I want a decent parking app that doesn't suck, would you use it?
Been full-time vanliving for 5 years, mostly bouncing between south and north Europe.
Let me be honest about Park4Night because I don't want to trash something that actually works. I use it quite often, mostly to scout new spots when I'm heading somewhere I don't know. The POI database is genuinely the best out there and the comment/rating section made me decide where to go next a lot of times.
But everything around that core is a pain in the ass. The UI is slow and dated. Driving mode is useless (it just throws you to a third-party nav app).
Search, filters, classification, user options...all feel like nobody's touched them in this century. I never open it when I'm already in an area I know. Only when I need to find something new, and it's still quite a mess process.
So I've been thinking about this for a while and I have a very specific idea of what I'd want instead.
A mobile first application with up-to-date UI, fast and clean. Superior search and filtering engine so you can find what you need in 10 seconds and plan your trip easily with a couple of additional layers I never found anywhere:
- legal layer: actual national-level tracking of where vehicle camping is legal, restricted, or banned. I've been researching this for the countries I travel and it's a mess of outdated forum posts and conflicting informations. Should be structured, per-country, verifiable and commented by user experience IRL.
- safety layer: perhaps the one I care the most. Reliable, fine-grained safety data. When I'm parked somewhere I don't know, especially in a foreign country, my #1 concern isn't water or parking. It's: am I safe tonight? Is this area sketchy at 3am? Existing apps give you nothing on this. I want crime stats layered in oriented to vehicle crimes.
But, here's the catch though: the POI database (the actual spots, the water taps, the overnight parks, the "don't go here" warnings) that can't be scraped or bought. Park4Night's data is locked. There's no API. No open dataset. The only reason Park4Night has that data is because people added it over years.
So what I can handle:
- the map
- the legal overlay
- the safety layer
I'm very confident about that part. But it would be empty without spots. The community would need to add POIs as they use the app. Same way every parking app started. Public spots, private spots, comments, ratings. That's the deal.
Initial rollout would be completely free and open for anyone to register and use. Eventually there will be an optional newsletter to share app update only.
I'm not starting to build until I know there's actual interest. I don't want to sink months into this and have it sit there empty with no users. So I'm asking frankly:
If I built this would you use it?
Would you add your spots to it?
Would you beta test it?
What are the most interesting nations to start with?
What will be the feature you carry the most? (even completely unmentioned ones)
If enough people say yes, I start building. If this post dies in new...
I save myself the time, we all keep using Park4Night and I will be a little sad about it.
No hard feelings either way, I just need to know before pulling the trigger.
Stay safe