You can increase your odds of finding a site if you first look on your forest map for a lake within the forest with what appears to be a short, not too windy, access road. You have a much greater chance of finding a campsite at a lake because anglers have been there before you looking for better fishing holes.

Decades of forest anglers have created campsites along the shoreline that have been there for years and that don’t require a lot of searching. You can also find campsites along the streams that feed the lake or empty them.

And what could be nicer after having wandered down a dusty dirt road on a summer day with the temperature in the nineties than finding a lakeside campsite in a grove of tall shady pines and jumping into the clear water for a cooling swim.

Sometimes on busy weekends lakes can be busy. As you are driving in, watch for flat grassy meadows where you might find a few sites on the edge of the treeline away from the lake. You might even be treated to grazing deer or elk in the much quieter meadow at dawn and dusk.

By Bob Difley

If you haven’t yet heard about the Forest Service’s Travel Management Rule (TMR) you soon will. And it could change some critical “dispersed camping” (boondocking) rules for a long time to come.

The writing of this rule has been in the works for years. Each individual forest supervisor has been instructed to define and map every legally constructed road within his district and any not so defined will be declared illegal roads on which motor vehicles will be prohibited. It will also define trails for use by OHVs.

So far so good. We probably wouldn’t want to drive our rigs on bootlegged roads created by 4-wheelers and hunters or those designated for OHVs anyway, choosing those that were built by forest service engineers and substantial enough to handle fire fighting equipment and heavy cattle and logging trucks.

But then it gets a little murky. The rule says you cannot camp any further off the road than one vehicle length, except for those sites that have been designated as “dispersed camping” areas, and which will be included on the forest map. The supervisor designates those areas that will be defined as dispersed camping areas and boondocking will be limited to those areas–no more camping anywhere.

This is where there could be potential conflict. The supervisor, for example, could just designate those areas that can accommodate many RVs, but not authorize single campsites (which are usually the most private and nesty) and might be one of your favorites.

So far the official response to questions has been that all those spots that have been used in the past for boondocking (dispersed camping) will be included as official and legal campsites, but hacking new campsites out of the forest will not be allowed. This is good and if that is the case most of us boondockers will not be affected. But . . . it is still up to the supervisor, and if he/she is more interested in ease of patrolling the forest, he/she could restrict boondockers to group dispersed camping areas and not authorize individual sites.

The plan is still coming together. Some forests have already completed the maps for their forests and they are available at ranger offices or online–you can find the completed Motor Vehicle Use Maps here. I suggest that when you enter any national forest that you stop at the regional ranger office and ask about the TMR, whether it is in effect, and pick up the appropriate map for where you intend to camp–and make sure that dispersed camping areas are defined and located on the map. There is a very good reason to do this–failure to camp in an authorized area can result in a fine of up to $5,000, though this much fine would apply to flagrant violators. But who determines that. Ask questions. And if you find out some valuable and pertinent information, please let me know.

For those who like to wade through government publications, here is the link to the Travel Management Rule when it was authorized. But each individual forest is different, and will have slightly different interpretations of the rule, so again. ask questions.

Check out my website for more RVing tips and destinations and for my ebooks, BOONDOCKING: Finding the Perfect Campsite on America’s Public Lands , Snowbird Guide to Boondocking in the Southwestern Deserts, and 111 Ways to Get the Biggest Bang out of your RV Lifestyle Dollar.

In reality, it is most likely not a technical item that is required to enjoy boondocking, but a perceived convenience item–the electric blanket–designed to keep one warm but required continuous 120-volt electrical current over an eight-hour period, something that a non-energy-requiring extra blanket or quilt would accomplish just as well.

So when you begin setting up your rig for boondocking, it may be just as important to consider exactly what will make you comfortable and enhance your boondocking experience rather than just filling up your cart with boondocking “must have” items at Camping World. Spend just as much time on how to achieve personal warmth, comfort, cleanliness, healthy meals, and enjoyment of the great outdoors as you do on whether the inverters, solar panels, generators, tank capacities, battery capacities, and amps + volts + watts will accomplish those desires, and whether all that stuff is really worth the expense compared to, well, just throwing on another blanket.

With my wife and I, our boondocking trips are based on fresh water more than any other factor. We are physically active, exercising–running, hiking, kayaking, bicycling–enough to raise a good sweat everyday. Having the capacity to shower every day was far more important than an electric blanket or an ice maker or air-conditioning or power to run a big screen TV.

