How To Camp: Hookups or ?
Lakeside views at Saratoga Springs, Utah
I want you to picture yourself camping right now, in an area you have longed to see, something that might bring you great peace and joy, a getaway from the reality of life for a moment. Does this place look like a campground, full of noisy campers arriving at their site, or does it look like camping in the middle of nowhere, with only the sounds of nature and a beautiful sunset waiting for your eyes to watch?
As you plan your RV lifestyle, this is an important question: how to camp and where?
Lets take a look at some delectable types of camping, the top 3, pros and cons of each and some links to help you make your choices:
Work camping in Cody, Wyoming
Campgrounds:
Pros: Safety in numbers! Some of us do feel safer when there are plenty of people around. Most campgrounds have hookups, like electricity, water and sewer, so you do not have to deal with charging your batteries, draining your sewer or filling up your tanks with water (more on that later). These are fee-based according to what hook ups you have. Some offer partial, such as electricity and water, with a dump station on the campground site, or just electricity. You can leave your RV in comfort on the campground if you decided to explore your area with a vehicle. Might have propane on site for a fee. Most of them are kid friendly. A lot of them have laundry rooms.
Cons: Noisy campers, dogs barking, sites too close. Could be expensive, depending on what campground you choose. Might have to wait to do your laundry as there are limited machines. Sometimes hard to get reservations so you will need to plan early, even 6 months to a year!
State and Federal Parks:
Pros: More space between sites, usually in nice, nature areas, not as noisy as campgrounds. Can offer hook ups, mostly just electricity and water, but usually a dump station on the park site. If you camp in a federal park, you might get a discount if you have a senior pass.
Cons: You will have to drive your trailer to the dump station to take care of your delicates. Need to make reservations early as these parks can fill up quickly. Can be a little out of the way to stores or dreamy destinations. Most rigs fit on state park sites, but federal is usually smaller since they were made many years ago before trailers got big.
Boondocking:
Pros: This is my favorite so far, as it is FREE!!!! Did you hear me? FREE!!!! You could find a place on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land or forest. For big rigs, it is easier to stay on BLM land as there is much room for the big ones to turn around and find a fabulous place. Imagine yourself with a lake front view, or a sunset over a huge mountain range, or a large open desert with no noise, especially freeway noise. You can stay up to 14 or 16 days, whatever the rule is for boondocking on that site. It is freedom away from others, noise, work, whatever stresses you out. You can sometimes find a dispersed site that is close to amenities like getting water, dump, groceries, laundry and other things.
Cons: You are limited to 14-16 days, and even sometimes less. You will need to look the campground up on a computer or your phone, or even physically go to that particular campground site and look up the limitations for camping. You might look into RV Facebook groups for advice on traveling to destinations or camping sites. Some dispersed sites are far away from the city and will require a drive to take care of your necessities, which will cost you extra gas. You will need to charge your batteries, whether you have a generator or solar, they will need to be charged, especially on cloudy or rainy days.
Lander City Park, Wyoming
Since we mostly boondock, this is the website I use to help us find a site: Campendium. com. You can access it with your android or apple phone, or a computer. You can also find places to fill up with water, dump and trash all on Campendium. com. The Dyrt app is also another source to find camp sites. When we look for camp sites, we look for water, dump and trash areas that are close by to save gas. Also I look for grocery stores and laundromats that are close too. Most campgrounds have some of those things, like full hookups and nearby stores and laundry, so no worries there. We just do not want to pay the high cost of campground fees!
Lake Mary Trail, Utah
Here are some more links for RV camping:
hipcamp.com - camping on someone’s land for a small fee
boondockerswelcome.com - camping on someone’s land for free and a limited time
harvesthosts.com - Harvest Hosts and Boondockers Welcome are now combined and also offers camping on someone’s land for a limited time. Harvest Hosts expects you to purchase something from the land you are camping on, such as a farm, a winery, a dairy, to help with costs.
Now that you have a great start, now what? How is your budget doing? One key thing I want to leave you with is this: GET OUT OF DEBT! It will hurt you on the road as you RV. You will have unexpected expenses come up that will require a dip into savings (do you have any?), not monthly credit card payments with high interest rates.
For our next blog in the RV lifestyle series, I will be sharing with you something personal, something emotional that I went through (and even sometimes still do!) as we started this RV adventure. Yes, there is an emotional impact, but you will have to wait till next time. Thanks for tuning in with me!
Here are links to the previous blogs about living the RV adventure (hate for you to miss out!):