For those of you that don’t know, for about a year my husband and I lived and traveled in a tiny, converted school bus that we built ourselves. During this time, we drove across the US around 3 times and stayed at several different places. When you think about traditional camping with an RV, expenses can add up quickly. Thankfully there are a ton of resources out there of places you can stay for free or cheap while on the road. The U.S. is one of the more expensive countries to travel in, but if you have a grand road trip of the U.S. on your bucket list, there are always things you can do to reduce your cost while on the road. Since doing a road trip across the U.S. is a broad topic, I will break this down into a few different posts. The first thing I will cover is places to camp or stay the night while traveling in the U.S.
FREE
Most of the time while on the road, we would camp somewhere free for the night. If you plan on traveling the U.S., this is the best way to cut down on costs. If you are road-tripping with a regular vehicle you can always opt to car camp or bring a tent along, or if you are driving in some sort of RV or converted rig, the options are endless.
iOverlander: iOverlander was by far our favorite app to use on the road. Not only can you find fantastic places to camp for the night for free, but it also helps you locate nearby water sources, gas or propane fill-ups, dump stations, showers, and pretty much anything you need while road-tripping. It’s hard to name all of the free places we have stayed at from using this app but I will list some of our favorites.
One of the best finds that I still can’t believe was free was Lake Santeetlah in North Carolina. There is a small backroad with around 13 established parking and camping spots right on the lake! All the camping spots have fire rings and gorgeous views, and there is even a vault toilet on one of the shared sites.
My second top sight would be just a little road pull-off right above Santa Barbara. It was a little sketchy getting up into the mountains in a converted bus, but we made it and the sunset views were incredible. There wasn’t a lot of privacy at this spot, but the view made up for that!
The last top sight on my list was national forest land about 2 miles from the entrance of the Grand Canyon. After a few side roads, suddenly, we were engulfed in massive pine trees, having the solitude of the forest all to ourselves. Again, this is just a little taste of some of the amazing spots you can find for FREE, all over the U.S.! Also, a shout-out to some of the beautiful free spots we found while exploring Michigan’s upper peninsula!
Truck stops: Love them or hate them, truck stops are a great resource after long travel days. Especially while we were driving cross country or didn’t want to venture too far off the freeway, or even if you can’t find a place to stay in the city, truck stops are a great go-to. However, proceed with caution and realize that truck stops are meant for truckers, and you should never take away their resources or parking spots. When we would camp overnight at truck stops, we would always park in the front where there was additional parking available for car campers.
These spots were great to pull into after a long day of driving and bonus points for the access to restrooms and fresh coffee out your front door in the morning before leaving. The two top truck stops for us were always Loves or Pilot and Flying J.
Rest Areas: Although you can’t always rely on rest areas being overnight camping friendly, quite a few are. Just make sure to check for any posted signage that may say otherwise. If you are going to camp overnight at a rest area, just check the area beforehand to make sure it seems safe. Another bonus for this spot is the free bathrooms and all the snack machines!
Stealth Camping: If you are trying to stealth camp in a city or anywhere for that matter, things can get a little trickier. Basically, stealth camping is trying to blend in with all the other vehicles around you and look like you belong and are NOT living out of a vehicle. For a car camper, this is much easier, but our tiny school bus didn’t exactly blend in. You can use apps like iOverlander to find good stealth camping spots but it’s up to you to make sure it’s safe and legal. We stealth camped the most when we spent about a month in San Diego because it’s hard to find free places to stay in the city. Sometimes you can find an overnight parking lot or even just a back side street where you can parallel park for the night. We were lucky enough to talk to some other travelers and find some good places to park for the night including an oceanside parking lot. Other travelers are your greatest resource!
Parking Lots: Not the best recommendation, but if you are in a pinch or traveling through a city, big brand store parking lots can be a good place to fall back on. Cracker Barrel is known for being traveler-friendly and has RV spots where you can safely park for the night and head out early in the morning. Although more Walmart’s are cracking down on overnight parking, some still allow it, just look for signage saying otherwise. Some other possibilities are stores like Home Depot or Lowes. We have crashed in a few of these lots after long travel days, after going inside and confirming with a manager. There was even one grocery store in a small town in Michigan where the manager was nice enough to let two of us park our buses for the night because there were no other good options around. On that note, we have also stayed in a few bar parking lots as well after speaking with the owners and enjoying dinner and maybe one too many drinks. If you keep your eyes open for possibilities and are friendly about asking around, you never know where you might end up finding a place to sleep for the night.
