Why We're Building Wylara

Last summer, I tried to plan a weekend camping trip in the San Bernardino National Forest. What should have been a 10-minute decision turned into a two-hour rabbit hole across five different websites.

Recreation.gov showed me 200+ campsites, but the listings were basically useless. Tiny photos, vague descriptions, no way to tell which sites had shade, which ones were near good trails, or which ones would be packed with RVs running generators at 6am.

So I opened Google Maps to check satellite imagery. Then AllTrails to see what hikes were nearby. Then a weather app for the weekend forecast. Then a random forum post from 2021 where someone mentioned that loop B floods during spring snowmelt. By the time I had a reasonable picture, I'd burned my entire lunch break and still wasn't confident I'd picked the right spot.

I ended up at a site wedged between two RVs with a view of a dumpster. Great times.

That experience stuck with me. Not because it was uniquely bad, but because it happens every single time. The information exists, it's just scattered across a dozen sources with no way to filter by what actually matters to you.

## The real problem

Campsite selection is a preference problem disguised as a search problem. Recreation.gov treats every campsite the same: here's a list, pick one. But campsites are wildly different from each other. Site 12 might be a wide-open gravel pad next to the road, while site 47 is a tucked-away spot under ponderosa pines with a creek view. Those are completely different experiences, and they attract completely different people.

The problem is that you can't tell the difference until you've done hours of research or showed up and hoped for the best.

## What we're doing about it

Wylara starts by understanding what kind of camper you are. A short personality quiz captures your priorities: Do you want solitude or community? Tent or RV? Close to trails or close to town? Shade or sun?

Then we score every campsite on dozens of real factors: shade coverage, privacy from neighbors, water proximity, terrain quality, road access, cell signal, and more. Your quiz results weight those scores so the best sites for you float to the top.

We layer in weather forecasts, air quality data, fire closures, and condition reports from other campers. The goal is to compress two hours of research into a five-minute experience.

We also mapped over 689 dispersed camping spots on public land. Free camping on BLM and Forest Service land is one of the best-kept secrets in outdoor recreation, and most people have no idea where to start. Wylara puts those spots on the map with real access information and user reports.

## What's next

We're building Wylara into the camping companion we wish we'd always had. Trip planning, gear checklists, group coordination, offline maps, and eventually a community of campers who actually share useful information instead of five-star reviews that say "nice campground."

We're opening early access this summer. If any of this resonates, we'd love to have you along for the ride.