice at the bottom. I notice the app is made by Booz Allen Hamilton. It's a shame we have to farm this stuff out to contractors and not use the USDS or 18F.
  • mceoin 7y ago
    *18F
    • xxpor 7y ago
      facepalm Thanks, fixed.
      • mceoin 7y ago
        All good. And to your original comment. I'd also love to see the government building out solid technical teams for provision of services. I'm also a firm believer that for _some_ government functions, there's a strong argument for "government as a platform". Rec.gov is a great test bed for this; among many reasons it's (mostly) politically impartial, so is less. For at least the online portion of parks reservation, we really want to be offering availability and booking via API, and incentivizing 3rd parties to compete on experience (UI/UX, etc.). It gets tricky because this is newer terrain and areas like "who pays for support costs/requests" is still being hashed out. Note: still important to have the government providing the base layer of functionality. Accessibility is important and capitalism won't solve for every piece of product minutia that government should provide.
  • dannyr 7y ago
    And this likely cost over $10 million. Will not be surprised if it's $100m.
    • xxpor 7y ago
      Found this: Duration of the performance-based contract will be three and a half years, with a total potential value of $128 million. It provides for additional options of up to 10 years. https://gcn.com/Articles/2004/08/09/USDA-awards-contract-for-Recreation-OneStop.aspx?m=1 https://gcn.com/Articles/2004/08/09/USDA-awards-contract-for... Sooooo yeah.
• mceoin 7y ago
  So excited to see this on Hacker News! Brief Shoutout for anyone who would like to see a better online experience for our National Parks System: 1. write into rec.gov asking for a booking API! 2. join accessland.org 3. build apps using Rec.gov's availability API (disclaimer: I'm involved with accessland.org)
  • kpennell 7y ago
    Can you elaborate? You want us to help you build apps or get them to make an API or?
    • mceoin 7y ago
      There is an information and availability API for the federal parks system. The more people build apps that people use, the more examples we have to demonstrate the utility of this API in providing better experience to the public, and reinforcing the "Govt as a platform, via APIs" narrative. The Federal Parks system took the first step in creating an availability API (with an intention to open up bookings via API as well). California then forked the language (with minor revisions), so they are slated to have an Availability API "soon" (who knows when it will actually come). This sets precedent at the federal and state level for parks, and also establishes a data schema that all the other state, county, city, local govt parks can build into, which would allow us to have a fully integrated discovery system for the public when looking for places to get outside. A big part of persuading governments to follow is showing examples of what's possible, and the Rec.gov information & availability API, however limited, enables 3rd parties to do just that.
  • krilly 7y ago
    What with all the talk about bot abuse in this thread, an API may not be a good idea
    • mceoin 7y ago
      currently it's only an information and availability API (can't make a booking). This _does_ make it easier to run a bot, but it also means that rec.gov servers aren't getting hammered by bots either, which is good for them. An advantage of an API is that keys can be revoked for bad actors, so it at least gives some measure of control where there was none before. I tend to agree that the lottery is the way to go for popular sites instead of first-to-book; it's fair and stops older folks from never getting a booking because they don't know how to build a faster bot. There are a few other very effective hacks that I am loathe to publish here, but there _are_ ways to get sites for the determined.
• mortdeus 7y ago
  is this the republicans response to healthcare.gov? Trump: "Obama got a website! I want a website!" Aide: "Okay, okay sir. What did you have in mind?" Trump: "I dont care. Just make it all republicanny and all that stuff. We got an election to win!"
  • pgodzin 7y ago
    This site seems rather non-political, not sure why it needs to be framed as such
  • RandallBrown 7y ago
    Recreation.gov has existed at least since Obama's presidency and probably before then.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• jangid 7y ago
  But why the government have to do it? Isn't it a profitable business in itself?
  • ffe44 7y ago
    IMHO, this type of sites should be developed and owned by the government. It's OK if someone finds a way to monetize this, but the directory itself should be public.
• droidno9 7y ago
  Front and center of any website to outdoor activities should include some education about Leave No Trace (https://lnt.org/ https://lnt.org/). It's an absolutely laudable effort to get more people outdoors. However, people new to the outdoors aren't very cognizant of the kind of footprint they leave behind, not to mention the *holes who intentionally throw trash at public parks like they're in their own backyards. For the former type, educational efforts should be enough to get them to pick up after themselves. For the latter, hopefully seeing more people speaking out about LNT would make them think twice about throwing trash around.
  • almog 7y ago
    And for people who follow the LNT protocol, and perhaps even carry other people trash, the next step I suggest is to destroy bushcrafters' "shelters". They disrupt soil, more often than not made out of live cut trees (and hinder wood decomposing when not) and 9 out of 10 times, will come with beer cans/tp scattered around and it's illegal to 'build' them on public land. If you happen to see one, destroy it, you'll be doing well for the environment. In fact, USFS and NPS often do just that as part of their job. Here is one guy who's work on that field inspires others: https://douchepacker.com/2018/07/09/destroying-buschcrafter-shelters-a-how-to-guide/ https://douchepacker.com/2018/07/09/destroying-buschcrafter-...
    • majos 7y ago
      Not knowing anything about this topic, I’m curious about why this comment is downvoted.
      • Kye 7y ago
        They might be reactive downvotes over the domain name.
        • RandomBacon 7y ago
          Geez, there are threats involving boobie traps and explosives in the comments. Some people... My guess it's downvoted because maybe some readers here are offended that they're being called out. Anything to feel superior I guess.
• bsimpson 7y ago
  It pisses me off when I see "All rights reserved" on a federal government page. The copyright for publicly-funded works should reside with the public, free for use by all.
