Leaving your rig while boondocking

[Flanz]

Hi All,

First post to this forum for boondocking. The bride and I will start fulltiming in a year or two and one type of camping on our list is boondocking or remote camping. The question that comes up frequently is - How safe is your MH and any other property if/when you go off for the day exploring? I guess we have concerns about this since everything is left all alone. Can and will there be issues? How do you protect your equipment while gone?

TIA,
-paul

[nina_70]

I pretty much agree w/ everyone else. Theft in the boonies is a rare thing compared to theft in the big cities. What kind of thief is going to burn gas driving around in the boonies looking for lonely RVs to rob? Not many, is my judgement.

Bottom line -> as long as we're not overly visible from the main road and don't leave anything that looks too tempting outside the rig, we're good to go.

The only thing we've had stolen in 5 years of fulltiming was my old bike and that was in a gated (secure) private campground in San Diego.

[Flanz]

Francesca Knowles wrote:

Flanz wrote:
Okay....Got it. First chance I get to boondock I'm doing it. Hmm, come to think of it, there's a Walmart up the road.....:)

Not to split hairs ner nuthin' but...

I hope you understand that Wallydocking's a whole 'nother thing. I myself have a whole different set of Protocols for that, none of which include leaving my trailer there if I'm not around.

I was joking around, hence the smile face...

-paul

[Desertboy]

lol, I bet just those big boots would help. For Real.

[rexlion]

I think I read a deterrent method one time... it goes like this. You leave the following items beside the RV door: a pair of size 13 boots, a large dog food dish, and a couple of spent shotgun shells.

[camper19709]

Curtains closed. Radio on. No worries. If they REALLY want it they will take it.

[Francesca_Knowl]

Flanz wrote:
Okay....Got it. First chance I get to boondock I'm doing it. Hmm, come to think of it, there's a Walmart up the road.....:)

Not to split hairs ner nuthin' but...

I hope you understand that Wallydocking's a whole 'nother thing. I myself have a whole different set of Protocols for that, none of which include leaving my trailer there if I'm not around.

[Flanz]

Okay....Got it. First chance I get to boondock I'm doing it. Hmm, come to think of it, there's a Walmart up the road.....:)

Appreciate the responses and I agree with the suggestions. We'll be boondocking before ya know it.

Thx,
-paul

[2gypsies1]

16 years of boondocking with no theft. One night in a campground - 2 lawn chairs taken. 🙂

[2oldman]

Boondocking safety

[Camorhino]

Years ago when I worked out in the woods, my dad had his tool box stolen right off his pickup. So I started leaving my truck with the door open, the keys in the igniton, and the radio playing. Never lost a thing in years. Leave the trailer the same way, radio playing or tv on, chairs out and looks like someone around. Been doing it for a long time, and no problems......knock on wood.

[Francesca_Knowl]

I boondock almost exclusively, often alone and in the most remote places I can find. No major concerns re. theft etc., no problems either in all these many long years.

My "security" method if one can call it that involves making the place look as if there's more than one camper involved, and that one/all of us will be back any minute. I think it's the places that LOOK "deserted" that would be the most likely targets should any Bad Guys actually come cruisin' by.

[LenSatic]

Most of the bad guys, in the boonies, are up to things (growing pot, cooking meth) and don't want to draw attention to the area. If you are in an area that has illegal alien traffic, you can leave some water bottles out so they won't break in looking for it.

That said, I've never heard of anyone having trouble outside of a campground.

LS

[profdant139]

The other thing we have done in a campground is to put our generator in a big translucent plastic box, with old towels all around it. The box is prominently labelled "dirty laundry" and it goes under the trailer, along with our other boxes of wood blocks and sewer equipment. Hopefully, if the thieves are (1) fastidious, (2) literate, and (3) gullible, they will be repelled by the thought of touching our laundry.

Or maybe they will just dissolve in helpless laughter at our feeble trick, and they will be too weak to pick up the heavy generator. Either way, it works.

[IAMICHABOD]

We did a lot of boondocking in our deserts and in Baja, and never had a problem.

I ran onto an oldtimer in those travels and he told me that if the bad guys want it they will have it.

He told me that the best deterrent was to make anyone that happened by think that the camp was occupied, so he would leave his generator running. Cheap insurance if you are worried, we used it a few times when we were in some places that had an unusual amount of traffic for where we were.