So we learned how to take Navy showers and conserve water use in other areas. We carried extra Jerry jugs of water to dump in our tank and kept the empties in our dinghy so we could fill them when we went to town for supplies. This was a much easier solution than either cutting back on our physical activity or feeling uncomfortable and smelly in our own dried sweat.

Everybody is different and has different needs and wants. So when you are considering boondocking–or expanding the extent of your boondocking trips–take the little things that are important to your RV lifestyle just as seriously as what kind of gadgets and equipment you “need.” The end result will likely be that the most important equipment will be those that accomplish the level of comfort and enjoyment they bring.

Check out my website for more RVing tips and destinations and for my ebooks, BOONDOCKING: Finding the Perfect Campsite on America’s Public Lands, Snowbird Guide to Boondocking in the Southwestern Deserts, and 111 Ways to Get the Biggest Bang out of your RV Lifestyle Dollar.

After all, camping in an RV in an RV resort or upscale campground is pretty comfortable, and living without those hookups would seem to make it less enjoyable.

But in reality, all modern RVs have been manufactured to be not only mobile, but also to be independent of appendages that hook them up to land-based resources. All RVs have a holding tank for fresh water, and most of the time two holding tanks for waste, one from the toilet and one from the shower and sinks.

They also have a house battery or batteries to supply 12-volt electricity to the RV in lieu of plug-in 120-volt power, and a generator to produce 120-volt electricity directly to both the 12-volt and the 120-volt systems, and to recharge the battery/ies.

So when using your RV’s systems rather than a campground’s, it opens up many more camping possibilities. There are vast natural areas on public lands for enjoying your RV lifestyle, such as in our national forests (photo Apache Sitgreaves National Forest in Arizona) and on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The National Forest Service (FS) manages the nation’s 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands–193 million acres.

The BLM manages approximately 253 million acres–one-eighth of the landmass of the country—most of it in the West. These massive areas, and more managed by other agencies of the Federal Government such as the National Park Service, Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, plus National Wildlife Refuges are known collectively as federal public lands. In addition there are state forests, state game and fish land, fishing accesses, and Indian Reservations.

RVers are permitted to camp–boondock–on these public lands, sometimes in primitive campgrounds (those without hookups) and sometimes on open land (called “dispersed camping” by the FS and BLM). If you only go to campgrounds, think how much of this country’s wonderful natural and scenic land you are missing, not to mention the joy of solitude when you find a boondocking campsite by a tumbling mountain stream or on a broad desert plain under the shade of a mesquite tree–and there is no one else in sight.

First, though, you have to get comfortable with camping without hookups. You can start off with boondocking for just one or two nights which won’t burden your onboard systems(photo – an enroute boondocking campsite in Klamath NF off Highway 97 northeast of Weed, CA–and only about 200 yards off the road).

But to go longer than that you need to learn some conservation techniques and alter some resource wasting habits. And that is the subject of next Saturday’s blog, Boondocking 101: How do you camp without hookups?

Check out my website for more RVing tips, destinations, and for my ebooks, BOONDOCKING: Finding the Perfect Campsite on America’s Public Lands, Snowbird Guide to Boondocking in the Southwestern Deserts, and 111 Ways to Get the Biggest Bang out of your RV Lifestyle Dollar.

The maximum RV length referred to means that all–or most–of the campsites in the campground will accommodate that length. But . . . some will also accommodate longer lengths, sometimes much longer. Those who write the rules do not want to officially include longer lengths when maybe only three or four campsites will fit longer lengths, and if those are taken but smaller ones remain open, they may get in a tangle with RVers with a longer rig urging them to move someone with a shorter rig out of the larger site and into a smaller site. Or, when those with larger rigs show up and find there are only a few that fit the maximum size stated and they are taken.

Whatever the reasons–not that I blame them at wanting to avoid such hassles–knowing this does open up some options. If you can fit into the campsite they won’t tell you to leave. And often, the measurement is made from the wheel barrier at the rear of the campsite to the front, the length of the pad itself . So, when you back in, your overhang extends over the barrier adding quite a few feet to the length that will fit. But watch out for those wood posts that some campgrounds use. Your overhang may not clear them. And there might be several sites that are long enough even without the overhang factor.

When you arrive at a campground that has a stated maximum length, drive around the campground and if you find one you fit into–no extending into the road, into foliage in the rear, or onto other obstructions–take it. It’s unlikely that you will find a host or ranger that will ask your length–unless they know exactly which sites are open and whether you will fit in any of them.

In national parks, it’s a bit more difficult, especially on busy holidays and weekends. If the park is filled everyday those that assign campsites may hold to the size maximum to reduce chaos, so plan to arrive early mid-week, before they start to fill up, when you can scout for larger sites on your own.

