How to hunt for Camping

In our travels, we don’t really pre-plan our routes far in advance. Many times, we make it up on the fly and choose the road or destination that looks most interesting. And we most definitely avoid the interstate as often as possible.   Because of this, finding a place to set up camp—whether it be just for a night or a few days—is something we also do on the fly. While many campgrounds take reservations far in advance, we don’t usually worry about having a reservation and just show up (especially in the western states—in the east, or during peak seasons it might be worthwhile calling ahead or making a reservation.).

 

Because we’re such a small set up (16’ trailer), have a solar panel and ample battery capacity—we also don’t need hook ups of any kind. This gives us a lot of flexibility to take advantage of campgrounds that other larger rigs simply can’t. We tend to favor non-commercial campgrounds as we enjoy being off the beaten path, more in nature and spending less. Some of our best experiences have been at free campgrounds.

 

 

But whether you plan in advance for your camping and/or want to take advantage of prime seasons in various geographic areas—or you do like we do and wing it, here are the tools that we use in our search for the ideal camping spots.   Unfortunately, there does not yet seem to be one unified resource listing all camping opportunities, so we utilize many different resources to find our options.

 

Types of Camping

 

Before searching out camping options, it’s good to have some familiarity with the types of camping available:

 

· Commercial/Private Campgrounds: These are privately owned and operated campgrounds, and are usually the easiest to find as they advertise and/or are visible from major roads. They usually offer a full range of amenities; from full bathhouses with showers, laundry centers, WiFi internet access, electric/water/sewer hook-ups and sometimes even offer luxuries like pools, hot tubs, recreation activities, gas/propane, stores and cable TV hook-ups.  These also usually come at a price, and many can be quite crowded and densely packed in leaving little to no room between campsites.  Although, we have found some really nice ones in our journey when we were wanting high bandwidth wifi access, or a recharge our batteries on cloudy days.

 

· Public Campgrounds: These a government run (city, county, state and national) recreational parks that provide developed camping. The amenities and costs vary widely from just providing a spot to park with a picnic table to full bathhouses and electrical hook-ups.  The trade off is that they’re usually a bit off the beaten path in gorgeous non-crowded places and usually much less expensive than commercial campgrounds.  We’ve run into a wide range of these parks, so be sure to get information on ones you’re interested in to know what is available. .

 

· Boondocking/Dispersed Camping:  Boondocking usually refers to times when you stay at places without specifically marked campspots. Many national areas (particularly those run by the forestry or BLM) allow for dispersed camping. The rules vary by agency and location, but generally speaking you just need to find a flat spot a decent distance off the main road-way, away from water and leave no trace behind. If you don’t have your own toilet, make sure you know how to dig a proper hole and cover it.  Other boondocking options intended to just get some shut eye on a long trip, include staying overnight in Wal*Mart, Flying J, truck stops, rest areas or even on a city roads.

 

 

Our first step: Check Maps

 

Microsoft Streets and Trips (2005)

 

Our first step is seeing what is listed as a Point of Interest (POI) for camping on Microsoft Streets and Trips, the mapping software we use for our navigating. Since we usually have it up anyways, we do a vicinity search along our intended route and areas we’ll be going by. Having a visual representation of where we’re at and where our options are is very useful. Streets and Trips seems to be really good about listing commercial and state parks. In most areas, it is lacking in listing campgrounds in national parks, recreation areas, BLM and forests. And of course, it doesn’t list boondocking areas—but it does show where the boundaries are of National Forests/Grasslands and Recreation Area, which generally do allow dispersed camping  and/or have developed campgrounds (be sure to check first).

 

After identifying a potential campground on S&T, if we have an internet connection, we check for information about the campground online to get pricing, seasonal openings and reservation requirements. Usually just googling the park name brings up the information we’re seeking, and even sometimes—useful reviews from other campers.

 

We also take note of any nearby National Recreation Areas, National Forests/Grasslands, lakes and anything that might look like a dam—as these are likely candidates for additional camping resources that S&T usually doesn’t have marked.

