Mid-summer, Spring, or Early Fall. A great time to be out in the coolness of the woods, along a tumbling stream, or by a mirror-smooth high mountain lake, lost in the wilds of nature. It’s hard, though, to find campgrounds in the most scenic of locations like these. There just isn’t a lot of private land in places like that to build RV resorts and campgrounds. And then there is the difficultly with permits, environmental studies, waste disposal, electricity, access roads . . .But the good news is that you don’t need a campground to enjoy these scenic locations, just a campsite.
What else do you need? A self contained RV with a big comfy bed would be nice. And a 3 or 4 burner stove, a reefer that stays cold, electric lights, indoor outhouse complete with holding tanks. . . Isn’t it our great fortune that the manufacturers that bring us our wonderful homes-on-wheels build in all these conveniences–even without our asking. And greater yet, all these features work anywhere, even outside RV resorts, like when we are camped all by ourselves out in the woods, along a stream, or by a high mountain lake.
Yet so few RVers take advantage of these self-contained features that we take for granted, seldom spending a night outside the sanctuary of a campground and those appendages that we feel we need to enjoy the RV lifestyle. Giving up camping in pristine natural sites for the presumed need for hookups seems like a poor trade off.
Most of what you need for a few days of camping with Mother Nature you already have onboard. What you really need those hookups for, is after your few days of boondocking in the wilds you need to recharge your systems—pump up your batteries, dump your tanks, and refill both your water tanks and food stores. The rest you are already set up to do.
So why not take a shot at—what was that word? Boondocking? Camping without hookups–dry-camping–but also meaning away from the trappings of civilization, like road traffic, perpetual people or mechanical noise, air that doesn’t smell like pine trees, views with little green in them, and neighbors so close you can hear them sneeze.
So how do you find these fantastic campsites that the manufacturers like to show in their ads? That’s the hard part. But not all that difficult that you can’t do it. You just have to know where to look, because there aren’t any lists of boondocking campsites with nice clear directions on how to get there. Oh no. And that is what I will post on next Saturday, showing you how to find those spots. In the meantime, acquaint yourself with your built in systems, how they function when not hooked up, and how to conserve your resources like water and electricity. If you can’t wait, go to my Web site and download my 59-page eBook, The Boondocking Life: Camping and Boondocking on our Public Lands.
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GMAs
carl a
You can start your ham venture by checking out the ARRL web site. and/or looking at your local town for a ham club. Another favorite site is QRZ.. and or.. eham dot com
either one will have the practice test.. which you can work off of. If you want to take a class I think Martha King from king schools has a home video course. The test is taken at the local ham club meeting at least once a month. Check with your local ham to get the needed info. Library books are the way to go to read up on radio and commucations.
Thought by now Bob would have replied to your question… ohhh Bob!!!
Hope this helps
GMAs
Bob Difley
Chris Bull – It’s a good thing that the vast majority of RVers, though they may on occasion stay at a no hook-up campground, seldom venture into true boondocking. And those that do, keep their favorite locations in code–yeah, I know you Barry, you do, don’t you? Well, so do I. Happy travels. Bob
Bob Difley
Barry Zander – It’s a good thing that the vast majority of RVers, though they may on occasion stay at a no hook-up campground, seldom venture into true boondocking. And those that do, keep their favorite locations in code–yeah, I know you Barry, you do, don’t you? Well, so do I. Happy travels. Bob
Chris Bull
By all means buy Bobs boondocking book . I did and it looks prety cool.BUT do not click on the links for free coupons and pubs at the top of the page as this will load malware on you computer. It will take u to a web page that tells you that your computer is infected etc.
Bob you need to fix that.
Thanks for the article.
Barry Zander
Don’t give away our secret!!!! As full-timers, we dry-camp often, boondocking on occasion. We like to see those private campgrounds full, especially those catering to the whole family. It means more primitive-type sites for us to chose from and, although we love kids, we love the peacefulness of the no-hook-ups campgrounds.
Barry Zander
Thomas Becher
Damn nice looking senior woman, or is it a high school senior photo? Need comunication in the boonies. Think GM and ONSTAR. It works were and when you need it. And they will call the Police for you if you need them.
Merrily
Judy,
Check out RVW RVing Women!! It is a great woman only RVing group throughout the US and Canada. Many different chapters and lots of info to learn and well as great comraderie!!
Fred
Bob, having just reviewed a poll from rvtravel.com (8-1-2009) about where people prefer to “camp”, the boondockers in the desert only ranked 3.23%. That leaves about 96.77% that prefer to stay elsewhere.
Hey, that’s good! If there were 100 available spaces out there somewhere, as a boondocker, you would have a lot of empty spaces to choose from.
Fred
Howdy Bob, I checked out the website. Looks great! My old brain slipped on doing a pre-publishing review that I promised. Time just flew on by – forgive me. The penalty for my transgression? I tried to buy the eBook using Google checkout, but it wouldn’t cooperate. It kept asking me for my billing State even though it and other all required blanks on the form were filled correctly.
For your readership; thanks for being nice to poor old Bob. He writes out of desperation for a few bucks a month. Lynn supports him by NOT writing about politics – so we can thank her for keeping him going. She just bought him a new laptop too. Okay, bad humor.
