One of the best – and at times most stressful part of RVing is not knowing where we’ll stay the next night. Not booking a camp ground is awesome when you want to just go and see how far you get. Since starting our RV journey earlier this year, we’ve gotten much better in knowing where to look and go to find a free and safe(-ish) spot to stay. For our first night on this trip, we stopped at a beautiful little state park in Indiana to cook some dinner and let the kids run before driving on for a few more hours until turning in for the night at a Cracker Barrel right before St. Louis. Cracker Barrel’s, as well as Walmart’s and Lowe’s have been our “quick and easy” choice when just trying to stop for the night. Make sure you call them to confirm that you can stay at their parking lots – but we never had anyone turn us down.
Awesome RV camping apps:
– Harvest Host: great app that allows you to search and contact farms, breweries and wineries across the country that let you stay at their location for free. We’ve found amazing locations via the app. Cost: $79/year
– Campendium: this app is super helpful to locate BLM (Bureau of Labor Management) locations as well as low cost camp grounds and dumping stations. We have found wonderful free spots at public land locations, especially out West.
– Boondockers Welcome: no app but their website will connect you with families across the country who are opening up their property to RVs. We’ve used this once so far and ended up in a beautifully remote location in the Rockies. Think AirBnB for RVs