  • solipsism 7y ago
    The US Government asserts a copyright to its works in other countries. It's only with respect to US federal law that government works are not copyrightable.
  • 205guy 7y ago
    The feds run various websites and create content for various reasons. NASA images are free to reuse with attribution, and lots of astronomy sites do. But you wouldn't want someone making a copycat of the reservation site and scamming people. So it makes sense for the US gov to assert some rights to protect its services--and the people it serves.
• gigatexal 7y ago
  Government websites are improving steadily, this website is top quality.
• sargram01 7y ago
  Has anyone ever been able to make a reservation on that site? Anytime I look at locations they’re either closed, or booked, or you have to plan a half year in advance.
  • droidno9 7y ago
    The popular sites are booked within minutes of opening up. [Thus the complaints about bots.] That said, many of these sites have a limited number of spots reserved for walk-ins. So, have a couple of back up options if you're going to try your luck at a popular site. Sites that don't have electric or water hookups may be easier to get since they're less popular with RVs. And the folks with RVs are experts at campsite reservation. That said, go off the beaten path. Less people make for a more enjoyable experience. Some of my best car camping experiences have been on the side of a forest service road, especially one accessible only with a high clearance 4x4. Sites that are accessible only by foot, even a half a mile in, are usually not that crowded. But you'd have to backpack in everything you'd need for the stay.
• ForFreedom 7y ago
  Why was this submitted here and how did this even get to the top?
• Dowwie 7y ago
  I've used this site many times without any issues, which is all I can ask for from a government funded service. I've even had a good experience resolving a refund. The campground maps are valuable for booking tent camp sites. It helps to know where sites are relative to bathrooms and other common areas.
• shahin841 7y ago
  professional hackers for hire : https://www.hackerslist.co/how-it-works/ https://www.hackerslist.co/how-it-works/
• packetlag 7y ago
  Former SRE for the ground up rebuild of Recreation.gov - I gave a talk at Datastax's Accelerate conference this summer about how we built this site, and briefly covered how we combated bots for a while. Enjoy! https://youtu.be/gGDWkkj-UDg https://youtu.be/gGDWkkj-UDg
  • mylampisawesome 7y ago
    Out of curiosity, is there any reason why this video is shown as unlisted on youtube?
    • packetlag 7y ago
      It was recorded/edited/posted by Datastax, gotta ask them. Though, I should probably download this and repost as myself on youtizzoob.
  • k6hkUZtLUM 7y ago
    Thanks for the link. I appreciate the work and the backend detail.
• dankohn1 7y ago
  Recreation.gov was recently rebuilt and runs on Kubernetes. Details: https://www.wsj.com/articles/seeking-happy-campers-government-offers-revamped-travel-portal-11570742343 https://www.wsj.com/articles/seeking-happy-campers-governmen...
  • collyw 7y ago
    Has that made any difference positive or negative? Or is it new tech for the sake of new tech?
    • zenbob 7y ago
      As someone who used it frequently before and after, it’s not really much better or worse. The primary user impact I’ve noticed is that the ui is more “modern” (ie has more spacing between everything)
      • ativzzz 7y ago
        Ah, must be the new kubernetes.js frontend framework :)
• morganric 7y ago
  which country is this for?
  • Kye 7y ago
    The US government runs .gov and only allows registration by governments inside the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gov
• sealthedeal 7y ago
  So these camp spots, is this just like a general area where RVs can hook up to power? I don’t quite understand why camping spots are so desired that people are writing web scrapers and even selling on a secondary market? Sounds like a whole new world I’ve never heard of.
  • LesZedCB 7y ago
    in joshua tree, for example, there are only two small areas with reservation campsites. the rest are first come first serve. so if you show up for a weekend without a reservation which is extremely difficult to get because joshua tree is very very popular, then you might not find any camping at all, or have to drive around for a long time trawling for an open or soon-to-be-open site.
  • giobox 7y ago
    There are usually different types of spot, from RV with hookups to a simple campfire for a tent. As someone who likes camping, this issue regularly rears its head for me. There are sites that I have only been able to visit twice in four years due to lack of availability for me, despite frequent checks. It's not really all that hard to understand, it appears on the face of it to be supply and demand. There are a lot of people throughout America who love camping and not all that many sites at the popular locations relative to that demand. Has been this way for many years. I imagine the problem is likely particularly acute in places such as the Bay Area given the population density and climate, as well as the more popular National Parks like Yosemite, Yellowstone etc. If you haven't recently visited one of the major NPs at peak season you might be genuinely surprised how many people cram into these places. I've taken recently to just booking whatever I can get - I often don't have much choice but to take what I can find that's actually available.
• miquong 7y ago
  Exactly 6 months from today is last day of US Memorial Day holiday weekend. Lots of camping areas in the US require reservations within 6 months, making the today and the next few months the best days to get a reservation for popular summer US camping areas. Also note, recreation.gov is only for US Federal parks, many state and local parks will their own websites, apps or other systems for making reservations.
• heelix 7y ago
  The launch this year was a bit rough for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) permits here in Minnesota. They limit permits to lakes, and the holiday weekends go fast, so I'm one of those who makes the Labor day plans (etc) in January. Mine worked. Lovely site, knew exactly what I was headed to, and got my permits. Seems others had issues if they had to search around. Entire thing sounds like it shook apart later that morning. They canceled the reservations and did a second 'launch', which was the right thing to do. I don't know of anyone who thought they had booked, canceled, and could not get a permit later. Successfully turned a terrible kickoff into something OK.