Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites—and Sold Them Back to Us

Camping shouldn't be something you need an app, a login, and a 6-month lead time to access.

I used to be the walk-up camper. Maybe you did too.

No reservations. No rigid plans. Just a bag in the trunk, a map with too many possibilities, and the promise that somewhere—out there—a place would be waiting.

That was the magic. Not knowing where you'd sleep. Letting the road decide. Maybe you'd hike that trail. Maybe you'd keep driving. Maybe a thunderstorm would roll in and push you toward sun. It wasn’t chaos. It was freedom.

That freedom wasn’t some happy accident. It was the soul of the thing.

Until the Reservation Gods got involved—turning that freedom into a product, spontaneity into scarcity, and access into something you now have to win back with a credit card.

We started More Than Just Parks on a trip like that. Loaded our grandmother’s Prius with barely enough gear and even less of a plan, pointed it west from Georgia, and somewhere around mile 1,600, fell in love with public lands.

But try that now? Show up without a reservation and you're not spontaneous—you’re a problem. A …