Finding places to stay — DwnShifters Vanlife

Perhaps the most daunting aspect of #vanlife when getting started is finding a comfortable place to stay for the night. You can see the fear in our eyes as we were getting started, clearly documented in this video diary and this video diary. We’re happy to report that it gets easier as time goes on - much, much easier. We’re sharing our experience and knowledge below to make your lives as worry-free as possible as you embark on your journey.

We abandoned the city life to pursue greener pastures, so we primarily stay in nature whenever possible. This being said, we also enjoy visiting cities to take in the nightlife, go to museums, visit great restaurants, and check out cool neighborhoods (sadly we have all but abandon cities since COVID hit). We love that #vanlife affords the opportunity to experience both. Let’s take a look at how we find places to stay in both urban and rural locations.

Rural Locations:

As noted above, staying out in the sticks is our preference and how we envisioned we would spend most of the time on our journey. This has indeed been the case and we are truly loving it. We have spent time in nature all across the USA and there is some beautiful country out there. Here’s how we do it:

Apps - Don’t reinvent the wheel. There have been many people before you that have done the hard work. Learn from them. We find a few apps helpful for learning from others. The app we rely on most is iOverlander. This app contains an enormous amount of useful crowd sourced data that is laid out in a not particularly attractive, yet extremely helpful interface. Locations (some with photos), road conditions, vehicle suitability, services, cell signal, etc. are all included in each site post. There is the option to filter results so you’re not seeing sites that won’t suit your needs. We rely on iOverlander heavily - even if we don’t use the exact sites on the app all the time, it gives us a good sense of an area even when we’re hundreds of miles away and looking for a direction to travel. Other useful apps are Park4Night, Free Campsites, Campendium, and Freeroam. All of these apps will offer suggestions for Urban locations as well, but we tend not to use them.

People - Talk to people! Reach out to friends and family on social networks and ask them about places to visit. Ask the server at a local restaurant or bar about places to stay. If you see a fellow #vanlifer or RVer, ask them about their trip and places they’ve enjoyed staying. This is a great way to find places that aren’t on apps and will more than likely be less crowded than those that are.

Free Public Lands (aka Boondocking) - We are all about the free sites! No sense in paying for something that you’ve already paid for with your taxes! We also like that these spots tend to be less populated and more in line with what we had in mind when we started our journey. There are a few options when looking for free public land.

National Forest. You can stay in national forest land for free anywhere from 10 - 16 days depending on the location (make sure to verify this, as locations can very). It is generally legal to pull up to any location and camp, so long as there is no postings stating otherwise. We have found some amazing places to stay just driving around national forest. Check out the National Forest website for more info.
Bureau of Land Management (BLM). This is another free resources that is paid by our all mighty tax dollar. BLM has general guidelines for dispersed camping sites with a maximum stay of 14 days. You can see all regulations regarding BLM land here. For locations of BLM land, head to their maps section -which is linked here. We find these maps a little challenging to wade through, but they are helpful once you get the hang of them.
Army Corps of Engineers . The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has a site that notes camping on their project properties. Many of these sites are free, but there are many that have a fee associated as well. Regardless, these sites must be reserved - which you do through the Recreation.gov site/app. We will discuss this app below. To find COE campgrounds - head to the Corp’s Recreation Services site and browse through the offerings by State. Once you find a location you’re interested in - use the Recreation.gov app to make the reservation.

A note on using Public Lands: (The vast majority of public lands are located in the western half of the U.S.) Read all signs. Make sure you’re not on private property. Practice the Campsite rule (leave the site in better shape then you found it), be respectful to other campers, be aware of your surroundings, and keep these safety tips in mind. Sadly, as boondocking has become more popular, a number of frequently visited sites have recently been shut down due to careless and inconsiderate users. Don’t be part of the problem.

