Grow your campground reservations with these partnerships
Whether you specialize in RV bookings or you mostly host camping, glamping, and cabin-based travelers, today’s most popular way to find campgrounds and RV parks like yours are through mobile Apps, or at least, by searching on your phone. Easy to use while driving on the road (passengers of course, not drivers), and simple to navigate, these are the 4 best apps to market your campground that we found, and are critical to keeping your business booking reservations and helping the new and returning customers find you to book their next stay.
The biggest key for success working with these apps, of course, is making sure your website information is up to date, and your Google listings and reviews check out. The more mobile-friendly your site is, the better, and the more information that you have regarding your amenities, especially things like wifi, hookups, and other key recreation activities, the better. These are the features that your new customers are looking for, along with price and availability of course, and what could determine that they either choose or pass on your campground while using these features.
In general, here is the rule of thumb when thinking about where you want to put your listing to market your RV Park/Campground and what things you want to make sure both are featured on the site, and match your website, reviews, and listings:
Most of these apps were designed for Campers, by campers. So, that means, you need to be thinking like a Camper would when you are putting together your listing.
Campers/RVers are going to be searching by a few major features, so again, make sure that these things are updated, tagged, and easily findable on your site so that your guests can find them too.
Location
It’s important to check your address on your site and make sure this information matches Google and Bing listings so that they can correctly identify you.
Hookups
Make sure your site and your booking platform have this clearly listed and are easily available and searchable for people. This is typically the second most important search criteria after location for campers.
Price
Let’s be honest. This matters. Guests care whether they are staying 1 night or long-term, so make sure this is easy to find. Do you offer discounts or club memberships for frequent guests? Make sure that this is easy to find on your site as well.
Recreation
Most important for families and adventure seekers, your guests will want to know
Discounts/Club Membership
Are you part of a larger franchise group like a KOA, or do you offer Good Sam discounts? Make sure that this is listed here, and look into other apps that might have specialty search features like this too (listed in footnotes under Specialty Apps).
Availability
If you are using a mobile app to market your campground, make sure it either complements or is in replacement for a booking app that you use. You don’t want to be booking members through these sites (like HipCamp, which uses their own booking system) and then double booking them on your site (some other apps just link to your own site, so you won’t have to worry about this in this case).
Still, need more help? We are happy to help market your campground and get you the tools that you need to give the best experience for everyone that stays with you, whether through these apps or through your native site.
Either way, we at MarTrek Digital have done the research so you don’t have to! Check out these top 4 campground marketing apps below.
1. Campendium
As a frequent camper/RV Park site locator myself, this is my personal favorite. Claiming that over 800,000 active RVers use Campendium to discover 32,000 campsites across the US, this is definitely the crowd you want to be part of. In the Apple Store, it is showing 11k ratings, with an average of 4.8/5 stars. Their Roadpass site for partnerships quotes that Campendium is “The largest database of RV campground locations in the US, Canada, and Baja Mexico. Providing millions of travelers with updated listings and the most reliable source of free and private campground ratings and reviews. “There is a free account and a Pro Account for travelers, and even a “RoadPass Pro” Membership which also includes 3 additional RV Apps – Roadtrippers, Togo RV, and RVillage, which is great for the regular or full-time RV Family (more on this package here). The Roadpass can also include a single sign-in to Overnight RV Parking, so 5 log-ins in total including Campendium, which is a world of 1,000 log-ins and passwords, this I pretty handy. I will say, so far I have gotten by with the free version myself, as just a vacation RVer, and it has been more than acceptable.
Check first to see if your campground or RV site is already listed. You can do this easily, by selecting the type of campground that you are, like an RV Park, or State Park, and drilling through either by state or on their handy map feature. You can also just use the search box feature on the top left, and type in your city and state or name of your campground.
If you don’t see it after your first search, try again maybe under a different naming convention. This is the first red flag that you might need to do some updating on your site so that you do appear automatically. However, there is a fix for this. They have a form that you can fill out to submit your campground if it is not already listed. You can find that here.
If you find your listing, make sure everything is correct. They also have a form for you to submit if you notice anything that is incorrect. But, again, make sure that this isnt because there are things on your site that are not up to date. You can submit this to info@campendium.com
You can advertise with them! If you think this might be a good opportunity to advertise your campground so that others can find you quickly and easily right on this app, you can reach out to them at advertise@campendium.com
2. HipCamp
Called “the Air BnB of camping apps”, it is what it sounds like – a “hip” app for campers and RVers alike to find their dream camping destinations. Available on android and apple devices, with over 12,000 ratings averaging 4.8/5 stars in the Apple Store, this app has a big crowd of users. Unlike Allstays, this is a little wider reach for the customer base, especially allowing non-iPhone users to download.
