Post your Sneakiest Stealth Camp

We spent a night on the parking lot of the USS San Francisco Memorial, looking westward ore the Pacific and Easterly to the Golden Gate and San Francisco Bay. During the night a guard came by and carefully avoided shining his flashlight on our rig. In the morning the gate was
unlocked and we departed. It was a beautiful spot, no one objected!

Once along the Southern Coast of Oregon I was looking for a place to stay but didn't really have any plans. I was hoping to find a place to pull off the highway without having to pay for an expensive RV park. I managed to find a short dirt road that came off Highway 101 which led to what I believe was a temporary storage yard for equipment when working on the highway. What's great about this location is that it is above the highway and you have to drive up the road to even see what is there. The place was perfect, I tucked in to a corner of the yard overlooking the ocean and watched the beautiful sunset while enjoying my chips and guacamole! I went back there about six months later with the Mrs. and stayed in the same location. Even shared it with a couple who were driving a VW bug from Argentina to Alaska (how cool is that!).

At the risk of spoiling a good spot... here is a link to Google Maps where I stayed. I think this location is almost the definition of perfect stealth camping...

Oregon Coast Stealth Camp

We were stealthy, but the neighbor wasn't. Pulled into a boat ramp parking lot late one night and went to bed. Evidently others thought that was a good idea, and set up a tent nearby. The lady in the tent was a screamer. She apologized to us in the morning, saying it had been a long time.

JimK-NY wrote:
Some people seem to think stealth camping automatically means breaking the laws and trying to get away with it. Often that is not the situation. In fact I have found that in many areas no one knows what the laws are or what is acceptable. That includes the local police. Even when staying in areas where it is legal, I try to be inconspicuous and as stealthy as possible. Legal or not, you do not want the local residents to be upset and/or call the police.

I can give another analogy. I live in a suburban neighborhood. I practice archery in my backyard. I have a safe place with a large backstop down in a gulley with a fenced off woodland behind it. The law says that I cannot discharge a firearm in my area. A bow is not a firearm so I should be legal. Even so I do not push the issue. I only practice during weekdays when the neighbors are all gone. If I see anyone, I stop and put my gear away. That is the equivalent of being stealthy. I do it to respect my neighbors and neighborhood.

I agree with this completely. I do not believe that stealth camping is always illegal camping and I think that it is mostly being about staying out of people's attention.

I live close to my work. My house is in an old residential areas with no HOAs, etc. We have basic city rules - RVs, boats, etc., are all allowed parked on the streets and in the driveways, etc.

My work is in an industrial area. There is a truck driving school there and lots of large equipment businesses. Truckers drop their trailers on the side of the roads all the time for the night, weekend, etc.

There are RVers who park along the streets in both areas. The difference is that those parking in the residential area are keeping a low profile and maintaining an appearance of "just parked" in order to blend in. These are stealth campers.

Those parking in the industrial area are obviously taking up residence - they have unloaded their mountain of gear that was strapped on top of the RV/car; they have trash all over; they are walking their dog on the business properties and not cleaning up after them; and so on. These are squatters.

Most places are trying to prevent squatters with their rules and laws. If you stealth camp, you are avoiding that "diagnosis".

Once again we have Off Topic Posts and thread Hijack. I should add encouraged by the frequent Off Topic posters.

The topic:

Post your Sneakiest Stealth Camp

I will delete the obvious Off Topic posts. If you are offended, or take exception to this, I suggest you find another Forum more tolerant to frequent rude behavior.

Wayne
Moderator

Some people seem to think stealth camping automatically means breaking the laws and trying to get away with it. Often that is not the situation. In fact I have found that in many areas no one knows what the laws are or what is acceptable. That includes the local police. Even when staying in areas where it is legal, I try to be inconspicuous and as stealthy as possible. Legal or not, you do not want the local residents to be upset and/or call the police.

I can give another analogy. I live in a suburban neighborhood. I practice archery in my backyard. I have a safe place with a large backstop down in a gulley with a fenced off woodland behind it. The law says that I cannot discharge a firearm in my area. A bow is not a firearm so I should be legal. Even so I do not push the issue. I only practice during weekdays when the neighbors are all gone. If I see anyone, I stop and put my gear away. That is the equivalent of being stealthy. I do it to respect my neighbors and neighborhood.

Freep, check your PMs.


Wayne
Moderator

jefe 4x4 wrote:
Cwagon,
If you are up to some more verbal abuse, cruise on over to the Boondocking forum on here. A while back I posted what I thought was an innocuous little ditty about stealth camping technique (a term, unfortunately in the public domain now) and was hammered by the giant RV/must pay for a site, 'I own a campground', 'my way or the highway' zealots. The final point was, they didn't like the term stealth camping. Check out that post. It had one of the largest number of responses of any thread ever on the Boondock forum and broke off into several subsets. Although we do very little layovering, it's still kind of fun to know what's legal, ethical, appropriate and where the edge is in that regard. To keep it interesting while traveling, (notice I said traveling, not camping) we try to use the whole gamut of choices of where to spend the night, from, just pull over for a short night of shut eye to parking the camper on an urban street and checking into a high bucks hotel. Why? Because most hi end hotels have a low entry vertical clearance parking structure. Just as a good sandwich is all about the bread, for us while traveling It's all about the hunt. By serendipity, or by design, we're never out of options.
jefe

Thank You. nice post. Have to learn to ignore the negatives. In an ever changing world there seems to be one constant change.... the dwindling number of options. After experiences of rude campers. Rv parks cutting all the trees, paved sites all in a row almost on top of each other. Crowds everywhere in a town that your staying.... naturally you want to find an out of the way secret spot. What choice, if the crowds have taken every other option in that town? Naturally, a person has to get smart. Call it smart camping perhaps instead. Thanks all here.

covered wagon wrote:
I learned that it was a $120 dollar fine after I stayed overnight on a college University campus. Cops were looking for all the rvs due to the graduation festivities the next day.

I got away with it because I stayed in the dormitory parking lot and backed up so close to a wall so it looked like no one could get back inside the camper with the high wall. I was able to squeeze in no problem. lol

If I read your post right, you did NOT KNOW that your chosen parking spot was in violation until the next day.
To my knowledge, there has to be SIGNAGE that states No Parking, No Camping or similar. A parking area with no prohibitive signage is fair game.

Kayteg1 wrote:

jimh425 wrote:
With all of the legal places there are to camp, why camp where it is questionable?

OK. Tell me where would you camp tomorrow in San Francisco?
Or Yosemite?
I tried to make reservation in South Padre, TX KOA camping and regardless $90 a night, they don't have anything available for next 3 weeks. I did not check farther.
There is more in the World than Washington.

or Kalifornia for that matter............:B