Table of Contents

1. rgov - Recreation.gov Campground Checker
   1. Installation
   2. Quick Start
   3. Commands
      1. Search
      2. Check
      3. Daemon
      4. Reindex
   4. Todo

rgov - Recreation.gov Campground Checker

rgov is a command line program to check for campground availability on Recreation.gov. While other recreation.gov scrapers exist, this one aims to also provide a simple search command for quickly finding the campsite ids that are necessary for checking campgrounds. It also includes a daemon to check for availability automatically.

It is becoming increasingly more difficult to find campsites on Recreation.gov, so if you use this tool, please use it with discretion!

Installation

Requires: Python 3.6+

With pip:

$ pip install rgov

Quick Start

First, find your campgrounds id (usually a six-digit number):

$ rgov search <campground>

You can also find the id in the url of the campgound's page on Recreation.gov.

To check if there are available sites (separate multiple ids with spaces):

$ rgov check <campground id(s)> --date <mm-dd-yyyy> --length <number of nights>

If there aren't, you can run automated checks. Start the daemon with your preferred method of notification (either a notification program or your own shell command):

$ rgov daemon <campground id(s)> --date <...> --length <...> --command <your command>

This will check every five minutes.

Commands

Search

Search for campground ids for user with the check and daemon commands:

$ rgov search <search term(s)>

Once you get the id, you can use that to check for availability.

If the index has been built with descriptions (see the reindex command), you can search in the campground descriptions like this:

$ rgov search <search term(s)> --descriptions

Check

The check command quickly searches campgrouns for availability and prints which sites are available, if any.

$ rgov check <campground id(s)> -date <mm-dd-yyyy> -length <nights>

1. Options

   --date[-d]	The date to check (mm-dd-yyyy)
   --length[-l]	The number of days you'll be staying
   --url[-u]	Show the url of campground

Daemon

Similiar to the check command, the daemon command starts a daemon that checks for availability every five minutes in the background. The method of notification is up to you, and can either be a notification program or custom shell command.

$ rgov daemon <campground id(s)> --date <mm-dd-yyyy> --length <nights> --notifier <notification program> --command <shell command>

1. Options

   --date[-d]	The date to check (mm-dd-yyyy)
   --length[-l]	The number of days you'll be staying
   --notifier[-n]	Specify a notification program to use (e.g. herbe)
   --command[-c]	The shell command to run if site(s) are found

Reindex

This only needs to be run if you wish to search for campgrounds by description, which is useful for finding campground by city, region, or park name. It will download the facility data from recreation.gov, and build the index from that.

You can add the descriptions to the search index like this:

$ rgov reindex --with-descriptions

For any reason, you can remove the descriptions with:

$ rgov reindex

Todo

[ ] Add additional ways for notifications to be sent (e.g. phone/email)

[ ] Write more testing