Boondocking is free camping, generally out in the “boondocks”.
Call it a pet peeve, but it sure seems ridiculous to pay for camping. You may have noticed, our wonderful National Forests really like to charge you for primitive camping. But did you know, usually just a mile or two away from the “developed” campground, you can find a secluded spot in your National Forest that’s perfectly legal to camp? With my RV, I only need a flat spot to park.
I am always looking for ways of making my free camping experience easier so I log all of my GPS coordinates of the nice Boondocking camping experiences for future use.
While driving to get to the boondocks, I save some money by staying overnight in the parking lot of a WalMart or other Big Box stores. “Staying in a WalMart is not boondocking!” It’s just cheap parking without hook-ups. Many of these are open 24 hours and you can blend in well there. Make them your first choice, if overnight parking is forbidden at a Walmart here is a partial list of other areas to consider parking:
- Big Box Stores
- Grocery Stores
- Malls
- Churches
- Residential Areas
- Industrial Areas
- Hospitals
WalMart thought it was great. They picked up a loyal group of shoppers who obviously had extra disposable income.
On the other hand, the RV parks didn’t think it was so great. They were loosing a lot of business. So they approached the local city council and lobbied them to make boondocking (sleeping overnight in an unapproved place) illegal in their city. The cities wanted to protect the RV parks since they paid a lot of taxes on their land and income, and passed ordinances making boondocking illegal. They made WalMart post signs in their parking lot saying overnight parking was illegal. These signs are becoming more and more common across the country.
Some cities have started to see boondockers/stealth campers as source of income. The police watch the local WalMarts and when they identify someone as camping overnight they roust them. Instead of simply sending you on your way, they ususally issue a ticket with a fine of several hundred dollars. Ignorance of the law is no excuse and you will end up paying. For that reason alone, unless you know that the city does not fine boondockers, you may want to avoid Walmart. Enforcement of these rules are usually selective.
This is where stealth parking comes in. The police won’t hassle you if they don’t notice you. You want to blend in and draw the minimum attention to yourself. A 40 foot motorhome does not blend in well, in fact it sticks out like a sore thumb.
Even if stealth parking is not illegal, local police are often hostile to people who live unconventional lifestyles. They don’t understand them and it is human nature to fear the unknown. If you are not breaking any laws, there is not much they can do, but they can still hassle you and tell you to move on.