…at the border of Colorado and Utah was a great experience. We found the spot using our Campendium App and stayed for two nights. Solid internet reception and a beautiful spot made this place a success and allowed us to catch up on some work and school.
Today’s lesson: Boondocking is awesome and the way to go. Take a deep breath – it’s really not that scary and with the right app, you’ll find the most amazing free spots out there!
Bonus lesson: finding a great spot in the middle of nowhere is A LOT easier in daylight. This is I fortunately a “do as I say, not as I do” advice…we have had several ridiculously stressful evenings where we were trying to find a spot in pitch dark 🤦🏼♀️
We spent the next three nights around the magnificent Rocky Mountain State Park. We stayed our first night in the area using our “Boondockers Welcome” membership with a retired couple in the backcountry who let us stay for a night at their secluded ranch. We headed out early and made our way to Estes Park, CO where we stayed at our first paid camping ground. It was not worth the $80/night but offered solid internet for school and work and fast access to the Rocky’s National Park. We purchased a pass to enter the Rocky Mountain National Park during the 2-4 pm window. We arrived at the park around 3.30 pm but no one checked us in, in the end. We decided to go for the Gem Lake Trail, after checking for trail suggestions on All Trails. Fantastic views and awesome hike with a 1000’ elevation gain to almost 9000’. It took us about 3 hours with a break at the lake to do the 3.6 miles round trip. Highly recommended hike and we only passed about 10 other hikers on the round trip.
The Rocky Mountain National Park is one of the parks that is now regulating visitor numbers by only admitting visitors with a pre-reserved pass. A few things to know:
– passes need to be reserved on the NPS.org site and sell out early. We didn’t realize this but got lucky. When we check back later in the day – one pass was still available (probably someone canceled theirs) and we snatched it up.
– passes will give you a 2 hour window to access the park. Once you accessed the park, you can leave and return the same day. Try to catch an early access window to max your day access.
– if you are out of luck and all passes are gone, there is still good news: you may access the park before 6 am and after 5 pm each day, without a pass.
– make sure you validate all of this on the NPS.org site. Things change all the time 😊
…after what feels an eternity of nothingness, and a desperation-stop at a shady gas station to catch some sleep in the middle of nowhere, we were relieved to make it to Colorado. First stop: the amazing Garden of Gods. We arrived Sunday afternoon, parked the RV (free parking right at the park and there is not park fee) and hopped on our bikes. After some initial maneuvering around the busy pedestrian paths, we found our way to the paved road that leads cars and bikes (clearly marked bike path – Colorado is great like that) up and around the unique rock formations. Visitors have several options to enjoy the park – hiking trails (no bikes allowed), horse back riding (left our pony at home), car (but why tho) – and bicycle. It was a great tour around and into the park and we highly recommend this stop!
Our first exciting stop of the trip is the Gateway Arch National Park in St. Louis. We arrived early am, had no trouble finding a metered parking spot a few blocks into downtown St. Louis and had a beautiful early morning sight of the magnificent arch. We skipped the tram elevator ride inside the arch and the museum (‘cause Covid) but had a great time walk the park around the arch – which is free and offers great views of the arch.
Determined to not leave without some St.Louis BBQ ribs (despite the early hours of 10.30 am), we made a couple of phone calls and connected with Smoki O’ BBQ joint. The friendly staff told us to come on over and pick up some amazing food – and chat with Cedric who was in charge of smoking the ribs and tips in the back parking lot. Highly recommended!
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
