Something worth paying your taxes for: Recreation.gov

[Jeremy Nix]

Recreation.gov

Recreation.gov, part of the Recreation One-Stop E-Gov initiative, offers and provides a single point of access to information about Federal recreational activities and reservations. It provides a comprehensive source of information about thousands of Federal recreation opportunities. Information about recreation opportunities on Federal lands is displayed based on the interests of the customer, not centered on the agency providing the recreation opportunity. Recreation.gov is provided under the National Recreation Reservation Service (NRRS), a Federal interagency program which delivers recreation reservation services for participating partner agencies under a contract administered by the USDA Forest Service.

Through the National Recreation Reservation Service (NRRS) and Recreation.gov, people planning a trip are able to: 

• Discover which parks, forests, lakes, museums, and other recreation sites managed by Federal agencies are located near a particular area and/or offer a specific recreational activity (or combination of activities, such as hunting and camping within 20 miles of a particular lake)
• Use interactive maps for trip planning activities to locate specific recreation sites managed by Federal agencies. Other areas of trip planning information may include potential weather conditions, elevation, and distance to desirable features (public lands, trails, streams/lakes, roads, museums, campgrounds, etc.)
• Identify the schedule of planned events and the operating status of recreation sites managed by Federal agencies (especially in fire season and during floods)
• Determine the entrance fees and use fees for individual recreation sites managed by Federal agencies, and calculate the costs of a trip to visit multiple sites
• Make recreation-related reservations for use of Federal sites and activities via one shopping cart online
• Make recreation-related reservations for use of Federal sites and activities via user-friendly contact center.
• Make inquiries for planning trips and dealing with transactions for recreation sites and activities managed by Federal agencies

The Recreation.gov portal provided by the NRRS is the Federal retail outlet for citizens looking for information about Federal recreation sites and the scope is limited to recreation sites and activities managed by Federal agencies. Recreation.gov is designed to handle all aspects of a reservations for reservable Federal sites and activities, but it encourages customers planning a trip to explore other websites with more-detailed information about recreation opportunities. Recreation.gov is not intended to provide an all-inclusive, one-stop shopping service that would replace non-governmental portals or participating agencies' websites. Recreation Search content on Recreation.gov is provided by the Federal government's Recreation Information Database.