Written by Vince Wheeler

Where can I find cheap or free places to camp?

Living in an RV or van posses a few problems. Most cities don’t want you there. Most locals, NIMBYs (not in my backyard), will call the cops on you, damage your vehicle, or harass you in some way. All in the attempt to get you to move along. I believe there is a deep seeded resentment towards people who check out of the rat race. Most people feel trapped by it. If you dare buck the system, people will attack you for it. So now you want to head out to some rural area and camp for free or cheap? Awesome… I have some ideas to help you.

Private RV Parks

There are many private RV parks all over the country. Many of them are really affordable for almost any budget.

Here are some locations to give you an idea of what is available:

Caballo Loco Ranch
Featured on CheapRVLiving, this has to be one of the best deals you’re going to find. If I recall correctly, it was about $800 for dry camping and $2800 for six months with full hookups. Here’s is a video Bob Wells made that covers everything:

Coyote Howls
Need a cheap place to live? Do you like the desert? Can you withstand 100+ degree days/nights in the summer? If so, you really can’t beat Coyote Howls. This is another spot I learned about from Bob Wells (I like to give credit where credit is due). I don’t think your lot has anything on it, but the park has hot showers and bathrooms. You get your lot for less than $600 per year. That’s insane. There website is down, so most of this is on memory. You’ll have to verify that everything is as stated. If you’re broke and can work from remote areas, this might work for you. If you’re just traveling during the winter, you can stay pretty cheap. They have full hookups if you’re willing to pay a higher price.

Diamond Jacks
This park is located in a suburb of San Diego called Spring Valley. If you want a fairly affordable RV park in a location with very mild summer and winter weather, this might be for you. I haven’t personally stayed here, but I know friends who have. It cost about $600 a month, which for California is about as good as it gets. They only have about 40 spots, so getting a space might be a struggle. Here’s the link to their website!

Thousand Trails

This has been one of my closely held secrets. Sure tons of people know about it, but most are older people who were around in the heyday of Thousand Trails. The memberships are super cheap. Often you can buy one for about $500 and based on the newest membership plans, you can even get your membership without any nightly fees. You are allowed to stay for 14 days or 21 days depending on what type of pass you have. The basic pass allows you to stay for 14 days, then you need to leave the system for 7 days. After that, you are welcome back for another 14 days. That means you can stay for about 243 days a year for only $500. That makes it about $2.05 a day! It’s hard to beat that.

The 21 day option is a lot more money. You can buy plans for about $3500 from people selling their old memberships or buy a new one for upwards of $8,500. This gives you the right to stay in the park system all year long. The only catch is you must move to a new park every 21 days.  If you choose to stay in one park and leave the system for 7 days, you get about 274 days per year at one park. That’s not much better than the basic pass. If you plan to move between two parks, this upgraded membership gives you 365 days a year of in park stays. Both are great options for cheap living. Most parks have bathrooms with showers. Most have pools, clubhouses, even mini-golf. If you are looking for a high end RV park, most Thousand Trails will let you down. They are often on the dirtier side. Not horrible, but not great. Average middle of the road kind of RV park. It’s best to avoid the parks on major holidays. Based on my own experience, the weekend warriors come out and cause drama. They blast their radios all night. Drive around in quads or other off-road vehicles and basically treat people with little respect. The good news is they are often gone by the next Monday and the usually crowd is fairly polite to each other.

Some negatives have to do with the cheap price being paid. Most parks are full of tweakers and drunks. Essentially the “homeless” mentality who figured out the secret. Thousand Trails is stuck when it comes to this problem. They refuse to pay the money to upgrade their parks and the low quality parks can’t command high quality members. There’s a few other problems that I’m not comfortable expressing here yet. For now, don’t buy more than a basic membership and don’t buy it for any longer than one year. That will give you a chance to figure things out for the area you’re planning to live in. If you find it undesirable, you’re not going to  lose more than $500 or so.

Slab City

At this point, “The Slabs” have become legendary. It’s been featured in movies and TV shows. In general, you are going to find a lot of drug users and shady people here. For some more adventurous people, you can join in that group or stay on the outskirts. Slab City is a former military station. It was abandoned and the buildings were removed. The concrete slabs those buildings rested on are still there today and it’s how the place got it’s name. It is free to live here. There are no official facilites provided to you. There are some unique places there. A few include the Library, the coffee shop, and Salvation Mountain.

National Forest, National Parks, and BLM Land

In general, most government forest, parks, and BLM land will allow you to stay in the any campground for free for up to 14 days. There are restrictions though and you should check the specific area you plan of visiting.

Developed Campgrounds: You may stay up to 14 days at most developed campgrounds within the National Forest system. After that, you must leave for 7 days.

Dispersed Camping: You may stay up to 14 days in most dispersed camping areas located within the National Forest system. After that, you must leave for 14 days. With dispersed camping, you are allowed to move anywhere else in the system as long as it is more than five miles away (radius).

You cannot leave your camping equipment or anything else while you are required to be absent. You must take everything with you. Keep in mind, the parks belong to every citizen of the United States. They don’t belong to any one citizen. These rules help insure people don’t squat or abuse the park system. Visiting parks would quickly become impossible if people just built permanent camps. Respect and courtesy seems to be diminishing in our culture. Treat the parks and it’s visitors the way you would want to be treated.

Some basic rules of camping on public lands (or any place for that matter)

Pack In / Pack Out: This basic rule means what it says. If you pack something into a camp area, pack it out with you. Trash is found almost everywhere on the planet. If you leave it, someone else will have to clean up after you or they’ll have to camp among your trash. Not cool.

Use Catholes For Human Waste: If you are in dispersed camping areas and you don’t have access to bathrooms, dig a “cathole” six inches wide and six inches deep. Do your business in that hole and bury it. A good rule of thumb is to take 70 paces away from water, trails, or campsites.

Don’t Damage The Trees Or Plants: I have actually seen people smacking trees with swords. This damages the bark which protects the inside of the tree. You will likely kill that tree if you damage it’s bark too deeply. I have also seen people hammer bolts into trees to hang hammocks from. I can’t understand why people think this is okay. You are only a visitor. Leave the plant life protected and pristine for others. This behavior forces the government to make more rules and laws, further damaging our freedom. If people can’t regulate themselves, some government will do it for us.

Camp Fires: It’s usually best to use already existing campfire rings. If you don’t have one near your camp and you are permitted to have a campfire, don’t make a fire near trees. I use to work for the California Conservation Corps. We had a few guys from our group head out for a weekend camping trip. These are guys who had 40 hour fire fighting training. They made a fire near a tree. Put the fire out prior to leaving, but the fire was basically buried. It kept on burning underground until it caught the roots of a tree of fire. That tree eventually caught on fire and started a small forest fire. Even people trained to fight forest fires can cause fires. Putting dirt over a fire isn’t the only thing you should do. Pour water on it when you are finished. Soak the area thoroughly. A forest fire can kill people. Sometimes a lot of people.

Final Thoughts

I’ll update this section as I learn of more ways for you to camp for cheap or free. There’s always the obvious spots, but finding special places is fun. It’s important that we follow the rules to keep these places clean for others. I’ve seen nice places get trashed by visitors and that eventually leads the government to shutting those places down. Have so much state and federal property available to us is a blessing. If we all treat it as that, it will be around for more to enjoy. If you have any ideas, please share on our social media platforms.