Privacy Policy

California Camping Guide is a read-only editorial guide. There are no accounts, no sign-ins, no uploads, and no forms. The shortest version of this policy is: we do not collect personal data about you, we do not run ads, and we do not share anything with third parties for marketing. The longer version explains exactly what happens when you load a page.

What We Do Not Collect

We do not have user accounts. We do not know your name, email address, phone number, or home address. We do not ask you to log in with Google, Apple, GitHub, Facebook, or anything else. We do not store payment information because the site is free. We do not run display ads and we do not embed third-party tracking pixels or advertising cookies.

What We Do Collect

Aggregate analytics. We use Google Analytics to understand which destinations and guides people read, where they enter the site, and which browsers we need to support. Google Analytics collects your IP address, browser, device type, referrer, and the pages you view. We use it in aggregate — we are looking at whether the Joshua Tree page is popular, not at what you personally did.

Server logs. Vercel, our host, keeps short-lived request logs for security and performance. These contain your IP address, user agent, and the path you requested. They are not used for analytics or marketing.

Your device, not our servers.Your theme preference (light or dark) is stored in your browser's localStorageso the site remembers it on your next visit. A service worker caches pages you've already loaded so the site works offline and loads fast. Both of these live entirely on your device and never leave it. You can clear them anytime from your browser's settings.

How We Use It

• To understand which destinations and guides are useful
• To find and fix bugs (broken pages, slow loads, failing maps)
• To prioritize which destinations to write next and which to keep updated
• To decide whether a redesign or feature is worth the work

We never sell your data. We do not share it with third parties for marketing. We do not combine it with any outside dataset to profile you.

Third-Party Services

California Camping Guide is assembled from a handful of third-party services. Each one has its own privacy policy, and when you load a page some of them are contacted directly from your browser.

• Vercel — Hosting and edge network
• Google Analytics — Aggregate pageview analytics
• OpenStreetMap and CARTO — Map tiles and geometry
• Open-Meteo — Weather data for destination pages
• NOAA — Tide data for coastal destinations
• iNaturalist — Wildlife observation data
• Hipcamp — Private-land campground data and reviews

We only share the minimum data required for the site to work. For most of these services, that is just the fact that your browser made a request.

Your Rights

Because we do not hold an account for you, most of the usual privacy rights do not apply the way they would on a typical app. There is no profile to access, edit, export, or delete.

If you want to opt out of Google Analytics, you can install the official Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on, or use a browser with tracking protection enabled (Firefox, Brave, Safari with “Prevent Cross-Site Tracking”). You can also clear the site's local storage and service worker cache from your browser's site settings.

How We Protect Your Data

• Every page is served over HTTPS — traffic is encrypted in transit
• We do not store passwords, because there is no sign-in
• We do not store payment information, because the site is free
• We hold no personal database about you — there is nothing for an attacker to steal from us

Chrome Extension

We publish a companion Chrome extension, New Tab with California Camping Guide, that replaces your new-tab page with a curated California camping destination. It follows the same privacy posture as the rest of the site: no accounts, no tracking, no data collection.

Permissions. The extension declares only two Chrome permissions: storage, used only to save your pinned shortcuts and greeting name locally on your device via chrome.storage.local, and search, used only to route the in-extension search box to your browser's default search engine. It requests no host_permissions.

No data collection. No user data is collected, transmitted, or sold. There are no accounts, no analytics inside the extension, and nothing is ever sent to our servers.

Network requests. The footer widgets make anonymous calls to two public APIs: api.open-meteo.com for weather and api.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov for tide predictions. These requests carry no identifiers and no user data.

Local-only storage. Your pinned shortcuts and greeting name live only on your device in chrome.storage.local. Nothing syncs to a server.

Changes to This Policy

If we make significant changes, we will update the “last updated” date at the top of this page. Minor clarifications may be made without notice.

Contact

Questions about this policy? Email hello@californiacamping.guide.