Oh, Ranger! ParkFinder™

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About Oh, Ranger! ParkFinder™

"Even if it weren’t free, Oh, Ranger! ParkFinder™ would be well worth downloading." - Bob Tedeschi, The New York Times

"To find the perfect path, download the free Oh, Ranger! ParkFinder™ app." – The Wall Street Journal

"Oh, Ranger! is your virtual guide to the outdoors — you fire up the app, plug in your location and either see which parks are near you or find an activity you want to do to filter out the parks that let you do it. It's awesome." – Gizmodo

"The Free Oh, Ranger! ParkFinder™ App Offers Treasure Trove of Park Information!" - OutdoorUSA

Selected as a top lifestyle app by Wired Magazine

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Find the parks nearest you with the activities you want to do. Our team of writers and editors has spent years compiling, refining and, most importantly, curating a comprehensive database of every national park, state park, local park and federal public land in America.

Each location is cross-referenced with information about available activities, so you can search for the park nearest you with your favorite things to do. We’re the same team that publishes the little green Oh, Ranger!® guides to national parks and public lands that are read by 20+ million park-lovers each year.

Oh, Ranger! ParkFinder™ includes:

• The Most Comprehensive Database of Public Lands in America, Including National Parks, National Forests and all other Federally-Managed Recreation Destinations, As Well As Every State and Local Park In The Nation.

• Park Overviews

• Activities Descriptions

• Maps & Directions

• Important Phone Numbers

• Seasonality/Weather

• Lodging & Concession Information

• Non-Profit Partners

• Links to Events and Related Websites

• Related Articles

• Nearby Attractions

Choose from 30 different activity categories to find the right place for you, and your friends and family. You can quickly toggle back and forth to find locations that have any or all of the following activities:

• Auto Touring

• Baseball

• Basketball

• Bicycling

• Bird Watching

• Boating

• Camping

• Caving

• Climbing

• Disc Golf

• Dog Run

• Fishing

• Football/Soccer

• Golfing

• Hiking

• Historic & Cultural Touring

• Horseback Riding

• Hunting

• Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) Use

• Picnicking

• Playgrounds

• Recreation Facility

• Running Track

• RVing

• Skate Park

• Tennis

• Volleyball

• Water Sports

• Wildlife Watching

• Winter Sports

Oh, Ranger! ParkFinder™ contains an exclusive database with information on all different types of public lands, including:

• National Parks

• State Parks

• Local and Regional Parks

• National Forests

• Wildlife Refuges

• Bureau of Land Management (BLM) sites

• US Army Corps of Engineers recreation areas

• and many more public lands…

Through the generous support of Toyota, we’re able to provide this rich database of information ABSOLUTELY FREE! Please download the app and send us your feedback. Tell all your friends to try it too. By downloading Oh, Ranger! ParkFinder™, you’re reinforcing the important role public lands play in our lives and helping to support important conservation efforts.

Version

App Information

The app time forgot

Found Oh, Ranger! ParkFinder while searching for "park apps" that weren't trying to sell me a $89/year subscription. The New York Times called it "well worth downloading" back when Obama was president. Now in 2025? Well...

It's like finding a perfectly functional flip phone. Still makes calls, but everyone else moved on.

Ten days of park hunting

Downloaded this after getting frustrated with AllTrails wanting money for basic offline maps. First launch felt like stepping into 2011 – that iOS 6 aesthetic hits different now. But hey, it loaded. No sign-up required. No subscription popups. Just... worked.

Started simple. Searched for parks near me with hiking trails. Got 47 results instantly. Cool. Added "fishing" to the filter and... still got 47 results. Turns out it shows parks with hiking OR fishing, not hiking AND fishing. One frustrated reviewer nailed it: "I want parks with camping and playgrounds. I don't want all parks with camping or playground - I want both so the list is long and useless" ‎Oh, Ranger! ParkFinder™ on the App Store

Spent an hour manually checking each park to find ones with both activities I wanted. Finally found a spot 20 minutes away I'd never heard of – Burton Island State Park. Decent discovery, terrible process.

Day 3, tried using it for a road trip. The "nearby" feature actually impressed me. Found a random BLM site perfect for an overnight stop. The directions linked out to Apple Maps smoothly. Basic info was accurate – phone numbers worked, hours matched reality.

By day 10, I'd settled into using it as a backup reference tool. Good for discovering obscure local parks. Terrible for planning anything complex. The 60,000-park database is legit, just trapped behind an interface that fights you.

The pros and cons

How it stacks up

What the internet says

Reddit's basically forgotten this app exists. Found one mention from 2019 where someone recommended it as "that old app that still has good data." No recent discussions, no defenders, no haters. Just... silence.

Some users report loading issues, with one troubleshooting guide noting "It can be quite annoying when an app from the App Store cannot be loaded and thus updated" The Best National Parks Apps to Download - AFAR – though mine worked fine, probably because it hasn't been updated in years.

The old reviews from 2012-2013 are glowing. Gizmodo called it "awesome" and said "You can't run out of things to do or places to go with this app" The NPS App - Digital (U.S. National Park Service) Back then, maybe. Now? Different story.

App Store reviews paint a clear picture: early 5-star reviews, then a slow decline. Recent ones complain about the filtering, outdated interface, and general abandonment. One guy loved it for motorcycle touring through the Cascades, which... honestly sounds like the perfect use case.

Verdict after two weeks

Oh, Ranger! ParkFinder is archaeological software. Still functional, occasionally useful, definitely not essential.

Here's when I'd actually recommend it: You want a simple, free reference for park locations without any strings attached. You're doing basic searches for single activities. You hate creating accounts. You have patience for manual filtering.

Skip it if: You need offline maps. You want user reviews and photos. You're planning complex multi-activity trips. You expect modern UI/UX. You need regular updates and support.

The sad part? With some basic updates, this could be great again. That 60,000-park database is gold. The no-nonsense approach feels refreshing compared to apps trying to social-media-fy the outdoors. But it's clearly abandoned.

Downloaded it expecting trash, found a dusty tool that still cuts. Will I keep it? Yeah, actually. Takes up 31MB and occasionally finds parks other apps miss. Just don't expect it to change your outdoor life.

For real park planning in 2025? Get the NPS app for national parks, AllTrails for hiking, and Recreation.gov for camping. Oh, Ranger! can sit in your utilities folder for those random "what parks are near this random highway exit" moments.

Three stars out of five. Would be two, but it's free and honest about what it is.