A beautiful thing about RVing in the U.S. is that the country is full of “public land” that you can camp on for free. Before we started our trip, I had no idea that free camping was a thing. Now, when I tell people that we camped for free somewhere, I have to explain briefly how that’s possible and why it’s a great option.
If you’re going on a RV trip or even a road trip or tent camping trip, you need to know about public lands and how to camp on them for free around the U.S. It’ll help you save tons of money, avoid crowded campgrounds, and let you get a more rugged, close-to-nature experience than any established campground can.
Here’s what you need to know about camping for free on U.S. public lands.
There are many types of public land in the U.S.
When we talk about “public land,” we’re talking about land in the U.S. that is held in a trust for the American people. The local, state, or federal government manages it, but it’s land that is essentially owned by all of us, which means we all get to use it. National parks and national monuments are public lands. So are national wildlife refuges, historic sites, recreation areas, and national conservation areas.
You can’t always camp wherever you want for free in these protected areas, though. For example, most national parks don’t allow camping anywhere except for in established campgrounds, which are not free. Other public lands may offer dispersed camping areas, without water/electric/sewage hookups, for a small fee (usually less than $20 a night).
The best public lands for free camping are BLM and USFS land.
The BLM, or Bureau of Land Management, is a government organization within the United States Department of the Interior (the same department that manages the National Park Service). It’s responsible for managing over 247.3 million acres of public lands—that’s one eighth of the country’s landmass.
USFS is the U.S. Forest Service. A division of the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA), the USFS oversees the land that makes up the 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands around the country. That’s 193 million acres of land in total.
Free camping on public land is very limited in the eastern U.S.
I grew up in the northeast, and I never heard about public land until we started looking into RVing. It just wasn’t something anyone talked about. We quickly realized that’s because it barely exists in the northeast. Sure, there are national historic sites, recreation areas, monuments, and seashores, but huge swaths of national forest land just doesn’t really exist. Out west, it’s plentiful.
We camped for free all around Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, even in Oklahoma and Texas. Once we got to the midwest and then the eastern U.S., we had an impossible time finding free spots. That’s not to say they don’t exist at all! They just weren’t easy to find, so we opted for booking campgrounds instead so we wouldn’t stress.
Here’s how to find BLM and USFS land that you can camp on for free:
Both BLM and USFS land have policies that essentially say you can camp wherever you want, unless it specifically says you can’t. There are a handful of reasons why these lands could be off limits. The government can give out special use permits that lease these lands to mining companies, ranchers, and other private individuals. If the land is being leased to someone, you can’t just show up and park your camper or pitch a tent on it. Usually, these areas will have signs that say “no camping” or “private property.”
The truth is, neither the BLM nor the USFS has a great website for finding public lands that are available for camping. Some resources are helpful: You can Google a specific national forest + “dispersed camping” and usually find a webpage that lays out where dispersed camping (as free camping is often called) is available. This can also help you find the established pay-for sites, in case you’d rather do that. Some forest site seven list out popular dispersed camping areas, like this page from Coconino National Forest. Individual forest sites are also a good way to learn about current restrictions, and to find the phone numbers for ranger stations and address of field offices. You can always go into a field office to ask for more info.
Download an app
But in terms of finding a map or GPS coordinates that’ll take you to a specific idyllic spot in the middle of the woods? It just doesn’t exist. IMO, the BLM website is pretty much useless—there’s a filter you can apply to a map to see where the BLM boundaries are, but it tells you nothing about access or the terrain or if there are clear spots where you can easily set up camp. It’s only helpful if you already know the name of a BLM dispersed camping area and want to search for it by name and find some more details.
So then, how does one go about discovering free camping spots? There’s an app for that—or rather, a handful of apps that are actually extremely helpful.
iOverlander has become our favorite. FreeRoam and Campendium are pretty good, too. (BTW, I linked to all the desktop versions, so you can either search right on the webpage or download the apps). All of these resources are user-generated; people go camping in awesome spots, andf they check in and share details on the app.
Explore on your own
Of course, the spots you’ll find on apps have been used by other people and some of them tend to get crowded. If you want a camping spot that’s more secretive, you’ll have to do some exploring and discovering on your own. Which, we can’t really do when we’re showing up with a 24-foot trailer. We can’t risk going down a road with no turnarounds and getting stuck. But if you’re traveling with a smaller vehicle, I encourage you to go out into a national forest and venture down forest roads to find your ideal spot.
Just please be sure to familiarize yourself with Leave No Trace principles and any local guidelines from the USFS, BLM, state, or county you’re visiting.
