First time playing with snow
Once upon a time in Anmore, BC...
Three Filipino kids moved in
We grew up in Anmore, a small mountain town just outside Vancouver. The outdoors wasn't somewhere we drove to. It was the gravel trail down the road, our school tucked in the woods, and the forest full of wildlife around our house. We played outside until the streetlights flickered on and our parents called us home.
Then life shifted. We moved away, got busy, and stopped playing. Even a small trip into nature became a logistical battle, with everything booked up, competitive and complicated. Boondok is our small attempt to bring back the simple joy of playing outside.
"Boondok" is an homage
The name comes from two places. The first is bundok, the Tagalog word for mountain. American soldiers stationed in the Philippines in the early 1900s brought it home as "boondocks," and over time it came to mean the quiet, far-off places outside the city.
ᜊᜓᜈ᜔ᜇᜓᜃ᜔
Tagalog
bundok
/buːnˈdɔːk/, mountain
English
boondocks
/ˈbuːndɒks/, a remote, peaceful place
Our name
Boondok
A reminder of where we came from
The second is closer to home. "We're in the boonies" was something we said growing up. So Boondok carries both our heritage and our childhood. It's a small family heirloom built into a name, and a reminder of where we came from and the kind of outdoors we hope you find your way back to.
Our mission
This started off as a passionate project and no matter how large this project grows, we're determined to maintain our core values.
01 · Equitable
Free to look. Fair to pay.
Browsing the map, saving favourites, reading reviews will be free forever. Alerts cost what they cost us to run, and they cost the same for everyone. You can't pay to skip the queue because that wouldn't be fair.
02 · Honest
With integrity.
We say plainly what things cost. We say plainly when we don't have a feature yet. We say plainly when we miss. Honesty over hype. Striving for integrity with every decision we make.
03 · Community
Sama-sama. Together.
Most camping happens with someone you love. Favourites sync, alerts can be forwarded to whoever's booking, plans are easy to bring people into. "Sama" means together in Tagalog and it's a core of our community.
04 · Play
Bringing back small joys.
Finding the right campsite should feel like spotting a clearing through the trees. We want Boondok to be a fun and joyful experience. Our way of saying: this isn't supposed to feel like work.
Built by Sama
Boondok is the first product built end-to-end by Sama, a small independent creative studio the three of us siblings started in 2026. "Sama" is the Tagalog word for together, and sama-sama, togetherness, is the heart of how we work.
Between the three of us, we've spent more than two decades shipping things together across product, brand, marketing, communications, partnerships, and live events, for tech and consumer brands, public institutions, and a few people we love. Boondok is the first thing we've made entirely on our own terms.
Shoreline Trail · Port Moody, BC · 2016
Land acknowledgment
Boondok is from the Lower Mainland, on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) Nations. Our family came here from elsewhere. Theirs were here all along, stewarding these lands, languages, and ways of being in community since long before any of us arrived. We acknowledge and thank the diverse Indigenous peoples who have, and continue to, call this place home as the original caretakers of this beautiful land.
Samatogether, by designAn independent creative studio in Vancouver. Brand, product, marketing, experiences, built by a family, ready for yours.
Samatogether, by design
An independent creative studio in Vancouver. Brand, product, marketing, experiences, built by a family, ready for yours.