The Dyrt seemed like a simple idea.
It started on scraps of paper: ABC Campground – Nice. Site 7 – Super private and on the river. Site 4 – Next to the pit toilet, yuck. My husband and I could never remember where we’d camped, so I took notes. That way we could stop driving around, muttering: “Have we stayed there?” and “We should remember that one for next summer.” We love to camp, but we don’t like the exhausting campground hunting.
And that’s how it started. I decided to scrap paper and build a website with a searchable database of campgrounds. Over time, the idea grew. In addition to creating a useful camping tool to help campers remember and document great campsites, I wanted to make it more dynamic. Why not let everyone add reviews, photos, and videos? It would be an app and a website, similar to Yelp, exclusively for finding campgrounds.
Of course, I now know that my simple idea is simple in theory, but not in practice. Building an app or a website takes time. A lot of time. Unexpected hiccups slow things down. We are still building.
We’ve decided to go ahead and launch The Dyrt with what we have now, and keep building. Last summer, some of you were kind enough to send us reviews, photos, and videos of campgrounds. Those reviews will be a part of The Dyrt once we are ready for user-generated content. For now, we hope that our database of thousands of campgrounds will be useful. And our magazine is meant to offer inspiration to get outside and pitch a tent.
In the upcoming year, we look forward to building the other features of The Dyrt. We really hope to make finding great campgrounds an easy and inspirational experience.
