Defined: What is boondocking? (Free Camping)

RV Parks are expensive if you are out on the road for any extended period of time. And if you are full time? Well, you know how expensive they are. RVers have long looked for free places to park and do so in greater numbers today. They may call it dry camping, Wal-Mart parking (parking in a parking lot overnight) or boondocking. All of these are just camping without hookups. People used to refer to living out in the boondocks, so boondocking came from that. Camping out in the country far away from utilities and crowds. Dry camping, referring to no water/sewer hookups, can be done in many RV parks, state parks, forest parks or Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land.

A more recent reference to this term is parking in rest areas, casinos, Walmart (and others) store parking lots and truck stops. The noise is getting louder and these are all thrown in together. At AllStays, we have guides for store parking lots, truck stops and then we have campground listings. We don't mix them at this time. We do have more remote and primitive camping listings than anyone else but they are listed together with pay locations. So you have all the options.

We have also found some small towns that allow free overnight parking right in their town parks. These are few and far between but we are working on a guide to find them.

Boondocking now encompasses all of these methods but we prefer to still think of it as being out in the remote wilderness with only the sounds of birds and scurrying animals, not truck engines.

Wal-mart Managers

This is just a note to clarify something about stores that have "No Parking" signs, as well as those noted as such on our site. If you are at the store or stopping in anyway, go ahead and ask the manager. It may be a local ordinance and they have no choice but to send you away. In many cases, we've heard from travelers where they were welcomed anyway. The signs may be posted as part of a screening process or to discourage trucks and vagrants. Or even to eliminate those who don't bother to ask. They may be happy to have you stay the night if you are a nice respectable RV. Be nice, courteous and brief.

Check our Wal-Mart store guide for help, locations and maps.

Gay-Friendly Cities Prosper

A recent segment of CNN's Inn The Money featured a professor from George Mason University by the name of Richard Florida. He is the author of the book The Rise of the Creative Class and stated that the more "gay-friendly" a city is, the more economically prosperous it can be.

He said that the college educated youth are moving to the most "gay-friendly" cities because those cities tend to have the best job markets. Think of Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Microsoft (and now Google in their expansion) and Seattle. Other cities at the top include Boston, Portland Oregon and Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida. These are cities where open-mindedness leads to innovation and new technology. These cities are prospering and tend to be both more expensive and culturally interesting. You almost don't have to look at hotel room rates in the top and bottom of these lists to know which is doing much better. The gay-friendly cities are much more expensive to visit.

The cities at the bottom end of gay-friendly cities? They include Pittsburgh, Birmingham AL, Detroit, Buffalo, Charlotte NC, and Oklahoma City. These are not the most prosperous, open-minded cities these days. The kids are leaving and not many new jobs are coming in. The educated youth then goes to where the money and ideas are growing.

Free City Campgrounds

We pass by many small towns all over the country. We see them fading away with time. Businesses close, people move away, young people relocate to big cities and the population goes down. The only thing expanding is the cemetery.

We head to RV Parks in and outside of cities. We pass by rest areas on interstates. We head to State Parks in the country. We pass by Wal-marts and other large stores that let you park for free. They want to treat their customers well and get them in the store to spend money.

So why can't small towns do the same?

We recently were driving across North Dakota and found a small town of Towner. No pun intended. There are some open businesses and even more closed businesses. One of the showcases of Towner was the Winger Cheese Factory. They have closed due to a lack of small dairy farmers.

The town had a nice city park with a couple of hookups, a playground and restrooms. They welcomed RVs to stay there for free. We stopped with enthusiasm. We are happy to stop at the gas station, the local market or convenience store, the coffee shop, whatever a town has left to offer. In this case, the Winger Cheese Factory still had a store open a couple days a week. We bought some cheese.

When a town welcomes you to stop and stay, you stop and spend. It is a win for local businesses and the traveler. The loser could be a local campground if there is one. But in most of these towns, there isn't a local campground. These are towns that you bypass on the way to the next spot in Good Sam, Woodalls or whatever guide you are using.

Many of us will drive a little less if we can stay and enjoy your warm small town hospitality. So if you are on a local chamber or board, think about this. Do you have a park? Do you have an old parking lot? An old drive-in? An old motel? Maybe some old land that could be turned into something useful to welcome travelers to stay a bit and spend money in your town?