What we collect
- Your email address — it’s how you sign in (one-tap email link or Google — never a password) and where alerts go.
- Your watches — the campgrounds, permits, wilderness zones, and dates you ask us to monitor.
- Your mobile number, only if you choose to give it — it’s optional everywhere we ask (the sign-in box, the trip planner, and account settings), and leaving it blank changes nothing about your account. We use it for text alerts only, and only if you also check the separate consent box. See text messaging below.
- Alert outcomes, if you tap them — the optional “I got it / Missed it” links in alert emails, so we can tell whether this thing actually works.
- Waitlist signups — just the email you enter.
- Site analytics — we count page views and clicks with Umami, a cookieless analytics tool. It uses your IP address to estimate your country and city, sets no cookies, doesn’t follow you to other sites, and isn’t tied to your account.
That’s the list. No ad pixels, no cross-site tracking, no device location.
What we do with it
Two things: watch the campsites and permits you asked about and notify you, and now and then email you about your membership (a price change, a renewal, Founding spots running out). Alert emails and membership emails are separate, and every membership email has a one-click opt-out that never touches your alerts.
Emails go out via Resend; texts (once they launch) via Twilio; payments are handled by Lemon Squeezy, our merchant of record, so we never see your card number; analytics run on Umami; data lives in Supabase (Postgres) and the site runs on Vercel and Fly.io. Those providers process data on our behalf and nothing more.
What we never do
- Sell, rent, or share your information with anyone for marketing.
- Email you beyond alerts you asked for, service notes, and the occasional membership note. Membership emails carry their own one-click opt-out, and opting out never stops your alerts.
- Text you without your express consent — and STOP always works.
Text messaging and your mobile data
No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes.
All of the categories described above exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties.
Your phone number and your text-message consent are used for one purpose only: sending you the campsite, permit, and trip-condition alerts you asked for.
We share your number with our messaging provider (Twilio) solely to deliver those messages, and with no one else. We do not use it for marketing, we do not sell it, and we do not disclose it to advertisers, data brokers, or affiliates.
A mobile number is optional, and so is consent. You never need either to sign up, buy a plan, or use Campsite Ranger. We ask in three places: the sign-in box, the trip planner, and account settings. Each has its own text-alert consent box, unchecked until you check it, and it can’t be checked without a number. A number saved without that box checked is never texted.
When you do check it, we record the date, time, and exact wording you agreed to. If you type a number into the sign-in box, it waits in your browser on that device until you open the sign-in link, then moves to your account.
Text alerts haven’t launched yet; they’re waiting on carrier registration. Until then every alert goes by email, and if you’ve consented, texts start once the program is live.
You can withdraw consent at any time by replying STOP to any message, by unchecking the box or removing your number in account settings, by switching your notification setting back to email, or by emailing us. Full program details are in the SMS terms.
Your choices
Remove your watches anytime on your dashboard. To delete your account and everything tied to it, email chris@campsiteranger.com and it’s done — usually same day.
Not affiliated with the government
Campsite Ranger LLC is independent. We are not affiliated with, or endorsed by, Recreation.gov, the National Park Service, or any government agency.
Reservation data comes from Recreation.gov’s public systems; conditions data from public NPS, wildfire (WFIGS), air-quality (AirNow), and weather (NWS) feeds.
Questions? This policy is written by a person, not a law firm — if anything is unclear, email chris@campsiteranger.com and you’ll get a straight answer.