Park 4 Night is an application, built by a team that has firsthand experience on the road.
Alive since 2011, the park4night application is a platform to share campsites you can experience with your van or adventure rig. The app has the ability to create new locations, enhance existing places with comments, compare previous ratings, and more. To learn more about park4night and their experience on and off the road, we did a brief Q&A with Frederic Delamare, on behalf of Bertrand Fichter.
“Share the nice spots where you like to relax with your camper, your equipped van or normal van.”
Please briefly introduce park4night. How did you get in the business of being a resource for camping, vanlife, and overnight parking? How long have you been working on your product?
Park4night is an app (Android/iOs/Windows 10) used to share and find cool spots to relax or spend the night. The app includes wild spots, parking, camping, or even farms and other lands that host campervans overnight! The app includes locations all over the world so users can use it at home or during international travel. Our first version was launched at end of 2011.
Can you tell us a bit about how the idea of park4night came about? What was the process of building the concept?
Bertrand came up with the idea by simply imaging that maybe a few dozen people would share overnight campsites through the app. It quickly became much more than that. When he realized how quickly the app was growing, I joined the team and we have worked hard to continuously improve the app ever since.
Who is the team behind park4night? What are everybody’s roles?
Our team consists of Bertrand (founder, designer, and developer) and myself, Frédéric (co-founder, engineer design, and development). In total we have three moderators and recently added a developer.
What has been the process and timeline of building the app and the website? Best parts? Most challenging parts?
We created the app for iOs at the end of 2011, Android in 2012, and the website in 2014 (the Windows version). We had to learn how to manage a big community fairly quickly, which we have found to be the most challenging part.
How are you practicing sustainability within primitive camping and encouraging users to protect the lands they stay on?
We already inform users of the rules within the app and moderating the database. A few of our users are very proactive about this topic and come to campsites equipped with gloves and garbage bags. They collect waste (local or camper’s) at the places they visit to help make a difference. We also have a few idea we are currently working on to put in our efforts towards sustainability.
The app has gotten a huge response in Europe and continues to grow in more countries, like the US. How are you pursuing growth and reliability within your services provided?
park4night is still growing rapidly in Europe and in North America. We now have a few years of experience in managing our system and are also a social app. Our users truly help us a lot!
You provide an opportunity for community involvement through volunteering. Can you please elaborate on this program?
Volunteers help us within the app for various tasks. Their assistance includes efforts towards translations, moderations of photos, and commentaries submitted by users.
How do you maintain the quality of the sites submitted to park4night Do you ever monitor the sites or check them yourselves? How frequently are you using the site/app yourself?
All data is moderated a posteriori by our team and volunteers. Additionally, any registered user can report an error from the app. Our team uses the app ourselves quite frequently! I usually use the app during holidays in France and Portugal. Bertrand uses the app during holidays and weekends in Burgundy.
What are your long-term goals for park4night?
We have high hopes of seeing the application develop both inside and outside of Europe. We also have lots of ideas to add to the app, and work towards almost a new idea every week!
Please provide some links where people can find you online!
You can find the app online:
Android
iOS
Windows 10
www.park4night.com
But our favorites users also follow us on social media:
Instagram: @park4night
Facebook: park4night
YouTube: youtube.com/park4night