The truth about Boondocking
I want to know the truth about Boondocking, the pros and cons. I don't want it to turn into a 'story telling' thread but a thread about concerns, issues, advantages etc. Some examples I wonder abo...
Forum Discussion
We don't have alot of dispersed type camping high country areas here on the East side of the US. The Blue Ridge parkway areas are the closest to me. I always get to head for the high country of AL,GA,NC, & TN.
These sites are public access Natl Forest areas and we get to use the Forest raods to gain access all over the designated areas.
These places have no hookups but most often the main entrance area will have primitive type pit restrooms and alot have a water spigot you can use to fill up some 5 GALLON type jerry-cans...
Being off-reoad and no hookup doesn't mean you can't pick up OTA high Def NATL BROADCAST HDTV station. The high country sites will have many stations you can pick up by pointing your OTA BATWING antenna towards the local towns 50-70 miles away from you...
One of our favorite fairly close-by OFF-ROAD sites in the George Washington Natl Forest behind Harrisonburg VA up on the VA/WVA wooded state line. There is a place close by called FLAGPOLE RIDGE which is a real popular site for JEEP guys. I found a real nice spot just off one of the Forest Roads which has a great multi-ridge view across the mountain range. I have to cross a water rock bed drain stream to get to this spot... Being hid from the Forest Road I am pretty much hidden from view from other folks on the trails and have this area all to myself.
I have to bring in my water and will dig a shallow pit to dump my cassette toilet we have in our OFF-ROAD POPUP trailer. Most often i can carry my cassette tank back to the entrance area when we go back for more water and dump it down their primitive pit restroom
If we run out of water I will go back to a couple of more visited no hookup sites that has a more controlled camp site layout and can find water to bring back to my more remote camp site. I guess the longest I have ever stayed there was two weekends...
My OFF-ROAD POPUP trailer is equipment with 255AH battery bank and I have a PD9260C converter/charger unit I can fire up using my 2KW Generator and get my 50% depleted battery bank back up to its 90% charge state in as little as three hours of generator run times. These areas all have generator run time restrictions and most allow 8AM to 8PM to run your generator. Other public places may have a couple of hours in the morning and maybe three hours or so in the late afternoon. No where are you able to run a generator between 8PM to 8AM the next morning in these public access areas...
We love going to this camp site location a lot being it is only around 2-3 hours away from Northern Neck VA.
We run off the batteries and get to do just about anything we would normally do at a public hookup camp site with the exception of running the Air Conditioner or high wattage Microwave units. Every thing else is fair game. Our game plan to do all of these thing and not allow the batteries to get below their 50% charge state before 8AM the next morning. Then we run our 2KW generator to re-charge the batteries back up to their 90% charge state and do all of this all over again.
Being avid tent campers from the early 60s this is main way of camping in public areas.
I always refer to this style of camping as OFF-ROAD or DISPERSED type camping.
Roy Ken
These sites are public access Natl Forest areas and we get to use the Forest raods to gain access all over the designated areas.
These places have no hookups but most often the main entrance area will have primitive type pit restrooms and alot have a water spigot you can use to fill up some 5 GALLON type jerry-cans...
Being off-reoad and no hookup doesn't mean you can't pick up OTA high Def NATL BROADCAST HDTV station. The high country sites will have many stations you can pick up by pointing your OTA BATWING antenna towards the local towns 50-70 miles away from you...
One of our favorite fairly close-by OFF-ROAD sites in the George Washington Natl Forest behind Harrisonburg VA up on the VA/WVA wooded state line. There is a place close by called FLAGPOLE RIDGE which is a real popular site for JEEP guys. I found a real nice spot just off one of the Forest Roads which has a great multi-ridge view across the mountain range. I have to cross a water rock bed drain stream to get to this spot... Being hid from the Forest Road I am pretty much hidden from view from other folks on the trails and have this area all to myself.
I have to bring in my water and will dig a shallow pit to dump my cassette toilet we have in our OFF-ROAD POPUP trailer. Most often i can carry my cassette tank back to the entrance area when we go back for more water and dump it down their primitive pit restroom
If we run out of water I will go back to a couple of more visited no hookup sites that has a more controlled camp site layout and can find water to bring back to my more remote camp site. I guess the longest I have ever stayed there was two weekends...
My OFF-ROAD POPUP trailer is equipment with 255AH battery bank and I have a PD9260C converter/charger unit I can fire up using my 2KW Generator and get my 50% depleted battery bank back up to its 90% charge state in as little as three hours of generator run times. These areas all have generator run time restrictions and most allow 8AM to 8PM to run your generator. Other public places may have a couple of hours in the morning and maybe three hours or so in the late afternoon. No where are you able to run a generator between 8PM to 8AM the next morning in these public access areas...
We love going to this camp site location a lot being it is only around 2-3 hours away from Northern Neck VA.
We run off the batteries and get to do just about anything we would normally do at a public hookup camp site with the exception of running the Air Conditioner or high wattage Microwave units. Every thing else is fair game. Our game plan to do all of these thing and not allow the batteries to get below their 50% charge state before 8AM the next morning. Then we run our 2KW generator to re-charge the batteries back up to their 90% charge state and do all of this all over again.
Being avid tent campers from the early 60s this is main way of camping in public areas.
I always refer to this style of camping as OFF-ROAD or DISPERSED type camping.
Roy Ken