BLM Land: Camping on public land. This one falls in the free-to-cheap category because sometimes you do have to pay to stay. The Bureau of Land Management also has an app you can download that shows you where public land is nearby and if you can stay for free or how much you would have to pay to camp. We have used this app a few times to find great forest spots to camp!
Just Find and Empty Space: Tread lightly here, but if you see an open spot where you can park and there are no “no overnight parking” signs, then if you feel like pushing your luck for parking, why not? One of our favorite regular spots to watch the sunset when we lived in California was along the PCH near Malibu. There is a small space to pull over next to the ocean where you can walk down to the beach or stay up on the rocks and watch the waves crash below. When we moved into our bus, we decided to stay here overnight a few times so that we could wake up oceanside and it worked! We never had any issues! But we only stayed one night at a time and we came late and left early. We might have pushed our luck, but it was worth it.
Family and Friends: The best free option in my opinion is always family and friends. We were lucky enough to get to see a lot of family and friends while traveling and most of them were more than willing to let us park in their driveways for a few days while hanging out.
CHEAP
If you want a little more security knowing where you are going to stay for the night, there are certainly options that are still affordable.
Harvest Host/Boondockers Welcome: This was one of my favorite finds when we first started life on the road. This is an app that you pay for yearly, that allows you to stay at breweries, wineries, farms, golf courses, and even driveways! We have stayed in the middle of a vineyard and watched the sun rise over the vines, stayed with new friends on their avocado farm, and met some bar owners while crashing in the parking lot. If you are looking for unique experiences, this is your place. We have made some great friends from this app while just staying in their driveways! If you aren’t currently traveling and have extra driveway or yard space, you can always apply to be a host in Boondockers Welcome and host other travelers right in your own driveway!
Camping: Staying in campgrounds across the U.S. can be a great way to travel and also meet new friends, but it can get expensive. Some campgrounds you can find for only a few bucks a night but other more established campgrounds you will be paying $30 to even $100 per night to park. It all depends on what is in your budget and how much luxury you need. At the end of this post, you can check out some other apps I recommend for finding camping spots on the road. One of our favorite camping spots was in the Daniel Boone Forest at the Red River Gorge in Kentucky. It wasn’t one particular spot but above the town of Slade, there are a few roads with multiple parking lots and trailheads. You can purchase a 3-day camping pass for $7 to be able to legally stay in the lots overnight. This works perfectly for a converted rig or if you plan on hiking out and backcountry camping. This was another iOverlander find for camping!
LUXURY
Hotels: I would be lying if I said we didn’t ever get tired of traveling in the bus and didn’t splurge on a hotel a few times. The one time was out of absolute necessity because we were in Roswell, New Mexico, and temps were dropping in the teens at night and we did not have a heater installed in our bus yet. We did spend the week after this installing our heater, but the hotel was well worth it for the night. This is always a great option to fall back on if you need a break from the road, or to take advantage of modern conveniences like AC or Heat.
ADDITIONAL HELPFUL APPS
Although the rest of the apps we have vary between having to pay for the app or how much we have used them, if you are just getting started here is a beginner list of apps to download that you might want to check out to see which ones work best for you!
- Park4night
- The Dyrt
- CamperContact
- Campendium
- Free Camping
- FreeRoam
- Visitor Map
- Recreation.gov
- RA Camping
- NPS
- Hipcamp
- Sekr
- Rv Parky
- Vanly
It can take a while to learn what works best for you when you are on the road. What works well for one person doesn’t necessarily work well for others. Always make sure you are being respectful wherever you stay, and that you feel safe and comfortable!
Thanks for sharing all these resources for budget travel in the US.
I remember spending the night amongst the tall pines south of Grand Canyon too, but it was a little scary during a thunder storm with lighting flashes all around. The weather was bad sow e did pay to see iMax movie of the Grand Canyon, but campsites were full so we followed a “Fire-road” into the woods. Other people were car camping so we went for it. Woke up next day to better weather and did get to enjoy views at the rim of the canyon.
Angela, That sounds like an interesting experience! lol I’m sure that would be scary but the first car camping experience is always memorable!
https://bit.ly/3SWya9q Huge selection!