New format frustrating

One feature I really miss from the old format was the ability to look up potential campsites in a regional manner rather than an actual town. We could search within 25-50 miles from a given location. I don't like having to have a map in front of me to look up nearby towns. I also cannot for the life of me find campsites for Mexico or Canada, although I have been told there is a way to find them. Is there something I am missing?

 

If you look in the upper left hand corner of the home page you will note that there are three flags there and two words above them that say "CHANGE COUNTRY". Hope this is what you are looking for..................

Regards, Bankshot

 

Click on the "GO" button with NO entry in the search box to get to the advanced search page. You can search by distance there.

 

Unfortunately, at the present time the search function doesn't function well in Canada or Mexico. Regardless of what country you choose the dropdown list of "states" in the search screen will always be US states.

However, the workaround is to put in the city you are interested in such as Halifax NS. Don't select a "state". The search will return several Halifax's; select Halifax NS. The page for Halifax will have a list of nearby cities on the left side. It's not as easy as the old system was, but I know that a fix is being planned.

 

We learned that the site search is pretty much useless. Enter 'Grand Canyon' and you get
half the parks. Enter 'Grand Canyon Trailer Village RV Park' and you get nothing.
Stayed there last night. So, rvparkreviews is not the first step. rvparky gives us all the places
we can park, then when winnowed down, we hit find reviews, and rvparkreviews comes up
in the first 6 or so google hits.
The new format does not even list the address of a park. You have to go to the park website from rvparkreviews.

 

There are definitely some issues with the Search function, for that we apologize. A entire redesign of the search function is being developed.

 

I agree that our search function needs some revision; however, I may be able to give you a few tips that will help you use it better.

1. When you enter "Grand Canyon," the system searchers for those two terms in the city names field and in campground names field. It then gives you a list of suggested cities and a list of campgrounds that contain both those words.
2. The list of campgrounds that this produces does not contain any of the campgrounds within the national park because the names of those campgrounds do not actually have "grand canyon" in them. Their names are: Desert View, Mather, North Rim, and Trailer Village.
3. However, in the list of suggested cities you should see "Grand Canyon National Park AZ 4 parks." If you click on it, the system will display the 4 campgrounds listed above.
4. A different way to search is to enter "grand canyon" into the search box and then add Arizona in the state box. (Do not put the state name in the search box. It won't work that way.) This will produce a list of campgrounds that contains the ones within the the national park.
5. You can also find those same campgrounds by clicking on Arizona on the Home Page. Then in the drop down box for city names, click on Grand Canyon National Park, and the campgrounds that are in the national park will be displayed.

The reason you do not get a park listing when you type in "Grand Canyon Trailer Village" is because we do not have a park with that exact name. The name in the name field is just "Trailer Village" which does not precisely match the search terms. However, again notice that this search has "Grand Canyon National Park AZ 4 parks" in the list of suggested cities.

Also there are two reasons you do not see addresses listed for some parks. First, most national parks do not list an actual street address for their campgrounds. The address listed on their website simply lists the name of national park, and then there are usually some directions listed such as "Located 26 miles/ 42 km east of Grand Canyon Village." The second reason is that on the old system no parks had addresses listed. I'm not even sure there was a field for the address on the old system so there were no addresses available to transfer to the new system. Now that the new system can accommodate this information we are trying to add the actual street addresses as fast as we can. Many address have already been entered, and we are working on the others.

I would like to see our search feature work a bit differently, but until it does, maybe this information about how the system works will help you find what you need. If you have any other trouble or questions, please feel free to post here or contact the Help Desk by clicking on "Contact Us" at the bottom of each page.

 

This website used to be so user friendly, the new and improved website is terrible.... very frustrating. I hate it.

 

If you will give a specific example of something you are having trouble with, we will be glad to help you.

 

I don't know if it's just me or if I am missing something here but I have never had a problem doing searches on the new site, in either Canada or Mexico. Every time I have used this feature everything worked just as it does for the good old U.S. of A. Any chance it could be a given browser that's causing problems for others.............? Just asking.............

