Roadside Boondocking

There many campgrounds along the Alaska Hwy along with some good pull offs.
Get your Alaska Milepost, go through it slowly with marker to identify them.

I can drive all week here in BC and always find a camp spot. The rest areas are plentiful and there are lots of logging roads to find. If you can give a bit of a hint for routing, I, and no doubt others, will offer up some ideas.

to start you off...http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/restareas/



Gary Haupt

In Alaska, as far as I know overnight parking is still permitted along roadside turnouts, rest stops and parking areas along the highways unless otherwise posted.....

It is also still the law in Alaska to pull off any roadway or highway and rest when any driver gets too fatigued or tired....In case any law enforcement officer should question or harp about parking overnight in some public domain spot, just use this excuse on them.

In the past 10 years I noticed there are a lot more no overnight parking signs along the roadways in BC, and in the Yukon I now see many no overnight parking signs particularly on the Alaska Highway between Haines Junction and Teslin that never used to be there.

However, you still see the practice of some travelers parking in these places overnight, especially semi truck drivers in the larger turnouts...and I have yet to this day witness seeing or hearing any enforcement done anywhere along the Haines, Klondike, Cassiar or Alaska Highways of people parking overnight in these roadside places.

Anywhere along my travels of southern BC or southern Alberta (mainly Trans Can highway 16 and south of there), I never see anyone park overnight along those roadside areas with signs posted.

Call me guilty, every now and then I will overnight along these roadside spots if I am too tired or it is just too dark if I am not too familiar with an area or any known hazards that are around such as wildlife migration, construction zones, etc.

In these roadside spots with no one present (that I am not familiar with), I will decide by feel if I think it is ok to overnight or not, sometimes I will park there and other times I will move on.....In case I ever get questioned about it I would say I had mechanical issues or that a semi parked right in front of the sign as I never seen there was a no overnight parking sign present.

So pretty much I can say I have yet to be contacted or bothered about parking overnight (with no overnight parking signs posted in Canada) along a roadside anywhere north of Trans Can highway 16...although I do not hardly ever as most of the time I can generally reach all my other familiar permitted spots between driving stretches.

In Yukon, the gov't campground are only $12 per night and include free firewood. No other services, other than good views, lake or creek front sites, good scenery, and the cleanest outhouses in the country. With the hours of daylight we have in summer, transport trucks run all night long and we prefer to get away from their noise.

For us, this is well worth the $12 because you get further off the highway where it is quieter, and can enjoy a nice campfire. There's usually a trail or two for walking the dogs too, which is handy.

Most of the campgrounds have picnic shelters too, with tables and firewood for the big wood stove. Nice place to sit around when the weather isn't so nice.

This past summer we over-nighted in pull offs in both BC and Yukon without problems.

I am not opposed to or afraid of roadside camping, we have done so on occasion when tired or just don't want to go looking for a campground. I am suggesting that for those of you who are going to or from AK or the Yukon that campgrounds are a great source of current and up to the second information on local attractions.

We like to walk and talk to others around us in campgrounds. We have found great treats and exciting sites in doing so.

On the other hand, there is much to be said for unlighted roadsides for looking skyward and seeing the universe.

What I see happening is that major roadside pullouts are eventually trashed out of existence. No place is it more noticeable than the Western USA. There were multiple pull out areas along the 210 freeway in the Sunland/Tujunga area, the passes of Colorado and Siskiyou's in OR. Where mostly truckers but also RVers stopped for rests and got so trashed that the freeway or highways were altered to prevent pullouts from becoming dumps. PLEASE make sure you're not part of that problem.

For an overnight sleep while I'm in a hurried section of a trip, I've even parked at rest areas in the Yukon and BC that are signed "No Overnighting". I never put my slides out in such places, and have never had a problem.

We spent the night under this sign at the Pickhandle Lake rest area in the Yukon. I'm sure they wouldn't like folks to stay for a weekend but overnighters weren't a problem.

I remember seeing a row of RVs parked by the side street just in front of the Starbuck's in Fort Nelson. (I think it was a Starbuck's and not a Timmie's.) All sizes and shapes, and I was tempted to join them, even though it was just a regular paved road, not even gravel or dirt. It didn't look like a convoy. I think their philosophy was that it was less likely they'd be asked to move along because there were so many of them.

By the way, we highly recommend Pickhandle Lake rest area. Off the road and on the lake. There's a big beaver lodge right there. Watching the beaver activity was fun. Slap tail, etc.