Welcome to Boondok
A software engineer spent a year rebuilding how campers discover, plan, and find new places to sleep outside. This is the story of how it started and the community she hopes to build.
Almost a year in the making, I’m excited to finally announce the official launch of a new outdoor community, Boondok. What started out as a passion project to help me and my partner find camping spots grew into a full-fledged discovery tool for outdoor stays.
When I started camping more frequently, it quickly became apparent to me that discovering new campgrounds, let alone booking a site, was no easy feat. If my partner or I didn’t have a specific park in mind, we would have to click into multiple campground pages followed by zooming into nested map images in order to (hopefully) find an open site. All that effort never guaranteed we’d find something we were looking for. I started putting together a small tool that aggregated park information from all over Western Canada - a map that would make it easier for us to see various campgrounds in one place.
I was inspired by the camaraderie of the camping community.
Throughout this time I was also perusing Reddit for campground recommendations, searching Google maps for reviews, and reading Facebook group posts for advice and photos. The tool I built to find individual sites started to grow. I learned that our problem was everyone else’s problem too. There was no singular resource for finding outdoor stays, so discovery had become a group effort. Helpful campers online were (and are!) always ready to give their advice for the best lakes to swim in, great fishing spots, hidden gems, and safe havens during wildfire season. I was inspired by the camaraderie of the camping community.
With the help of my siblings, Boondok took shape. It’s now a place to not only discover campgrounds but a place for campers to help each other find their next adventure.
I’ve been a software engineer for over ten years now, and I hate to admit it, but I lost my passion for my work. Building Boondok this past year reignited that love. It’s truly been such a joy watching Boondok take shape and exploring Canada’s beautiful outdoors through the lens of my engineering.
Boondok is just getting started. We’re constantly adding new features and new campgrounds. I hope you experience the same joy exploring our site that I’ve had building it. Boondok is a community first, a tool second — we’d love for you to join us.
Thanks to the support of my siblings, my partner, and all my friends and family who had to listen to me talk about this platform for the last year. And thank you, fellow camper, for being here at the start of this.
Now enough reading, go play outside!
Michelle Lagunsad · Michelle is the co-founder and sole engineer behind Boondok. When she's not writing code, she's probably trying to get outside herself.