It appears British Columbia’s much-maligned Discover Camping reservation website is on the way out.
On its website Friday, BC Parks said it was launching a new camping reservation system in response to “visitor feedback” collected over the past two seasons.
Venting frustration about trying to book a campsite in B.C. has become almost as much of an annual tradition as camping trips themselves, with would-be campers routinely reporting website crashes or trouble finding sites on the system’s opening day.
The province has tried several approaches to managing huge demand, including boosting the number of reservation-only campsites and creating a two-month rolling booking window.
According to BC Parks, the new reservation system will operate on BCparks.ca, and be open for bookings on March 21.
“The new site includes more flexible search options to find and book a campsite, and handy maps, calendars and lists of available sites for quicker navigation,” it said.
People will still be able to make reservations for Porteau Cove and the Garibaldi Backcountry through the old discovercamping.ca website until Feb. 28.
The new reservation service will soft-launch on March 15, allowing people to create an account, save booking details and explore the site.
Then, at 7 a.m. on the 21st, the site will go live for bookings within a two-month window.
The park service says it is taking measures to manage the expected high demand, including bringing extra staff on to its call centre, scaling up web servers to manage high traffic volume, and using queueing software to try and reduce peak demand.
It says the recent locals-first policy B.C. implemented to accommodate higher demand from British Columbians due to the pandemic would not be in effect for 2022.
You can find out more about the new camping reservation system at bcparks.ca/reserve.