 

The search engine currently has significant issues in Canada and Mexico. No matter what you do the list of "states" will always remain US states, for example. What I've been able to do is do city searches without any state delimiters.

So, for example, if you search for Halifax, one of the results will be Halifax NS (Nova Scotia). This will work unless you are using a city name that results in more than 10 "hits" since the system currently will only provide the first 10 and those will be listed in the order of US states first, then Canadian and/or Mexican.

Searching for a city name will also produce campground results that contain that name, also. So a search for Victoria produces results for US cities, Canadian cities, Mexican cites and a long list of CG's with Victoria in their names.

 

I am beyond frustrated and disappointed with the new format!! I absolutely LOVED the old format. It was SO user friendly. Please, please go back to the old format! I want to be able to put in a town, and the distance, along with the amenities that we need, and find everything available....starting with the closest distance all the way to the furthest. In other words....just like it USE to be! Everyone I know, who I recommended your site to, feels the same as I do. They loved the old format...the new one is so very disappointing and frustrating to use. Thanks for listening.

 

You can still do all those things on this system, but you do have to enter your search terms a little differently. There are several ways to search now (one of the advantages of the new system), but here are the instructions that most closely match what you are wanting to do. This should get you the information you need, but if not, let us know, and we'll try again. You might also read post #7 as it explains a little more about how the search function works.


From the Home page, click on the GO button beside the search box on the menu bar.

On the next screen type in the name of the town in the (long) search box. DO NOT enter the name of the state here.

In the drop down State box, click on the state the town is in.

In the drop down Distance box, choose the maximum distance that you would want to be from that town. The default is 25 mi.

Click GO and the system will display two sets of results:

The first set is “Suggested Cities” which is a list of cities that may have a similar name (or search term) to the one you have searched.

The second set lists the parks located within the distance you chose. They are listed in increasing distance from the chosen city.

Notice that on the left side of the screen are all the filters you can use to indicate what amenities you would like the park to have. As you check amenities, the system will display only those parks that provide what you have chosen.

 

It is obvious that the new format is not to our liking. Instead of trying to convince us otherwise, you should be listening to your members. The new format is terrible and we all want to go back to the old. You are making a mistake by not listening.

 

Many people do not like change. We get comfortable doing something one way, and we don't want to change it because it takes time and effort to learn the new way. However, if change never happens we would still be doing math problems with paper and pencil instead of using a calculator or computer. We would still have TV antennas on our houses to get the 2-3 available local stations, and we would have to get up out of our recliners and actually walk over to the TV to change the channels. We would be taking our film to the local photo store and then waiting 3-4 days to get our pictures instead of instantly being able to see and share them with others on our smartphones.

As mdcamping said, our old site was outdated and not working well. It constantly needed fixes. It could not do many of the things that newer sites can do, and its information was very limited. We will not be going back to the old site, so we are simply trying to do the next best thing, and that is explain how the new site works and teach people how to use it.

Many members beside mdcamping have also said they like the new site. Some, like you, have expressed displeasure at first, but then changed their minds once they understood how the new site works and learned how to use it. Therefore, we hope you will at least give the new system a try before making a judgement, and we will gladly explain any part of it to you and/or send any instructions that you may need.

 

Add me to the list of those that were not initially pleased with the new site layout. I think the big change for me was deciding whether I would have liked the site and found the information presented useful if it had been like this when I first came here. When the answer was a resounding "YES!", I just settled back and learned my around just as I would with any other site that was new to me. Now I'm a strong advocate for the new layout, and as the initial bugs have gotten worked out, it's only gotten better...

 

"All"??? Speak for yourself, you're not speaking for me...

 

From what I've been reading so far about the new site I've learned the following:

All in favor of the new site say yes.....................YES!!!
All in favor of going back to the old site say no............. no!!!

Am I reading correctly or do I need new glasses.............

Regards to the YES folks and the no folks...............Bankshot

 

You are wrong. I like the site the new way. It took a bit of getting used to but it is much better now. You are making a mistake by saying that we all want to go back.