Paid Parks - We avoid paying for a place to stay at all cost. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but we’re not happy about it when we have to pay for a place to park for the night. We pay for campsites when we want to go to National Parks. You can usually find free places to stay outside of National Parks (as they’re usually adjacent to National Forest), but there are times that we prefer to stay INSIDE the park so we’re not spending half our day driving back and forth to the park. The other exception is that we will occasionally pay for sites when we are in desperate need of a water tank fill-up or our batteries are low so we want to plug in to shore power at a camp ground. There are usually work-arounds, but sometimes paying for a site happens. So what tools do we use to find paid campsites?

Recreation.Gov. This site is hosted by the government and is your app for one stop shopping for all things U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Land Management, and State parks (Oddly, the National Parks are NOT listed as a rule). Some of the campgrounds here are free, but most are paid. Sites are typically reservation only, but there are also some that are first come/first served and do not take reservations digitally. You can filter the results to suit your needs, and we usually take advantage of this as we mainly use Recreation.gov to find campground with water and electric hook-ups. This tool will also let you know which cell service is in the area and at what strengths. Download the app or head over to Recreation.gov.
National Park Service. When booking a campsite at one the USA’s many National Parks, you’ll want to head on over to the National Park Service website. Here you’ll find a map of the States with parks that offer camping locations. Click on the park you’re interested in and it will take you through a myriad of steps to get to the actual location where you can make reservations. This process isn’t simple. You’l hunt around for a while until you find the links you need, but the good news is that all of the parks share the same convoluted website layout. Once you get it down on one park site, the process will be similar for most of the other parks. If you don’t have an urgent need to stay in the park - make sure to check iOverlander first for a free camp site just outside the park. National Park entry fees at most parks are good for one week, so there is no financial penalty for coming and going to the park each day.
Use the Apps noted above. All of the apps mentioned in the previous section will offer you suggestions for paid campsites, unless you filter them out. We never use these sites for finding paid camp sites, as they are full of RV parks and other campgrounds that don’t interest us at all. This doesn’t mean that they won’t be perfect for your needs, so keep them in mind as a viable option.

Urban Locations:

Sleeping comfortably in the Wynwood District, Miami

As we’ve already mentioned, we love visiting new cities as much as we enjoy spending time in nature, Due to COVID, we have spent well over 90% of our time on the road in nature, but we’re looking forward to the day that we can visit more cities and immerse ourselves in the local culture. In an ideal world, we’d be spending approximately 70% percent of our time in nature and 30% of it in cities. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll one day get to spend more time in cities enjoying everything that they have to offer.

This will seem odd to at least half of you, but we felt far more comfortable staying in cities than we did staying in nature when we first started. We lived in Brooklyn NYC and built our van there. We lived in the van for more than two months in Brooklyn after we left our home but were still wrapping the van build. The noises and constant traffic made us feel like we were never alone, which brought us a certain security. We know this is counter to how many of you feel. With this said, we have never felt uncomfortable parking on a street for a night of rest. The key to sleeping in a city is knowing your surroundings.

Lovely mixed use street for a soothing night of slumber

Know your surroundings - Be aware of street signs. Make sure you aren’t parking somewhere that has NO PARKING hours, such as street sweeping. Watch for parking spots that may block driveways. Be mindful of parking near bars, as there is nothing more exciting than waking up when the bars close due to laughing, crying, and fighting. We like to park under street lights to deter would be thieves. Lastly, look up local laws on sleeping in a vehicle. It is illegal in some areas and laws vary by city.

Parking in Neighborhoods - Get a sense of the neighborhood you’re thinking of staying in. Is it considered to be a high crime area? Is it a fancy neighborhood that calls the cops on every suspicious vehicle? Pick a neighborhood that has a mix of commercial and residential buildings. A van fits in well here, as it could appear that the van is associated with one of the businesses or belongs to a contractor in one of the residential buildings - unfamiliar vehicles are common here. We try to park in neighborhoods later in the evening when people are already glued to their TV or getting ready for bed. We’ll walk our dog in another neighborhood and then park for the night somewhere else. Often times we’ll stay in the van and enter the back via our bulkhead to avoid having to go outside and make a lot of door noises. If you’re lucky enough to find a location that has a lot of vans already parked there, this is a nice place to blend in. Lastly, areas with high density housing (such as apartment complexes) are generally good areas, as they are typically high traffic areas and new/unusual vehicles aren’t uncommon. Make sure to change locations daily to avoid becoming suspicious.

