We’re in the midst of planning out where we’ll stay and making a lodging budget for our Epic Road Trip Across the US to include all the places we’ll be RV camping.
How to Find Free and Low Cost RV Camping Sites
The photo above is from a weekend trip to Santa Cruz, CA to stay with family, parked in their yard. We’ll be staying with family or friends some of the time on our trip. But the rest of it, we plan to camp for free as much as possible. We used Campendium to find BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land for free camping and low cost RV camping. The site it no longer free, unfortunately, but we used the heck out of it while it was and I love it so much it’s worth paying for just while planning and on our trip. What’s really great is you can see photos and read reviews from other campers. Most of the reviews for BLM camping have specific directions of what to look for, if the road is drivable without 4WD, where a large RV can fit, where to park, since it can be tricky to find the actual campsites on BLM land. The app also tells you where dump stations are and you can filter by any type of camping you’re looking for including price range and amenities, if any.
Sometimes on our trip, we’ll be driving long distances between planned stops, so, using Campendium, we made notes of places along the way we could stay for free, depending on how far we traveled that day. We could almost always stay over in a Walmart or Bass Pro parking lot if one was along the route or if there wasn’t a decent BLM spot nearby. We’ll be grocery shopping at Walmart’s, since there’s always room to park and we’re not bringing a tow vehicle. I printed out maps for all the possible stay-overs along with reviews with detailed directions from Campendium, in case we didn’t have cell service. If we do have cell service, I can search wherever we’re at with the Campendium app to find places to stay or dump stations. I’m not an affiliate, it’s just a tool I highly recommend because it’s been so helpful for us!
I made reservation for the RV parks or campgrounds for cost that we’ll be staying at. The most expensive will be when we need to stay in cities, such as for the wedding in LA we’ll be part of and when in DC and NY. I also booked state parks and national parks campgrounds through reserveamerica.com, because those fill up fast and I don’t want to risk them being full, even though we’re going in off season (which help keep costs down as well). We have a National Park pass and state parks will give a disability discount.
I booked them all using the credit card I opened specifically for this trip so it was easy to track how much we’re spending and I could earn reward points (we’ll be paying it off with savings prior to the introductory 0% interest for a year deadline, so I’m not recommending anyone just go max out a credit card). Some campground reservations don’t open up yet for another few months, so I’m keeping notes on when to call and reserve them.
I’m keeping a growing folder to take with us. It includes print outs of all our reservations, tickets, maps, etc. In the order we’ll need them. I don’t like to rely solely on technology. What if I’m out of cell service range or can’t find or load the ticket on my phone when we need it? It takes away the stress knowing I have a paper back up. Plus I can easily find check in and out times or late check in details and campground rules.
Now that reservations are done, or at least planned out and priced, we can focus on the really fun part. Activities!
The last thing left to plan is the fun stuff! The only part the kids actually wanted to plan. We’re leaving it up to the kids to make the final decisions on what stops we’re making, what adventures are to be had, as we go across the whole country and back.