Check out my website for more RVing tips and destinations and my ebooks, BOONDOCKING: Finding the Perfect Campsite on America’s Public Lands (now available in a Kindle version), Snowbird Guide to Boondocking in the Southwestern Deserts, and 111 Ways to Get the Biggest Bang out of your RV Lifestyle Dollar.

If you don’t want the current lousy economy to keep you from following the blue highways this summer, try some of the following cost-cutting measures to reduce your overhead while not constricting your lifestyle.

Most are just changing your old habits for new, more efficient ones.

Drive 55. Lower speeds means more miles-per-gallon, and you will enjoy the scenery more and have less stress at lower speeds.

• Avoid jack-rabbit starts and quick stops. It’s all about torque and kinetic energy.
• Keep tires properly inflated. It can save up to 3% on fuel mileage.
• Stay longer at campgrounds or boondocking sites.
• Check out campground weekly rates, sometimes significantly less expensive than the daily rate.
• Install CFL or LED interior lights. These bulbs not only last much longer but use less energy.
• Boondock more often. Save campground fees, and losses at the weekly rec. room poker games.
• Install a solar or wind turbine system. Provides renewable free power to enable camping longer off the power grid.
• If traveling and staying only one night in a campground, pay less by choosing a non-hook-up site (sometimes called a tent site) or stay at lower-priced regional or state parks, or at stores that welcome over-nighters like Walmart, Kmart, and Cracker Barrel Restaurants.
• Eat out less. Save on food costs by preparing your own meals in your RV kitchen. You don’t really have to send the waiter’s daughter to college.
• Reduce food costs by bypassing the middle man. Buy from farmers markets, roadside farm stands, U-Pick farms and orchards, and other local food producers and ranchers.
• Reduce cost of food packaging. Buy in bulk from stores that offer this option.
• Eat right and get plenty of exercise (at least ½ hour per day) and you might be able to cut down on meds and doctor visits–and you’ll feel better.
• Volunteer or become a camp host, which usually comes with a free campsite, and gives you something constructive to do.
• Take a caretaking position. Look at the Caretaker’s Gazette for opportunities to trade out for free rent.
• Shop for quality-label–but slightly used–outdoor wear at St. Vincent de Paul, Salvation Army, or other charity stores—and you will be helping worthy charitable institutions while at the same time buying quality labels at far below retail prices.
• Start a book exchange at your favorite campground, or encourage the camp host at RV parks to set one up to cut down on the cost of your reading pleasures.
• Some libraries have used magazine exchanges where you can get current or one month old magazines for free–you might be able to cancel your current magazine subscriptions and save money having them re-shipped to you on the road.
• Visit and shop Quartzsite for all kinds of bargains offered by RVers cleaning out their lockers, hard-core flea market sellers, and other interesting folk.

Be creative. As RVers we are in a unique position to find ways to cut our road expenses. And you’ll save enough money to put a down payment on your next rig.

Check out my website for more RVing tips and destinations and for my ebooks, BOONDOCKING: Finding the Perfect Campsite on America’s Public Lands(now available in a Kindle version), Snowbird Guide to Boondocking in the Southwestern Deserts, and 111 Ways to Get the Biggest Bang out of your RV Lifestyle Dollar.

Before I started boondocking, I took electrical power for granted. When I wanted to run something that required electricity, I merely pushed a button or flipped a switch.

I never ran out–I could leave the lights on 24/7 and never receive an error message that my power was at 20% and the system would shut down in a few minutes.

Power was cheap. Supply was infinite. But when my wife and I became boondockers, that all changed. Now our power supply became limited by the number and state of our batteries. When our batteries became depleted, our electricity supply stopped–dead. No water–the pump wouldn’t run. No Radio. No TV. The electrical step wouldn’t retract. No lights to finish the last chapter of my book.

So power was now worth a lot more. More than just the cost. It was convenience also. But when
we tried to compare the costs of installing an equal system of alternative power–generator,
solar, wind–there were choices that had to be made.

Most of those choices involve expense. A simple sub-$1000 Honda generator would light out
lights and run our water pump, but not the air-conditioner, microwave, or coffee maker.
Spending more dollars for a larger generator would fix that. But there was also the noise of a
continuously running motor, having to carry cans of gasoline and having to constantly refill
after several hours of use, finding a storage place, and maintenance of its moving parts.

With a wind generator, you would frequently go for days in the summer without wind to turn its
blades, and if the wind blew at night you were subjected to the continuous rumble of the
running turbine. Maybe you would find yourself looking for windy camping areas. Not always a
desirable goal.

