FAQ

Q: How and when did Recreation.gov get started?

A: The initial concept of Recreation.gov emerged from the desire of several agencies to provide a centralized reservation service for the public to discover and experience federal recreation destinations.

In 1995, following a nationwide outdoor recreation study, the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers defined plans to provide one source for visitors to find and reserve campsites. They determined that the government did not have the capacity nor the expertise to build and manage a reservation system and turned to private industry through a competitive bid process to develop and deliver this valuable service.

Today, Recreation.gov has 14 participating federal agencies and is managed under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) by the Recreation One Stop (R1S) Program, an interagency group of federal agency experts, with oversight by recreation leadership from the core agencies that offer reservations on Recreation.gov.

Q: Are all agencies or facilities required to use Recreation.gov?

A: All the agencies and facilities that use Recreation.gov are voluntary participants. There is no federal mandate requiring that agencies use Recreation.gov and all participating agencies have chosen to be part of the program. Agencies rely on the platform’s flexibility to accommodate and enforce complex and unique requirements necessary to welcome visitors and support federal land management. Individual locations often choose Recreation.gov for the tools and solutions provided for visitation management, staffing and resourcing, securing financial transactions, and/or the opportunity to deliver facility cost savings and fair access through an online service.

A: Accounts are required for most reservations as they serve as the unique identifier to enforce length of stay and number of active reservation policies set by the agencies. Requiring an account is also an important safety precaution for receiving critical reservation related updates and closure information. Recreation.gov collects only the information necessary for these communications and protects visitor account information. Recreation.gov does not share account or reservation information including personal information, credit card, or financial information with other organizations, except as required by law.

Visit the Help Center article How Do I Create an Account? for more details.

A: A booking window tells you when certain dates will be available to make a reservation. The booking window is essentially the number of days, weeks, or months prior to the first reservable date that you can make a reservation for that location. Booking windows are determined by each individual facility, and different types of facilities and activities have different booking windows. You can find information about the booking window for a specific location under the Seasons & Booking tab on the facility page.

Visit the Help Center article "Booking Window" FAQ for more details.

A: The participating agencies set all policies for campgrounds, sites, permits, and activities featured on the Recreation.gov platform. The individual facilities that choose to use Recreation.gov set their own booking windows and update content, fees, reservation details, and business rules based on agency guidelines and their own local needs.

Visit the Rules and Reservation Policies for more details about fees and other reservation-related information.

A: There are a number of technical approaches the Recreation.gov team employs to support scaling for system infrastructure and manage the flow of traffic, especially when significant competition exists for a given location or experience. The team routinely scales resources up and down in response to planned, or unplanned, surges in activity.

During a particularly high-demand on-sale, the visitor may encounter a “spinner” or a message that the system is processing their request. This happens as back-end processes work to ensure users are accessing inventory in a systematic way such that access is given to all users, and to mitigate server load to provide a better user experience and prevent stress on the system during high-volume on-sales. Page layouts and the order of elements on each page are also intentionally designed and optimized to improve load speeds, a critical factor for those on-the-go or without high-speed internet.

Visit these Help Center articles Tips for Making Campsite Reservations at Popular Locations or How Do I Prepare and What Can I Expect for Popular On-sales on Recreation.gov? for more details

A: The Recreation.gov platform does experience attempted bot activity; it is impossible not to given ever-evolving technology and advancements in AI. However, Recreation.gov has multiple defenses in place to detect, prevent, and mitigate the variety of bots that attempt to take advantage of the system. The primary targets of bot mitigation efforts are large-scale bot attacks on the stability of the site or bots seeking to capture multiple reservations. There is no evidence or examples of widespread abuse by bots across the platform impacting system stability, bots securing dozens of reservations, or bots securing reservations before they are released. While there are some individual reservations where basic user-written programs or more sophisticated bots may be helping a visitor secure a single reservation, this is not happening at a large scale and we are continually assessing and implementing new countermeasures and defenses to mitigate these bots when they are detected. Recreation.gov, and the program's technology partner Booz Allen Hamilton, strive to implement industry-leading solutions and best practices for preventing bot activity while aiming to strike a balance between providing a frictionless user experience and deploying security measures to ensure access to all users.

Visit this Help Center article Are Bots Reserving all the Popular Locations? for more details.

A: All fees through Recreation.gov are managed by the participating agencies, and the majority of all funds collected through Recreation.gov go back to the agencies and facilities. Recreation.gov relies on fees collected through the service to fund the program, rather than Congressional appropriations.

Visit the Help Center article Rules and Reservation Policies page for more details about fees and other reservation-related information.

A: There are several ways to stay up to date with the latest information and updates from Recreation.gov. You can follow Recreation.gov on both Instagram andFacebook as well as sign up for travel planning ideas, helpful tips, and the latest information from Recreation.gov via email at Recreation.gov/subscribe.

A: Recreation.gov is managed by a fully dedicated government team and staffed with resources from the participating agencies. A team of product, development, and customer engagement experts from Booz Allen Hamilton (“the Contractor”), a leading technology and digital solutions provider for the federal government, are also contracted to assist with building and maintaining the highly complex and high-quality recreation management and reservation service.

A: From the beginning, the federal agencies recognized the need to bring in technical and operational expertise to build and maintain a commercial-grade online service and turned to the private sector for support. For more than 25 years, the government has worked with a series of technical solution providers to deliver this valuable service, and, in all cases, vendors were selected using full and open competition (41 U.S.C.§3301) to ensure the best and brightest technical solutions were considered.

A: The Contractor is subject to quality and performance controls under the contract and the agreement between the government and the Contractor is purposefully designed to incentivize high-quality delivery and program growth through a continuous review process to determine and award ongoing support for Recreation.gov.

A: This public-private partnership drives innovation, collaboration, and solutions to field and visitor management challenges. The system has continued to scale to meet increasing demand and is continuously expanding the portfolio of inventory and services in response to feedback.

A: The Contractor used its own investment at the start of the contract period to design and develop a platform that met the Government's specifications. The Contractor does not receive compensation outside of the fixed line-item pricing established in the contract.

No money collected for reservations through Recreation.gov goes directly to the Contractor. All fees collected through the platform are sent to the U.S. Treasury. The Contractor submits invoices based on the fixed line-item pricing established in the contract, and payment is made by the R1S Program Office to the Contractor pursuant to the contract to cover operating costs, manage ongoing operations, and reinvest in new technology and solutions for the platform.