Now that I’ve been living the RV lifestyle a while, one question that I get a lot from stix-n-brix friends is.. where do you stay?
The answer to that really depends on what I’m doing at the time and whether I’m on the road to a destination or already at one.
I have my RV set up for boondocking which basically means camping without any of the traditional RV park amenities like water, electricity, and sewage service. I prefer to camp for free whenever possible because the sights are often just as much (if not more) scenic than RV parks, and what is the point of having a whole solar setup if you’re not gonna use it?
Yes, this means I have to conserve water and find dump stations every so often. But you get used to it – and it’s totally worth it!
Note: there are a lot of sources to find RV boondocking & overnight parking spots – that’s a list from our sister site. All of those help!
So here is a rundown of some of the places I’ve stayed overnight – click each pic to enlarge!
For my first trip which I took my whole family on, we wanted to stay at a campground near Mt. Rainier. Unfortunately, they were all full… so we ended up boondocking! It was great.
After leaving WA state, we stayed in a few Walmart parking lots on the way to Glacier National Park. (I think. It may have only been one.. I can’t remember. :P)
Once we got there, we snagged a campsite at Apgar campground:
Lake McDonald was a mere 2-3 minute walk away from our campsite.
When we went to the east side of the park, we stayed at St. Mary campground. The views there were absolutely unreal. Here is one from our dinette seat:
After Glacier National Park, we headed down to Yellowstone. We didn’t get a picture of our campsite there, but we ended up scoring a free night at a campsite in the park due to someone leaving early. Even though the campground was full, we saw them leave, followed them, and asked if we could take their spot. They were super nice! The campground hosts, not so much.. but oh well. Anyways, here is a shot of Mammoth springs since we didn’t get a picture of that campsite:
After exploring Yellowstone, we headed down to Grand Teton, staying the night at a boondocking spot in a Wilderness area in between. That means… remote as hell, absolutely no cell signal, lots of animals…. our RV got pushed HARD in the middle of the night by a very large creature on 2 legs! What could that have been? Hmmmm? Here is the site:
From there, we headed down through Grand Teton and on to Zion NP. I think we stayed at a Walmart somewhere in between in Utah (The days have blurred together.. haha!)
Walmart may not be a very scenic destination, but most are RV friendly, easily accessible, and have all the supplies you could need. Instead of a picture of a Walmart parking spot, here we are fooling around in front of a TV in Walmart.. acting like we’re in the scenery.
Finally we ended up in Las Vegas where the beau had to do a music video shoot. We actually stayed at an RV park there, which was my first one. It was a Passport America park so I got a discount and we stayed for 3 days. This was the first time since being out adventuring that I had full power and water hookups. It also gave us the chance to call an RV repairman to troubleshoot a small leak.
Unfortunately, I accidentally erased all the photos from the RV park onward.. but here is a photo of the desert shoot instead!
Now that I’ve been back in LA a while, I’ve been street parking which is anything-but-glamorous but completely practical (and legal!) – From here I will probably go exploring the desert and make my way over to the Grand Canyon. 🙂
What do you think?