Solar panels are expensive. Much harder to install than plugging in a generator. Very little
output on cloudy days. Not of very much use in the Pacific Northwest, northern plains states,
or New England in the winter. And they just don’t work at night. So what’s the big deal with
solar?

This is why solar is my first choice:

* Once installed, no more to do, other than hose off debris and dirt occasionally.
* No moving parts to wear out or maintain.
* I prefer to boondock where the sun is shining, so they are always working to supplyelectricity.
* It works even when I ignore it.
* No noise–not a sound.
* Starts charging at first light, increases charge to maximum mid-day, and charges until the sun sets. In the summer that is a lot of hours.
* Stores its electricity in as many batteries as I want to install (in my case, 4 Trojan
golf cart batteries).
* I have the option of tilting them more directly toward a winter sun (that sits lower in
the sky) to produce optimum power.
* They continue to charge, though at a lower rate, on cloudy days.
* No CO2 emissions, no pollution, no noise.

Factor in the value of convenience, trouble free operation, and zero operational costs–even
when you pro-rate the hardware expense over several years–solar wins.

Check out my website for more RVing tips and destinations and my ebooks, BOONDOCKING: Finding the Perfect Campsite on America’s Public Lands(now available in a Kindle version), Snowbird Guide to Boondocking in the Southwestern Deserts, and 111 Ways to Get the Biggest Bang out of your RV Lifestyle Dollar.

You may not drink plain, un-enhanced water, preferring wine, beer, coffee, sodas, or tea for your liquid intake. As explorer Owen Lattimore noted while traveling the ancient Asian Silk Road in camel caravans, “Water alone, unboiled, is never drunk. There is a superstition that it causes blisters on the feet.” But if water for any use–ice cubes, washing vegetables, brushing teeth–comes in contact with your insides, you might want to consider these extra firewall protections between you and the microscopic creepy crawlies.

• Fill your water tank only from water supplies that are confirmed “potable” (drinking) sources, such as from municipal, campground, and tested well water supplies.
• Every six months sanitize your tank by pouring in one-quarter cup of bleach for every 15 gallons of water in a full tank. Let stand overnight. Drain, fill, and rinse at least twice, or until chlorine odor is gone. Better yet, fill with water and bleach when leaving your last campground and let it slosh around in the tank as you head home.
• Be especially careful to keep the ends of your water hose out of the dirt and off the ground when attaching your host to a tap.
• Attach the ends together after emptying it of all remaining water and store coiled in a plastic or cloth bag.
• When possible, use your own water hose to fill your tank. You don’t know how previous RVers have handled the supplied hose.
• Do not fill your water tank from the water supplied at a dump station for rinsing down, unless you are sure it is a safe (municipal) water supply and you use your own hose.
• Wash your hands after using a dump station before using the water hose to fill your fresh water tank.
• Filter the water coming out of your kitchen faucet either with an under-sink inline filter (such as an Everpure) or attach a water filter (i.e.Brita) to your kitchen faucet. You can also keep a Brita-type pitcher of water with built in filter in your frig. These filters will also remove grit and bad tastes like you get from some desert water supplies.
• If you use the pitcher, remember to use the filtered water for washing veggies, making coffee, tea, cold drinks, and ice cubes, and if you’re slightly nervous about your current water tank supply, for brushing teeth as well.

From many years of RVing I have discovered that if you don’t follow the rule “if you bring something aboard, something has to leave” then soonor later you will either be way overloaded or will be looking for a new –and larger–rig.

Your RV, if you hadn’t noticed lately, is limited in carrying and storage capacity. You have to make decisions of what you will carry and what you will eliminate when something new comes aboard. And when you will get rid of something if you haven’t used it in a while–like a year or more.

Which brings me to my “things that I have had for more than a year but which will NOT go” list. I know that someday I will need these “things” when boondocking, which will justify the time I have carried them, mostly unused, hidden deep in a locker somewhere.

