Boondocking: Expanding your RVing horizons

Today's post about boondocking comes from Bob Difley of Healthy RV Lifestyle. You may be wondering why an RV park review website would run a blog post about boondocking to begin with? That's because you can actually review boondocking sites here on RVParking.com. In fact, we have some great reviews of boondooking sites, including some BLM land, the Slabs and sites at Burning Man. Even if you are a boondocker that doesn't stay in RV parks very often, you can still review boondocking sites for us.

You’ve probably heard a lot about boondocking and wondered why anyone would want to camp where there were no water, sewage, or electrical hookups. After all, camping in an RV in an RV resort or campground is pretty comfortable, and living without those hookups would seem to make it less enjoyable.

In reality, all modern RVs have been manufactured to be not only mobile, but also independent of appendages that hook them up to land-based resources. All RVs have a holding tank for fresh water, and most of the time two holding tanks for waste, one from the toilet and one from the shower and sinks. They also have a house battery or batteries to supply 12-volt electricity to the RV and a generator to produce electricity for 120-volt systems, produce electricity directly to both the 12-volt and 120-volt systems, and to recharge the batteries.

So when using your RV’s systems rather than a campground’s, it opens up many more camping possibilities and vast natural areas for enjoying your RV lifestyle, such as in our national forests and on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands. The National Forest Service (FS) manages the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, encompassing 193 million acres.

The BLM manages approximately 253 million acres--one-eighth of the landmass of the country—most of it in the West. These massive areas, and more managed by other agencies of the Federal Government such as the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation, are known collectively as federal public lands.

The opportunity for RVers is that camping—boondocking—is permitted on these public lands. If you only go to campgrounds, think how much of the country’s wonderful natural and scenic land you are missing, not to mention the joy of solitude when you find a boondocking campsite by a tumbling mountain stream or on a broad desert plain under the shade of a mesquite tree and there is no one else in sight.

First, though, you have to get comfortable with camping without hookups. You can start off with boondocking for just one or two nights, which won’t tax your onboard systems. But to go longer than that you need to learn some conservation techniques and alter some wasteful habits.

Conserve your fresh water supply by taking Navy showers—rinsing down, turning off water, soaping up, rinsing off. Wash your hands the same way. And while you are warming up the water, run it into a plastic tub or bucket and use it to flush the toilet or rinse dishes. Rinse dishes in the tub of water, rather than under a running faucet. When washing dishes, use a small container of soapy water to wash with. Carry extra Jerry jugs or gallon containers of water to dump in your tank in case your pump starts sucking air.

Wipe food off your dishes before washing, then dump your wash and rinse water (but only if you use biodegradable soap) on a thirsty plant several yards outside your campsite. You can also dig a hole and pour the waste water in, then fill in the hole. Filling your gray water tank is one of the more limiting factors in how long you can boondock, so prevent as much waste water from entering the tank as you can. With a little practice you will be surprised at how much water you previously wasted.

You will also want to conserve electricity so that your house batteries last as long as possible. Turn off lights, TV, radio, porch light, computers and any other electrical appliance or tool when it is not being used. Wake up with the sun and go to bed when it does so you don’t have to burn lights well into the dark of night. Use battery operated book lights for reading—and you won’t keep your mate awake by reading with the RV lights.

If you need to use a 120-volt appliance like the microwave, blender, or coffee grinder, or your battery-draining water pump, try to schedule using these in the same block of time while running the generator, which will power them directly without pulling amps out off your batteries.

Finding boondocking campsites

Stop at visitor centers and chambers of commerce for area or state maps that show recreational lands, such as with colored shading to designate the various public lands. Ask in BLM and FS offices or ranger stations for maps of dispersed camping areas, the official terminology for boondocking campsites. Most roads to these sites will be dirt but were built solidly for logging and cattle trucks and fire-fighting equipment and most should be suitable for RVs.

The previous rule for boondocking on public lands stated that you could camp on any appropriate spot off the road, as long as you did not block any roads or parts of roads. The new Forest Service Motor Vehicle Travel Management Plan, which will go into effect in some forests by the end of 2011, will specify which roads are authorized for motor vehicle use and which areas are authorized for dispersed camping (boondocking). Ask at the ranger station or check the individual forest’s website to determine which plan is currently in effect.

A few of my favorite boondocking locations

Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge is a sprawling former ranch near the Mexican border town of Sasabe south of Tucson, Arizona. Established as a refuge to restore the bobwhite quail to the country, it also is home to herds of pronghorn antelope and is known for its excellent birdwatching. Springs bubble out of the ground in nearby Arivaca Cienega and flow above ground as Arivaca Creek for s short ways before diving again below ground. Even if you are not a birdwatcher, it is a unique desert experience to walk along flowing water and ponds teeming with birdlife. The refuge has 100 widely dispersed campsites and camping is free.

Lake Havasu State Park is a no hook-up park between Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and the lake, which was formed by Parker Dam across the Colorado River to the south. The park’s 47 campsites are widely spaced with a considerable amount of brush and trees offering privacy and some shade. Walking distance of shopping areas and the famous London Bridge. Both to the north (Craggy Wash) and to the south (Standard Wash) are open desert boondocking areas within ten miles of town if you like fewer neighbors and more open area.

Wenatchee National Forest is a vast forested area on the eastern flanks of Washington’s volcanic Cascade range near Mt. Rainier to the northeast. Out of Yakima, US 12 and State 410 split just past Naches. US 12 follows the Tieton River to the south entrance of Mt. Rainier National Park and State 410 along the Naches River over 5,400 foot Chinook Pass to the north entrance. All along both routes, several scattered boondocking sites are located along the rivers. These are good base camps for exploring the National park and forest trails.

The Sawtooth National Recreation Area sits in the middle of the Sawtooth National Forest and is adjacent to two wilderness areas. Though several primitive campgrounds are within the NRA, free dispersed (boondocking) camping is permitted along the Salmon River south of Stanley, as well as northeast of town in the national forest. Hiking trails allow access into the Sawtooth Wilderness Area where no wheeled vehicles are allowed.

Upcoming Posts
Stay tuned for an upcoming posts from Cherie of Technomadia about iPhone apps for RVers and an "RVing with Kids" series post about Passport America parks from Courtney of Nomad Baby.

Bio
Bob Difley was formerly a general manager of a national RV rental/sales company and was a fulltime RVer for seventeen years. Bob is an avid fan of boondocking when he's on the road. You can  find his past RVing related articles about his travels in MotorHome, Trailer Life, Good Sam's Guide to the Highways, Coast to Coast, Better RVing and many other popular RV publications. Bob also maintains Healthy RV Lifestyle, where you can read many of his articles and e-books.