Parking in Parking Lots - Typically this is a no-go for us. Parking lots are generally private property and may be patrolled by private security or the police. We will occasionally stay in a public parking lot if we’re not going to be the only vehicle there and overnight parking is not forbidden. There is one exceptions to our “no parking in private parking lots” rule and that is - get permission. Cracker Barrel and Walmart are notoriously RV friendly. We have called ahead to Cracker Barrels to verify that we can sleep in their lot when passing through town. We also decided that we wanted to tie one on and celebrate a birthday one night in Wyoming, so we spoke with the manager at the bar and told him we were travelling but wanted to sample every tequila he stocked. We asked if he would mind if we slept in the lot so we didn’t have to drive anywhere that night. We got a big thumbs up and a bigger hangover.

Rest Areas - These fall somewhere in between Urban and Rural, as they can be located in both types of environments. They aren’t the sexiest place to wake up in the morning, but they’ll do in a pinch and they’re free! The general rule is that Rest Areas are a great place for an overnight snooze, so long as there isn’t signage explicitly noting it isn’t allowed. Make sure to park in the area designated for cars and/or RV’s, as you don’t want to listen to 18-wheelers idling all night. Here is a super helpful map of all the rest areas in the USA - we hope it helps you plan your trip (Bookmark it).

Bonus content for Full-Timers:

Beyond finding a place to stay, we also need to ensure that we have good internet at each and every location that we stay because we work remotely. Finding a place to call home for a few days is challenging enough, but then to have to filter out locations due to a lack of internet is a real drag. We have yet to find a full-proof system for researching locations and having a good sense of our subsequent connectivity. We use Verizon, GoogleFi, and AT&T for our internet, which gives us a better chance of being connected - check out our Internet System for more details.

For the sake of clarity, we are going to use AT&T for this tip. Let’s say that you’ve found a spot you like on iOverlander and no one that has stayed there noted anything about cell signal. What we initially did was Google “ATT coverage” to see if they had towers that reached the area that we were considering staying. This basic search gives you a map that looks like this:

The problem with a simple search and corresponding map is that it completely ignores any topographical information. If the spot you’ve selected is seemingly in a dark blue area, the assumption is that you’ll have good coverage during your stay. However, if this campsite is located in a valley, the surrounding hills may block any signal from reaching you even though everything around you is blue. Instead of a simple search, use the coverage maps that the cell carriers offer when trying to lock you into a contract. These maps are far more accurate and will provide you with a far better understanding of the signal you can expect in any given location.

Here’s a sample:

We selected a site that we’re interested in staying at via iOverlander.
We copy the coordinates, which are 43.326396, -121.767793 (noted on the site and useful for driving apps)
We go to the AT&T site and enter the coordinates
These coordinates did not offer any coverage as seen in the left image below.
We then tried our second preference from iOverlander (coordinates 43.094454, -121.872720)
We go to the AT&T site and enter the coordinates
These coordinates show that the area does have LTE coverage (right image in Blue)

As noted above - there is no full-proof way to know what the signal strength is going to be at any given location unless the app you’re using has thorough signal information (iOverlander & Recreation.gov have info on many campsites, but they may not be carrier specific). We have found the hack above to be helpful when researching locations, but it sadly never guarantees anything. Bookmark the handy links below to always have your carriers signal strength search tool handy.

AT&T (we will toggle between pre-paid and wireless when looking at coverage on AT&T)

VERIZON

T-MOBILE (GoogleFi)

Now you have all the information that we use when researching destinations. If you have any comments or further questions, please leave us a note below!