Why Thicket bristles

You pick a site off a number and a flattering photo, drive three hours, and it's a dud. Wide open, no shade, you'll bake by noon. Or it's a hike to the john, or backed onto the dump station. The reservation page never shows you that part.

So Thicket walked the loops and wrote down what each site is actually like: shade, privacy, how level it sits, the plain facts. That's the read. Look before you book.

By early January, about one in three Michigan sites are already booked for the season. At the parks everybody wants, a site that opens can be gone in under twenty minutes.

Refresh the reservation page by hand and you lose that race. Thicket doesn't refresh by hand. He watches, and he's quick about it.

Sites get held and let go all season. There's no fee to sit on a few and no real cap, so some people book several, keep the best, and drop the rest at the last minute. The state's own committee put it in the record: up to five sites held, the extras canceled late. Not exactly in the spirit of the thing.

But every site somebody lets go is a site another Michigander can take, and that is the whole reason Thicket exists. He watches the sold-out site you want and pings you the second it frees, with a link straight to it. The churn that keeps good campers locked out is the same churn that gets you in.