How to camp for free on public lands

All photos in this post were taken on public lands.

Van life is awesome for many reasons, but a big one is that you don’t have to spend money on rent! And depending on what kind of lifestyle you want to live, you can certainly do it all on the cheap. One of the biggest spenders in van life can be campgrounds, especially if it’s tourist season and you’re in a popular place. I’ve seen campgrounds charge as much as $50 per night! More often than not it’s closer to the $20-30 range and those expenses add up. So free camping is definitely something to look for if you want to save some of your hard-earned bucks. Besides stealth camping in towns or parking in Walmart or Cracker Barrel locations, there’s one other way to camp for free… public lands! This is also known as "boondocking".
Why camp on public lands? Besides it costing zero dollars, more often than not you will have the space to yourself. Plus, it’s a wonderful way to experience the more underused portion of our natural lands; there are lots of gems out there waiting to be discovered by you!

Pros: free, no reservations, private, ‘roughing it’ experience

Cons: may be difficult to find, no amenities, off the beaten path

What is “public land”? Public land is land open to the public, but managed and owned by the government, so that would include the 193 million acres of public land managed by the US Forest Service (USFS), 247 million acres of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and other lands like certain Wildlife Management Areas (WMA), state forests, and grasslands. If you didn't already know (now you do), there is SO much land out there to explore, more than just National Parks and designated recreational areas. Super popular areas like Sedona, Arizona, the Grand Canyon, the Sawtooth mountains of Idaho, the Rocky Mountains of Colorado... all have amazing sites out there where you can legally camp for free. (See this one for instance: Kaibab National Forest, South rim of Grand Canyon.)

What do the rules state? As stated on BLM’s website, “public lands are open to dispersed camping, as long as it does not conflict with other authorized uses or in areas posted "closed to camping," or in some way adversely affects wildlife species or natural resources.”

What is “dispersed camping”? Camping on public lands away from developed recreation facilities.

How do I find these campsites? Search for nearby National Forests, or BLM land. (Literally, I type name of the town where we want to go or already are in, then "national forest, dispersed campsites" and a lot of info comes up.) Your best bet, and to get all your questions answered, is to call the public lands office. The people that run those will likely be able to easily answer your questions since they're the ones that manage that land. So depending on what kind of land, you'll call the Forest Service office for National Forests, or field BLM offices for BLM land- you get the picture. (Most offices should have contact info online.)

You can also try searching the internet for information on the specific area. One great resource is www.freecampsites.net. Sometimes finding the right spot to camp on public lands requires a lot of research. The good thing (or bad depending on how you look at it) is that many of these free, undeveloped campsites are now listed on Google and across the internet. So sometimes I’ll just use my Google maps app, zoom into an area where I’m looking to camp, then search “campsites”. Depending on the popularity of the area, some campsites will pop up, then I'll google the camp names to check if it’s paid or free camping.

Find a National Forest in your map, zoom in, then start searching for places to camp.

So it’s important to know what to search for and what questions to ask, such as: how long can I stay; how far from the road do I need to camp; how far from designated recreational areas; is the area difficult to find? Try googling these questions or asking a Forest Service ranger if you get a hold of one.

Or if you’re feeling more adventurous, bring along a paper map with you that shows National Forests, Forest Service roads (desginated as NF-## or FS-##), and BLM roads. Drive out on one of these roads into the designated wilderness area and find a clearing to camp. These roads are hubs for dispersed camping so you may find one that’s already set up as an undeveloped campsite. If you’re going in blind (meaning you’ve never been there before and haven’t done much research on the specific location), I suggest arriving in daylight hours so you can more easily choose a site to camp, and also get a good look around and make sure you’re not in someone’s driveway or on private property.

Other stuff you’ll need to know

• Rules for picking a campsite: Choose a site 100 feet away from any water source, 150 feet away from a roadway, and outside a 1-mile radius of a designated campsite. (These are more general rules, but they can change depending on the campsite, so check with the local forest service office or google the regional information to find out for sure.)
• So basically, if you know you're in National Forest or BLM land, not in an area where it's posted "no camping" nor are you on private property, then you are free to camp there as long as you follow the rules stated directly above in choosing a site.

• You can only stay 14 nights within a 28 day consecutive period. After that, you must move to a campsite that is at least 5 miles away.

• With these being free campsites, there are no amenities at the sites. Sometimes you’re lucky and there’s running water or maybe a bathroom, but that’d be the most you’d find. Also, there are no trash services. Anything you bring in must be brought back out. That includes toilet paper! Follow these rules from Bearfoot Theory’s website on how to go to the bathroom while out in nature. And yes, it involves digging a hole. In fact, this topic of ‘leave no trace’ is so important that it deserves its own section…

Be a good steward to the land

You must pack out all trash* from your dispersed campsite. There’s typically no trash services at these areas so leaving it would be a very bad call. And if you think “well I’m just one person leaving a little bit of trash”- that’s not cool AND it sets a bad precedent for how we treat our public lands. How awesome is it that we can camp for free in so many amazing parts of the country? Now let’s not ruin that by trashing the earth. 

*all trash includes food scraps. It’s a common misconception that food scraps, like apple cores, are fine to throw away on the ground since they’re biodegradable. And while they are biodegradable, it takes nearly a year for them to disintegrate. So that means a year of being an eyesore in a beautiful natural area.

So that's that! If anyone would like personal recommendations on the places I've boondocked, please leave me a comment or contact me. :-)