Tips for TC Boondocking
DW and I have been TCing every year, starting with a 2003 trip to Alaska. Not counting Wal-Mart, we have never boondocked. Now we are considering renting a self-contained hardside as an experiment. Af...
Forum Discussion
While most on the forum consider boondocking to be camping anywhere outside of an organized campground, private or governmental ones. However other forum members seem to consider boondocking to be anywhere they don't have hookups. We have a member or so that likes to brag about "they only boondock", that then post photos showing them camping in a government campground, without hookups. So you have to have your own idea of what you consider boondocking, IMHO. To me, boondocking is getting off the beaten path and spending the night, probably parked on dirt or gravel, not pavement, in a location not set up for RV camping.
For pavement parking, my favorite places are hospital parking lots, city parks, church parking lots, (stay away from school parking lots), airport parking lots at smaller places, old Wal Mart parking lots where the store was shut down and moved to a new location, actually many small towns have such a place.
For boondocking which we do a lot of on our trips to/from Alaska, we enjoy pulling off in an old gravel pit location, along side a lake or stream, and other scenic locations. Here in the SE it is normally too hot to boondock without AC so we tend to stay commercial till we get to the mountain west and can head north. (I really dislike the sounds of generators running at night close to me, mine or anyone else's.) Our current TC has an LP Onan 2.5KW and it is a real noise maker so we seldom use it. I spent many years living in rural Alaska where we had to provide our own electricity so lots of experience learning to sleep with a mid sized diesel generator running a hundred feet from my bed.
So when someone says they always boondock, try to read between the lines and see what they really mean, as it may be different than what you consider to be boondocking. The tern is right up there with trying to figure out what some people mean when they say they are fulltimers. Some spend 365 nights a year in their RVs and other fulltimers own homes where they spend a few months a year, but still say they are fulltimers. All this is fine but can get a bit confusing when trying to communicate in written format.
For pavement parking, my favorite places are hospital parking lots, city parks, church parking lots, (stay away from school parking lots), airport parking lots at smaller places, old Wal Mart parking lots where the store was shut down and moved to a new location, actually many small towns have such a place.
For boondocking which we do a lot of on our trips to/from Alaska, we enjoy pulling off in an old gravel pit location, along side a lake or stream, and other scenic locations. Here in the SE it is normally too hot to boondock without AC so we tend to stay commercial till we get to the mountain west and can head north. (I really dislike the sounds of generators running at night close to me, mine or anyone else's.) Our current TC has an LP Onan 2.5KW and it is a real noise maker so we seldom use it. I spent many years living in rural Alaska where we had to provide our own electricity so lots of experience learning to sleep with a mid sized diesel generator running a hundred feet from my bed.
So when someone says they always boondock, try to read between the lines and see what they really mean, as it may be different than what you consider to be boondocking. The tern is right up there with trying to figure out what some people mean when they say they are fulltimers. Some spend 365 nights a year in their RVs and other fulltimers own homes where they spend a few months a year, but still say they are fulltimers. All this is fine but can get a bit confusing when trying to communicate in written format.
