Don't Camp at Walmart

Gjac wrote:
I camped in Rock Hound state park in Deming NM in the article he referenced. It was hard enough during the day to find the CG, the later you check in the fewer sites available. As a traveler not familiar with the area I would not want to find a camp site at night in that CG or any remote state park. It is a very nice CG but even when we checked in during daylight hours there were no regular sites available so they put us in a picnic site. After rolling off my jacks in an unlevel SP Camp site and scraping my compartment door on a tree stump after dark that I could not see. I found that Walmart's after dark is a much safer alternative for a quick over night, especially when its been raining all day and unpaved CG's are muddy. The parking lots are always level, well lit and have security patrolling at night. You buy your groceries, refuel and are ready to go in the morning. My preference during the day is a NFS,NP,SP, COE or BLM land if out west CG if they are not more than 20 miles of of my intended route. After dark WM's are usually within 5 miles of the hiway and are the best alternative.

Well stated!

That exactly describes why we have stayed overnight in the type of places that I listed earlier. Convenience for a quick overnight place to park is sometimes the name of the game.

We even parked near the back of a Walmart lot one night where the Walmart Big Rigs were parked with their idling diesel engines because we figured it would be more secure right there among the sleeping drivers than out in the main parking lot where the night partiers were whooping it up and spinning brodies in their cars.

I wish commercial campgrounds located right in or just outside towns could offer $10/night non-hookup parking areas for overnight RV'ers just passing through - with some kind of a credit/debit card autopay kiosk with an electric gate to let you in. I'd rather use those for quick and safe overnights instead of Walmart parking lots. (I suppose certain types of RV folks would figure out how to abuse this kind RV service, though ... plus electric gates are expensive to install and maintain.)