Where our data comes from

Outdoors brings together public-lands data that is otherwise scattered across dozens of federal and state agencies, and pairs it with community contributions. We do not originate most of these facts — we reconcile them, connect them, and record where each one came from.

Every trail, park, campground, campsite and water body page carries its own sources panel showing the managing agency, a link to that agency's official page, and when we last checked it. This page explains the sourcing as a whole.

Federal agencies

Works produced by the US federal government are in the public domain. We credit them because you should be able to check us, not because we are required to.

Recreation.gov (RIDB): Campgrounds, individual campsites, facility amenities, reservation links.; US Government — public domain
National Park Service: National parks, monuments, seashores and their trails, alerts and visitor information.; US Government — public domain
US Forest Service: National forests and grasslands, land-unit boundaries, developed recreation sites.; US Government — public domain
Bureau of Land Management: BLM-managed public lands, National Conservation Lands, dispersed camping areas.; US Government — public domain
US Geological Survey: Place names and elevation data, including named summits and water features.; US Government — public domain

Open data and open content

These sources are contributed by volunteers and carry licences that require attribution. We name them here and credit them wherever their data appears.

OpenStreetMap: Trail geometry, dispersed camping areas, and route paths in places where no agency dataset exists.; ODbL 1.0 — © OpenStreetMap contributors
Wikipedia & Wikimedia Commons: Background descriptions for some parks and trails, and a portion of our photography.; CC BY-SA — credited in place, with a link to the original

State agencies

State parks, state forests, wildlife areas and public fishing and hunting access are managed by each state's own agency, and the data lives in fifty different places. We maintain a directory of those agencies and link to them directly rather than restating what they publish.

Community contributions

Reviews, photos, trip reports, conditions and user-created maps come from people using Outdoors. This content reflects the experience of the person who submitted it. It is presented as their account, not as an agency record.

How we handle what we don't know

Aggregated data goes stale, and sources disagree. Rather than paper over the gaps, we treat every factual attribute as having three possible states: confirmed true, confirmed false, or unknown. Where an attribute is unknown, we render nothing at all — no hedge, no assumed default.

This is deliberate. A missing answer sends you to the agency; a fabricated one sends you down a closed road. If a page looks like it is missing information, that usually means we could not confirm it.

What we deliberately do not publish

Outdoors is not a permitting, regulating or pricing authority, and there are things we will not restate even when we hold the data:

Per-night camping prices. Fees change without notice and vary by site, season and vehicle. We link to the operator's reservation page instead.
Hunting and fishing regulations. Season dates, bag limits, size limits and unit boundaries are set by each state and change annually. We link to the issuing agency rather than reproducing them, because a stale limit is a legal problem for you, not for us.
Permit and access guarantees. Closures, fire restrictions and permit requirements are the land manager's to state. Always check with them before you go.

Found something wrong?

Please tell us. Every trail, park and campground page has a “Suggest a Correction” control, and corrections that can be confirmed against an agency source are the fastest way to improve the data for everyone. You can also contact us directly.

Last updated August 2026.