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Use Outdoors in your AI assistant

Outdoors runs a free, public Model Context Protocol server. Connect it once and Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini can answer with live Outdoors data — 37,000+ trails, 30,000+ campgrounds, 3,600+ parks, plus real-time weather, air-quality, and wildfire safety for any location — with links back to the source page. No account or API key needed, and every tool is read-only.

MCP server URL
https://theoutdoorsapp.com/mcp

Transport: Streamable HTTP · Auth: none · Access: read-only, rate-limited

Claude

Custom connectors are available on every Claude plan (Free plans can add one).

  1. Open claude.ai → Settings → Connectors.
  2. Choose Add custom connector.
  3. Name it Outdoors and paste the server URL above. Leave the OAuth fields empty.
  4. In any chat, enable the Outdoors connector from the search-and-tools menu, then ask something like "Find me a moderate trail near Boulder with a campground nearby."

The same connector works in Claude Desktop and on mobile once added on the web. Claude connects from Anthropic's cloud, so there is nothing to install.

ChatGPT

Connecting your own MCP server requires developer mode (Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, or Edu, on the web app).

  1. Open Settings → Security & login and enable Developer mode.
  2. Go to Settings → Apps & Connectors → Advanced → Add MCP server.
  3. Paste the server URL above, choose No authentication, and save.
  4. Enable Outdoors in a chat's tools menu — it also works as a source for Deep Research.

Gemini

  1. Open gemini.google.com → Settings & help → Connected apps.
  2. Under Custom apps, add the server URL above.
  3. Once connected on the web, it is available in your Gemini chats.

Custom apps in the Gemini consumer app are currently US-only. Developers can also pass the server to the Gemini API as an mcp_server tool or add it to the Gemini CLI.

What your assistant can do

  • Search & fetch: full-text search across trails, parks, campgrounds, and water bodies, with complete records and canonical links for citation.
  • Typed lookups: trail details (length, elevation gain, difficulty, conditions, GPS path), park amenities and alerts, campground facilities and campsite-level availability filters.
  • Nearby exploration: aggregate what's around any coordinate — trails, parks, and campgrounds together.
  • Safety signals: current weather, forecasts and alerts, air quality, and nearby wildfire incidents for any location.
  • Trip building: scored adventure candidates near a location and structured day-by-day itinerary outlines.

Notes for developers

The server speaks MCP over Streamable HTTP at POST /mcp and is also listed in the official MCP registry as com.theoutdoorsapp/outdoors. Tools follow the ChatGPT connector contract (search/fetch) alongside a richer typed catalog; everything is annotated read-only. Crawlers and agents can also use /llms.txt and /llms-full.txt for site-level context. Campground per-night pricing and state hunting/fishing regulations are intentionally excluded — the tools link to the managing agency instead.

Vendor menus change frequently; if a step above has moved, the server URL is the stable part. Questions or issues: contact us.