Now that this review site is affiliated with RV Life's RV navigation app, the exact location of campgrounds is even more important. It would be nice if campgroundreviews would support alternative ways to submit and locate campgrounds besides just a street address. Remote campgrounds, especially in the west, don't have good street addresses to properly locate them. Supporting latitude and longitude would be great but also support for Google Maps Plus Codes and/or WhatThreeWords (now that HERE Maps is supporting WhatThreeWords).
Please notice that each of our listings contains the longitude and latitude for the location of the campground. This is displayed on the upper left side of the page just underneath the campground's address.
Understood, but is that just derived from the address that we're asked to enter when we submit a new campground? When there is no valid street address, how do we submit alternative location information? The new campground form only asks for the street address.
The Lat/Long that is displayed on the campground's page is the entrance to the campground, not the street address.
Let me try to be more specific on my question. When we enter a missing campground, how are we supposed to enter it properly if it doesn't have a known street address? How does CampgroundReviews properly locate the campground when it published the submission without a valid street addeess. My goal is for the campground to eventually shows up in the RV Life navigation app? Here is an example: https://maps.app.goo.gl/1PHAfd1cV1ynV55h8 This campground doesn't have a street address, yet that's the only location field that is provided when entering it into CampgroundReviews. So my question is, how are supposed to enter this campground and the many others like it? Put the latitude/longitude in the address field somehow? That's why I think support for PlusCodes or WhatThreeWords would be helpful in describing the location of these remote places.
When a new campground is submitted, the site admins locate the entrance to the campground (usually by satellite view) in order to determine the GPS coordinates. The pin that's shown on the map posted on the campground's page shows where this point is. If you submit a new campground, I'm sure the site admins will appreciate the Lat/Long if there is no accurate physical address. PlusCodes and more recently WhatThreeWords locations have become popular, but Lat/Long definitions are more universal. Most GPS devices and smart phones use Lat/Long. Maybe in the future as they become more common they will be incorporated into the CG pages.
I think what the OP is getting at is that in order to submit a new park I think you have to have a street address. It's not that the admins won't locate it using the map, it's that there's no way to make a submission if you don't have some address to start with. The Street Address is a required field but I don't know what, if anything, it has as an acceptable entry info. Maybe it's already possible to submit a latitude and longitude in lieu of a address but that's not obvious. I think the suggestion is a good one and we ought to make it possible to submit a new park that way.
Here's what I do: Since CGR's places map pins at the entrances of their listings for ease of navigation, for any location I'm entering that does not have a valid street address, I locate it on Google Maps the best I can. Often times these types are just pull offs to BLM sites, trail heads or some such other place where there is no actual numbered street address. For example, BLM websites are famous for having addresses that are only to the district office, with directions stating "8 miles west of so & so town on HWY 281, turn right on CR-100, proceed 5 miles, turn at FR-4a, proceed 15.5 miles then turn left at the sign for the campground." One can only hope they'll get to that place out there in the boondocks with those types of directions. Sometimes campgrounds on Google Maps are listed as "Unamed Road, Wherever, State"...think Alaska or Canada. Zip codes aren't even listed a lot of times. When I look up the place on Google Maps, I try to locate the nearest named road & work my way on the map until I find what looks like an entrance. If there's no actual named road at that place, I will put in the Address field "East off Hwy 567" or at least something that indicates an approx. place to where one can get to the location. The Address field does not require a street number, just a street name....enough to satisfy its requirements. City or County parks often have addresses like "Corner of Main & Oak Streets" on the local dept of tourism websites. I just do the best I can to figure out what street name the entrance is on. I put Corner of Main and Oak in the Address field & then when I figure out where the entrance is via Google Maps, those coordinates are what I put in for where the map pin to the entrance will be shown here. Until such time as we have a better way to locate these vague locations, you just have to do the best you can, filling out that Address field, & then supply the Lat/Long to the entrance. It's the Lat/Long which pinpoints a listing's entrance on CGR's. If you can't do that, all new park listings go to a queue for Admins to vet & verify before they are published anyway. They'll do their best to find an address & if there isn't one, they'll come up with enough information for it to be published with a map pin indicating where the entrance is (or as close to it as they can find).