 

Maps

 

Some maps are quite good about marking the public campgrounds, even if they only mark the major ones with a symbol. You’ll still need to research the area to find out the name of the campground and details, but it is a helpful starting place. When we cross into a new state, we try to stop at the welcome center and pick up a free map of the state, and a lot of times, they have campground symbols where there are public campgrounds. We’ve also been looking for an atlas style map to keep in Jeep with us.  So far, the one by Michelin has the most potential for us, but we’ll be looking at AAA’s offerings before purchasing. Additionally, we’ve found it’s quite often the case that national forests have far more developed campgrounds than maps show, and stopping in the Forest office when you get in the area and talking to a ranger is most helpful.

 

Second step: Check for Free/Cheap Campgrounds

 

Keeping our costs down is one way we’re able to keep affording this type of living, and whenever possible it’s nice to, safely, reduce our lodging expenses. Surprisingly, there are places where you can legally stay for free.  These are a mix of boondocking and developed campsites—usually run by cities or national services.   Some of these have been our most spectacular campsites along our journey.

 

Some retail locations—where allowed by local ordinances—have also opened their parking lots to overnight stays by RVers, most well known being Wal*Mart. Also, in many states, staying overnight in a rest stop is permissible.

 

So after checking a map, and getting a good idea of the names of the cities in the area we’re going to be, we pop online and research low cost camping areas.

 

Some of our favorite resources:

 

Free Campgrounds—a searchable database of free and under $10 camping locations, entered in by other campers. Many sites also have reviews and additional tips on finding the place and confirmations of details. They also keep a database of Wal*Marts that specifically do not allow overnight parking (usually due to local ordinances.)

Camping Tips Group—A YahooGroup well worth joining. Check out their file’s section for text files full of low cost camping options, as well as lots of other useful information.  We keep the text files downloaded as a resource for when we don’t have internet access to aid our research.

Boondocking.org—Run by our friend and fellow nomadic-soul, Andrew Koransky, contains a database of coordinates to legal boondocking sites.

 

These options require some familiarity with the area you’re in or going to, so be sure to know the names of local cities to help in your search.  

 

Third Step: Check Online Resources

 

The next step we do when researching camping options in an area is to look for resources that might not be available in the above places.  We  make notes from our map research of other potential camping areas (lakes, National Recreation Areas, National Forests/Grasslands, etc) to help target areas to research. Here are some of the resources that we’ve found to be quite useful:

 

State Park Guides—Most states have a central website that lists all their state parks, using Google to find them is generally quite easy. It’s really quite variable the quality of information available, however.  A lot of states have gone to using ReserveAmerica for their online reservations—which is another option for researching. However, actually pre-reserving your site usually isn’t necessary unless it’s peak season or a popular spot.

 

National Park Services— Use this search tool to find information on camping at National Parks (including National.Monuments, National Recreation Areas, etc.)

 

National Forestry Services—Use this site to look up a forest or grassland that you’re interested in to research camping opportunities.

 

Recreation.gov/ - The source for reserving government run campsites. It generally only covers the more popular and reserveable campgrounds, so it’s not nearly comprehensive.

 

Army Corp of Engineers  - These are some of the most under advertised campgrounds, and they’re usually quite spectacular—and free to cheap. You’ll have to use their website to track them down, and it’s often times not intuitive to do.

 

Bureau of Land Management (BLM) - A government agency managing land in many of the western states of the US. Usually dispersed camping is allowed on BLM land, unless otherwise noted and some even have developed campgrounds.

 

RV Park Reviews—A great resource of reviews of RV Parks that we use to find options we might not have seen elsewhere, or to get additional information about a spot we’re considering. Rates a lot of the commercial campgrounds, as well as some public ones.

 

Trailer Life—Affiliated with Good Sam Club, this is another review and information site that can come in handy.

 

 

When all else fails: Trust Nomadic Serendipity

 

Sometimes, ideal camping spots just manifest themselves when we need them. There have been several times when we’ve found camping spots without looking for them.