• Folding shovel. Folds into a compact shape. Can also be used as a hammer, pick, scoop, scraper, and along with a bucket often required by the forest service (FS) during dry seasons if you are boondocking and plan to build a campfire. Available at my Amazon aStore and at outdoor and Army surplus stores.
• Bucket, plastic or canvas collapsible. Also required by FS (see above), for putting out campfires. Myriad other uses: carrying water, collecting kindling, as a step stool (not canvas one), emptying a bucket of gray water–never black water–to dump on a thirsty plant when you accidentally fill your holding tank and are miles from a dump station.
• Hand tree or lopping saw for cutting pesky branches that thwack against the rig in a wind or threaten to take off the air conditioner or roof vent. Also can cut firewood.
• Heavy rubber mat or traction pads. Mainly for putting under wheel if stuck in soft desert sand or on a muddy forest road. Will lay flat on the bottom of a locker.Foil backed reflective radiant barrier. You can buy this in hardware or building materials stores. Use on super hot days on windows getting direct sun to reduce inside temperature. Also to reflect hot direct sun from outside of refrigerator to help in cooling.
• Latex surgeon’s gloves (package). There will come a time when there is some yucky job you need to handle and you don’t want to touch, such as replacing a dump valve or a toilet, handling anything bloody, or fighting zombies.
• Several other useful but often forgotten items like duct tape, bailing wire, plastic wire ties, jumper cables, paper face masks, mouse traps, ant stakes, adequate first aid kit–things that when you need them you need them now and don’t have time to search for the nearest store.
• You will find that most experienced boondockers, based on personal experiences, will have their own list of emergency items. You hope you will never need yours, but you know you will someday.

Check out my website for more RVing tips and destinations and my ebooks, BOONDOCKING: Finding the Perfect Campsite on America’s Public Lands, Snowbird Guide to Boondocking in the Southwestern Deserts, and 111 Ways to Get the Biggest Bang out of your RV Lifestyle Dollar.

Unfortunately, we can’t always tell when foods contain something that will make us sick. Whether purchasing food from a major supermarket supplied by super-sized agribusiness producers or from the back of a farmer’s truck at a local farmers’ market doesn’t protect us from the pathogens that sneak through.

Boondockers must be especially careful in the handling and storing of fresh foods when stocking up before a trip, storing food in every available space—often hidden from view until discovered as the storage area empties out, often having been subjected to a wide fluctuation between heat and cold.

And what happens when we use foods beyond the safe date, since we can’t just pop down to the market to replace questionable items. We are often a distance from medical care, also, if we do get sick.

We also might be a bit sparse in using wash and rinse water on dinnerware and cooking utensils because of our limited fresh water supply and waste tank capacity. So RVers, especially boondockers, should take extra precaution in food storage, food preparation, and clean up. Here are a few tips from food safety experts.

• USE PASTEURIZED EGGS If you are not willing to give up soft-boiled eggs or unbaked cookie dough, or you are using a recipe that calls for raw or partly cooked eggs. Better yet, don’t eat raw or partially cooked eggs.

• WASH ALL PRODUCE Even if you are going to peel the skin, give it a good scrub so you don’t transfer bacteria from the knife or peeler to the part you are going to eat. Most important, wash all lettuce, even if it comes in a bag that says triple washed.

• LEARN TO LOVE WELL DONE Cooking thoroughly is the best way to eliminate harmful bacteria from meats and poultry. Use a meat thermometer.

• THE RIGHT CUTTING BOARDS Always prepare raw meats and poultry on one cutting board, using another for vegetables. Clean both with warm soapy water after each use. Whether you use wood or plastic cutting boards, the important thing is to keep boards clean and replace them when they become scored because pathogens can hide in the grooves.

• UNDERSTAND ‘ORGANIC’ Organic means grown without pesticides, it has nothing to do with bacteria and other pathogens. However, there is something reassuring about buying from a small organic farmer at a local stand or farmers’ market. Even so, remember that you need to handle anything organic — meat, poultry, produce — the same as non-organic. You should still keep meats and vegetables separate to avoid cross-contamination, wash all produce thoroughly and wash platters and other surfaces that come into contact with raw meat and poultry.

• BE SMART ABOUT LEFTOVERS Keeping food too long can pose a risk. You can’t smell, see, or taste the bacteria that causes illness.

The Center for Science in the Public Intereste also points out:
• Don’t leave food out longer than two hours, and use or freeze all leftovers within four days.
• To avoid throwing out food (and wasting money), plan your trip’s menu and shopping list with leftovers in mind, i.e. roast chicken one day, chicken salad sandwiches the next, to make sure leftovers get used quickly.
• Finally, since many of us fit the definition of “elderly” (even if we disagree with it), the Center says, “The elderly are often likely to keep food too long. But they are more at risk of getting seriously ill from tainted food.”
For more RVing and boondocking tips, visit my Healthy RV Lifestyle website and also check out my ebooks, BOONDOCKING: Finding the Perfect Campsite on America’s Public Lands, Snowbird Guide to Boondocking in the Southwestern Deserts, and 111 Ways to Get the Biggest Bang our of your RV Lifestyle Buck.