Free Campsites aka Boondocking

Originally posted by Happy Tripping Well,  ... at the risk of seeming to be pedantic, 'boondocking' refers to camping, 'rv siwashing' might better describe overnight parking at a Walmart or equivalent, but certainly not 'boondocking'.

For those who do travel to or live in the western states, we have vast federal lands on which you can do what's called "dispersed camping" for FREE. Primarily on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and National Forests land. In general - but be sure to do your own research before you go - you can camp anywhere on these lands that does not restrict camping. You must stay on areas that have been cleared for parking, or spurs off gravel roads, etc. It's obvious when you see them and/or read about them. You can't always have a campfire but in areas where you can you need a free campfire permit. Here in the west we're extremely sensitive about fire and that can be a big disappointment for people coming from wetter areas. For our non-trailer camping almost all of it is dispersed. For next summer we will take our RPod to a lot of the places we're already camped in the eastern Sierra and Great Basin Desert as we're familiar enough with the unpaved roads we know which ones we will take our trailer. For the places we camp using 4WD, we won't take our RPod, just not worth it and not what we bought it for. The reason we'll wait til summer is because we'll camp winter in our trailer in our coast mountains and central valley; but not haul our trailer into or over the Sierra Nevada in snow. We'll keep doing our winter snow camping without our trailer. In Rockies, Sierra, Cascades, etc. you can certainly encounter snow in summer and we'll deal with that as it occurs, but it's not the same as the winter snow storms. Regarding roads on BLM and Forest Service lands, there are lots of references that rate the roads from easy 2WD to extremely rugged 4WD; so that information is readily available too. 

I found two that are 'Play to Play' sites. Curious if anyone has.

Here's another Dump Station site that looks pretty good. Lists paid and free.

Neither Lowe's or Home Depot show up in the RV Parky app as places that are open for overnight RV stays. I guess you could stop at one and ask. It would be interesting to find out the result.