Locating the City and County parks
We have heard others talk about staying in nice little city and county parks, and in our travels we have stumbled onto a couple. My question is how do you consistently locate these hidden gems?
Forum Discussion
Here is one source but there are many more. Of course, not all public sites are free. One source does not cover all that's available - even Allstays.
Many times a state visitor center will have a brochure or if you know a town you'll be passing through, Google that town to see if they have a park. The state of Texas has an excellent booklet. South Dakota has great city parks. Montana and Idaho have awesome fishing access sites.
As full-timers we got many referrals from other RVers. We also used Fish & Wildlife sites, power companies sometimes have campgrounds on their waterways, some national wildlife refuges have campgrounds, there are many national forest campgrounds, some even updated with full hookups. In the West check out the BLM lands and country-wide the Corp of Engineers parks. There are many options rather than a RV park.
16 years ago when beginning full-timing, I started my own computer list of campgrounds I read about or that were recommended to us. You would not believe the size of that file 16 years later! People have said I should sell it! :) The last I looked I had almost 600 pages to it - all by state. We mostly traveled the secondary roads and our preference was always a public park or scenic boondocking area. We found it very useful.
Free Campsites
Many times a state visitor center will have a brochure or if you know a town you'll be passing through, Google that town to see if they have a park. The state of Texas has an excellent booklet. South Dakota has great city parks. Montana and Idaho have awesome fishing access sites.
As full-timers we got many referrals from other RVers. We also used Fish & Wildlife sites, power companies sometimes have campgrounds on their waterways, some national wildlife refuges have campgrounds, there are many national forest campgrounds, some even updated with full hookups. In the West check out the BLM lands and country-wide the Corp of Engineers parks. There are many options rather than a RV park.
16 years ago when beginning full-timing, I started my own computer list of campgrounds I read about or that were recommended to us. You would not believe the size of that file 16 years later! People have said I should sell it! :) The last I looked I had almost 600 pages to it - all by state. We mostly traveled the secondary roads and our preference was always a public park or scenic boondocking area. We found it very useful.
Free Campsites
