# Campsite Availability MCP for real-time booking data. AI Agent Connect > Campsite Availability MCP gives your AI agent direct access to the Recreation.gov inventory. It pulls live data from US national parks and forests, allowing your agent to find specific sites, check availability for multi-night stays, and compare different campgrounds side by side. Instead of just seeing if a park exists, you can ask your agent exactly which sites are open for your specific dates. ## Overview - **Category:** travel - **Price:** Free - **Endpoint:** https://edge.vinkius.com/vk_preview_u4e0HUE34SwYwOpsrv1kyf0hMFiomY6q1p8EC3Wd/ai-agent-connect - **Tags:** camping, campgrounds, recreation-gov, national-parks, availability, reservations, outdoor, travel-planning, public-data, united-states ## Description You can stop manually hunting through reservation calendars. This MCP connects your AI client to the actual inventory used by US national parks and forests. While a standard website tells you a campground exists, this tool tells you if you can actually sleep there next weekend. It handles the heavy lifting of aggregating availability data, which is crucial because a site isn't truly available if it's only open for one night of a three-night trip. Your agent can now look at a whole month, identify specific sites that fit your exact window, and even account for stays that cross over into a new month. It filters out tours and permits to focus strictly on campground inventory, giving you a clean, usable view of what is actually bookable. Whether you need to know the specific amenities at a site or want to compare three different locations in Yosemite, your agent gets the same real-time data found on the official booking pages. ## Tools ### compare_campgrounds Compares up to eight campgrounds side by side for a specific month. It reports site counts, the best dates for availability, and the first available arrival for each location. ### find_available_dates Identifies arrival dates within a month that have at least one site free for your entire stay duration. It handles the logic of finding consecutive open nights so you don't have to. ### get_campground Retrieves the full descriptive record for a single campground. This includes facilities, fees, accessibility notes, contact info, and stay limits. ### get_monthly_availability Provides a full monthly view of a campground's inventory. It breaks down open, reserved, and closed sites by arrival date and site type. ### search_campgrounds Searches the Recreation.gov inventory for specific parks or campground names. It returns the unique facility IDs required to use the other tools in this MCP. ### find_available_sites Lists the specific sites that are available for every night of a requested stay. It works even if your trip starts in one month and ends in the next. ## Prompt Examples **Prompt:** ``` We want to camp in Yosemite in late January, three nights, arriving January 30. Which campgrounds have a site free for the whole stay, and what do they cost? ``` **Response:** ``` Upper Pines Campground (id 232447) has 66 sites free for all three nights. The stay crosses into February, and the tool handles the month boundary automatically. Sites 001, 002, and 006 in the Upper Pines loop are typical matches, costing about $36 a night. ``` **Prompt:** ``` I can be flexible. For Upper Pines in January, which arrival dates would let me stay four nights? ``` **Response:** ``` 26 of the 31 days in January have at least one site free for four consecutive nights. The best arrival windows are around January 18-20 and 24-27, where 70 to 84 sites are open for the whole stay. ``` **Prompt:** ``` Compare three campgrounds near Yellowstone for July: Madison, Tower Fall, and Lewis Lake. Which one has the most open sites? ``` **Response:** ``` Madison (232451) has the widest open window with 28 of 31 days holding at least one free site. Tower Fall (259308) is fully booked for the month, and Lewis Lake (259309) has 12 open days peaking at 40 sites. ``` ## Capabilities ### Multi-night stay validation Your agent checks that a site is available for every single night of your trip, not just the arrival date. ### Cross-month trip planning The MCP handles stays that begin in one month and end in the next by fetching data from both months. ### Campground comparison Your agent can evaluate multiple locations at once to find the best availability for a specific month. ### Facility and fee lookup Your agent pulls specific details like water access, toilet types, and nightly costs from the official records. ### Inventory filtering The tool ignores tours and permits to ensure your agent only sees actual campsite availability. ## Use Cases ### Finding flexible windows Ask your agent to find any arrival date in a month that allows for a four-night stay. ### Comparing locations Compare three different campgrounds in the same park to see which one has the most open sites for your dates. ### Checking specific amenities Ask if a specific campground has flush toilets or food storage lockers before you decide to go. ### Planning long trips Use the tool to find sites for a stay that starts at the end of one month and ends in the next. ## Benefits - Eliminates the need to manually check every single day on a calendar grid. - Prevents booking errors by ensuring sites are free for the entire duration of a stay. - Aggregates complex Recreation.gov data into simple, actionable answers for your agent. - Provides direct access to official US national park and forest inventory. ## How It Works Connect your client to Vinkius to access the Recreation.gov data instantly. 1. Connect your MCP-compatible client to Vinkius. 2. Use the search tool to find the campground or park ID. 3. Query availability for specific dates or a full month. 4. Ask your agent to compare options or find specific sites that fit your stay length. ## Frequently Asked Questions **Does this MCP allow me to actually book the campsite?** No, this MCP provides the availability and descriptive data. You will still use the official Recreation.gov site to finalize your reservation. **How far in advance can I see availability?** Reservations are released on a rolling basis roughly five months ahead. If a month is empty, it might be because it is too far in the future or the park is closed for the season. **What happens if my trip crosses into a new month?** The MCP handles this automatically. It fetches the data for both months to ensure the site is available for every night of your stay. **Can I search for things other than campgrounds?** The search tool is designed to filter out tours and permits, focusing specifically on campground inventory. **Why does a campground show no availability if I know it's open?** The campground might be first-come-first-served, or it might be closed for the season. You can use the monthly availability tool to see if the park has published any inventory at all. **Do I need an API key or a Recreation.gov account?** No. The server reads the same public availability data the Recreation.gov website loads, without authentication. Booking still happens on Recreation.gov itself — this server answers what is open, it does not hold or modify a reservation. **Why does a month come back empty even though the campground exists?** Two common reasons. Recreation.gov releases reservations on a rolling schedule — roughly five months ahead, often on the 15th of the month — so a month beyond that window has no published inventory yet. Or the campground is first-come-first-served, or closed for the season, in which case there is simply nothing to reserve. The response says which of these it is rather than reporting zero sites as if the campground were gone. **A site is open on most nights of my stay — why is it not listed?** Because a booking needs one site free on every night of the stay, not several sites free across it. A site blocked on a single night cannot host the booking, so it is excluded. Use find_available_dates instead to see which arrival dates do work for the length of stay you want. **Why do I get fewer campgrounds than the amount I asked for?** Recreation.gov returns campgrounds, tours, permits and timed-entry listings in one mixed list, and its server-side filters are not reliable. This server keeps only campgrounds, so rows of other kinds are dropped and a page can hold fewer than requested. Advance the offset by the page size, not by the rows you received, to page through correctly.