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Judy, you are not the only one with guts enough to go it alone. There are a lot of single retired ladies out there. I think there may be a website somewhere. There is an RV Forum link on the panel to the right of this comment page that may have some useful information. I too travel alone, but of course I am a male. I am currently boondocking across Canada and will continue to do so down in the US as late autumn cold hits Canada. For the winter, it’s Arizona or bust.
Judy
Thanks Bob, I will be looking forward to that information. Us single ladies need all the help we can get out there. I am still new to this as I still have a sticks-N-bricks and work part time. I don’t get much time on the road…yet. Looking forward to it. All the blogs on this site have really helped me a lot.
carl
Donna and I are in the process of selling our home and are planning on gitttin on the road for AN extended period of time.
Both retired, just on the other side of the big 70, still in pretty good health; so we said lets do it.
Haven’t really spelled out just where yet but that will come.
Need some advice on haming. How/where/etc etc do you get involved.
Has always intrigued me, but the old excuse –costs to much-have to go to school etc. Sounds like things have kinda simplified.
Just show me where to go
thx carl a.
Bob Difley
Judy – Safety and being alone on the trail is a subject I will deal with in a week or two. Stay tuned. And it won’t involve the necessity of having a gun if you aren’t already comfortable with one.
Bob Difley
Gmas – I’m glad I finally wrote something that you enjoyed. I knew if you kept reading long enough that would happen. But, hey, thanks for the treatise on communications. It fits well with boondocking.
Judy
I would love to boondock out in nature more, but as a single, senior lady I am afraid of what’s in the dark. I don’t mean the 4 legged kind either. When I was younger I wasn’t afraid of anything or anybody. That has all changed with age. I do enjoy these blogs and maybe someday I will have a partner to enjoy the boondocking with and can feel safe. Keep up the good works.
Carson
This was so nice I enjoyed reading this and look forward to hearing more about this next week. Thanks Bob for getting back on track with something we all can enjoy….
GMAs
Wow Bob…
Finally someting that I can read and enjoy…reading…
see I knew you could do it… says your a writer on your blog.. and this proves it. 😉
I feel a lot of people today are actually… well… scared … to go off boondocking after they get paranoid from hearing all the bad things that happen… (from the two legged ones to … if your out in the wild… you on the menu)
Boondocking is a different way to camp… so we have found… it really is the old wagon train experiance… but with a factor of one (1) . This then makes people nervious and not enjoy the outback.. as we call it.
In days of old you could carry a shooter and not have to be worried about the law and legalites of it…. you were politically correct then to own one.. today.. well… the numnumbs say use the cell phone… only problem is help is 2 hours away.. or the cell phone doesn’t work outback… so then what you going to do. Bad guys understand what comes out of the little hole at the end of the gun… hitting ’em with your cell phone is not going to do more than piss ’em off… 🙂
So while boondocking is really very refreshing… quiet and natural… The equipment today is so much better.. the best so far… but, most are not enjoying it because they have lost touch.
Now… as to the cell phone not working… their are other great commucation devices… CB is nice for up to 5 miles or listening to Harry talk to the natives in their verbage…wheeling down the road. Cell phones work.. most of the time but are still costly… and low powered. Sat phones… are way too costly…and just about out of most normals peoples budget… So that leaves good old HAM RADIO. Here you have the best of both worlds… long range commucations and short.. depending on the “BAND” you choose to commucate on… Indeed you need a license but, today you no longer need to study much more than some basic electronics as the morse code requirement is no longer required. Most can memorize the written test and pass it the first time.. so its gotten to be a no brainer…
What it offers is a wide range of commucations… (remember the sheriff is still going to be hours away but, at least he is on the way) and you have someone on the other end of the radio that you can talk to.
The major two bands that hams use are UHF/VHF and HF. The first two are mainly line of sight… but have repeaters up on just about every hill and mountain top so that you can range out for a bunch of miles. Has a short little antenna and can also be found used packaged in hand helds just a little bigger than the new cell phones.
The HF is the granddaddy of them all… here you can run a thousand watts if you want… and typical commucation ranges from 300 miles to around the world.
If you check back in the old days… good sam , Airstream club, and others all had clubs that are called “NETS” that people checked in on regularly and let other know where they are… (whole famly’s got ham licenses so they could keep in touch with who ever is out on the range… worked better than the old telephone)
Not only that but, it also made it fun to talk to others in distant lands… as they don’t have the realestate and adventures we do here… so explaining how you camp is interesting to them .
So with ham radio, a good pea shooter… and some nerve… boondocking can be quite fun and a adventure that most of the time is without problems or regrets…
keep up the good writing Bob… much better… more enjoyable… and specific to RV’n …. I knew you could do it… 😉 😉
Joeseph
I look forward to the next Saturday. Boondocking, once your rig is set up the way you like, is a great way to see some fantastic sights without a lot of cost.
I know some folks RV to meet people in campgrounds, but I prefer the empty campground or the boondock site to get away from it all.
I can’t wait until fall in my part of the world (cooler temps, for those of us who can’t travel with the seasons).