Camping On The Road 101

Let's face it, if you're not an avid camper, this part of the trip might be a little tricky at first going along with the whole "frugal" aspect. I've gone camping my whole life growing up in the Adirondack Mountains in New York, but just as everyone else did, it was always at a locally owned campground. That's how I was raised and honestly, if I hadn't reached out and talked to people and did my research, I would've thought that was the only way to go as well. A lot of the time when traveling, people think that you HAVE to stop and stay at a campground, a KOA, or an RV site, and I'm here to tell you that you don't.

Just about everywhere in the states has free dispersed camping somewhere, it's just knowing how to look for it. I've done some research and have found some of the best apps to use while traveling on the road and avoiding paying $20-$60 a night on a campsite (because let's be honest, that's just ridiculous people). Fun fact about the states, there's hundreds to millions of acres of public land in just about every state.

For example, here's a short list of the top ten states with the most public land..

New Mexico - 31,554,720 acres

California - 42,288,380 acres

Arizona - 38,978,890 acres

Wyoming - 33,964,230 acres

Idaho - 32,244,800 acres

Utah - 37,019,770 acres

Nevada - 56,972,280 acres

Alaska - 325,700,000 acres

New York - 11,174,550 acres

Colorado - 26,458,890 acres

The most popular site out there for dispersed camping is definitely freecampsites.net. Just about every person who loves camping and being outdoors that I've met has this exact site bookmarked on their phone, or at least knows about it. After finding and trying it out, I would honestly just have to give the site about a 6 out of 10. There's tons of camping areas located on it, but unfortunately the search engine isn't the most user friendly out there that I've seen (not completely ruling it out though, it's still a goodie).

A few more popular sites are..

1) Recreation.gov. This is a goverment app (meaning it's going to take you to all of the government sites.. not too helpful while being frugal but when you're in a heavily populated area and you've run out of options, it's a good way to go).

2) BLM.gov. This is another federal site, but differs from recreation.gov because it gives you access to all of the free camping on federal land! I've never personally used this site, but an awesome camp worker in Monticello, CA gave us this one for future use when we were out of options for one night and ended up having to pay $45 for our one night stay (we weren't pleased, but the free advice was worth it).

3) AllTrails.com. This site gives you free access to over 75,000 trails with detailed information about each, including which ones you can camp at, so not only can you camp, but you can explore before you do so, and that's half the fun.

4) TheDyrt.com. This site happens to be my personal favorite. It's extremely user friendly and gives you an unbelievable amount of free sites in every single state. Keep an eye out for the grey sites that are close to actual campgrounds, sites in the middle of towns and sites near any federal or state parks. I do believe that these could be places to car camp during the winter or even summer if that's how you're going about camping and have the space, but if not, check them out before putting a final destination on it.

*NOTE*

When using any of these sites for dispersed camping, make sure to start looking for your site a couple hours before sunset. This way you have time to actually scope out your site, make sure that it's legitimate and you can really stay there, then run to the store to get any last minute night-time / breakfast supplies you may need before you go back and actually set up camp. Setting up in the dark is fun sometimes, but it gets old after a few nights on the road. Also, sometimes the grey sites will show up where it might seem that you can't stay. My advice, if you don't see any "No Trespassing" or "No Overnight Parking" signs, give it a try. The worst that will happen is that someone will come by and tell you that you can't stay there and you move on. Hope these sites help out and happy camping!

*If anyone has any sites that they use or prefer, feel free to drop them in the comment section for others, and myself, to try out as well!*