Why should you be interested in HipCamp? Do you have a campground or RV park that is particularly unique? Are you catering to the glamping clientele of your dreams? This would be the perfect app to ensure you are listed for your next guests to book. With search criteria and organization titled “hidden gems”, “wide open spaces”, “glamping near me”, and “available tonight”, campers can find exactly what they are looking for in this one-of-a-kind app.
In order to be listed the way that you would like to appear in this app, it is going to take a little polish on your part to be featured. Make sure your web keyword terms match what you would like your guests to search for, like our example, “glamping”. Once you have your site squared away on your end, it’s time to take the next steps. A more experienced browser, after finding you on the app, will want to go to your native site. You want to make sure they check out/match.
You actually sign up as a host for Hip Camp, similarly to how you would if you were becoming a host for Air BnB. It’s completely free to sign up, but, once you begin booking, HipCamp takes a 10% commission on each stay, and you keep 90%.
Make sure your booking system is up to date and has these types of search criteria or availability listings. For instance, do you offer Glamping Safari Tents like these totally bodacious ones at the KOA Holiday in Coloma, Michigan, complete with front porch rocking chairs? You have to verify that you list it properly! You will upload photos, set your price, and offer any other helpful information you have to finalize your booking. Make sure, that if you are using this site, plus your own booking system, you don’t overbook your rentals. This is really important so that you can continue to create positive user experiences and get good reviews. However, if you don’t have your own booking system already in place, this could be a great option for you. You are paid weekly after your guests complete their stay and you get 7 days/week of support from the HipCamp crew.
Want to see if your site is a good fit for HipCamp? You can check out their standards page here and their helpful host FAQ
3. Allstays
Many RVers think this is the Creme de la Creme of campground finding apps. With over 37,000 campgrounds listed of all types, it is highly likely that your campground or RV park, if established, is listed here. It costs $9.99 to download, has almost 4K ratings in the Apple Store, with an average rating of 4.6stars/5 as of 3.28.22, and is rated #4 for travel apps, only behind Since so many people in your target customer demographic are utilizing this site to regularly find bookings for their travel needs, you want to make sure that you are on this app. Literally, if you google “best apps for finding campgrounds” you will see that this comes up in both paid and organic search listings. Like many of the apps, there are both paid and free versions (Pro), which range from no advertisements to added features for the traveler like bridge heights and road grades.
Newly launched in March 2022 is their campground super map, which includes more map filters for you to sort and home in on the location and amenities you are looking for, including camping type (KOA, independent, state, etc), Fuel stops/rest areas, Stores and supplies, and bridges and grades (pro version only).
This highlights a great point. If you don’t have amenities onsite, or they are sparse, noting the proximity to gas/fuel locations and grocery and supply stores like Walmart, etc. will get you extra bonus points for sites like these. Oftentimes, for travelers, this is really important especially if they are just passing through. Oh, and especially dump stations. If you do not supply sewer hookup at your campground, it is always super helpful to note how close you are to a dump station. These apps make this very easy for travelers, but noting it on your site too gives you major brownie points. Make sure you provide as much detail as possible, of course, in an organized way.
Allstays sorts information for camping by State. So, to check to make sure your campground is featured if you don’t already know, start first by clicking on the camping icon or on the desktop, the camping link in the top navbar.
If for some horrifying reason, your campground is not featured, like some of the other apps, you can manually add your RV Park or Campground using their “Add a campground feature”. On the desktop, it looks like this:
A navbar pops up when you click on the location on the map, and you would select “Add campground”. It leads you to fill out a form that has about 50 questions worth of details. They encourage you to be as detailed as possible because they use this information to sort you on the site, including information about amenities, price, hookups, longitudinal location, and more. They do warn you that these “listings are manually checked and approved. If approved, they will go on the next update.” There is no guarantee on how quickly these get posted, so make sure to do this right away if you notice you are not appearing on their search. You could also try emailing them if you are not sure, or if you want to verify that you did your due diligence and are in fact, not listed on their site.
4. Go Camping America
While not really an “app” per se, the website is mobile-friendly, which is key, and easy to navigate. The consumer-facing website for the National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds (ARVC) hosts one of the largest campground databases online. As a Member of ARVC, you get free listing and editing access to this forward-facing database. ARVC’s website claims that they service over 1,000,000 customers per year, so this seems like a win-win. Membership costs in ARVC depend on the state in which you are located, so check out their website to find out more information if you are not already familiar. If you are not already a Member or choose not to be, it can cost about $2,500 to get listed here.
Guests get to search right from the homepage by location, again, another plug for additionally making sure your google location listing is up to date. You are able to include a banner photo of the choice of your park, more photos for a gallery listing, a brief description, park features, opening dates, directions, and rates, and links directly to your website.
We did the work on this one, so you don’t have to. Want more tips like the 4 best apps to market your campground, or ready for more support from Martrek? Contact us at contact@martrekdigital.com or fill out the form here.
