The Basics of RV Boondocking | Episode 4

After we mentioned boondocking in our episode on the five best travel apps, Melina received a text from a friend asking what boondocking was. Fast forward to this week, and we’ve adjusted our podcast schedule to bring you the answer!

Essentially, boondocking with your RV or travel trailer is staying somewhere outside a traditional campground where you don’t have fresh water, sewer or power connections. Boondocking for us, is a safe night’s sleep on our way to our other camping destinations!

In this episode we cover (and use the chapter markers in the episode navigation bar if you want to skip to a particular section):

• What boondocking is [0:59]
• The difference between RV boondocking, dry camping and dispersed camping [1:35]
• Why, when, and where to boondock [3:43]
• Boondocking etiquette (if you only listen to one section – let this be it!) [5:57]
• And we round out the episode with a review of our recent stay at Bronte Creek Provincial Park in Oakville, Ontario Canada [11:37]

Mentioned in this link:

How to find Crown Land Camping in Ontario, visit the Crown Land Policy Atlas

Camping on public lands in the USA, visit the Bureau of Land Management

For our review on Bronte Creek Provincial Park and links to activities, events and bookings, visit our Bronte Creek trip guide

Episode Transcript

0:06  
Hello fellow RVers and welcome to Episode Four of the RV Canucks it is Melina and Dan back again. Today we are going to talk about the basics of boondocking. What it is where to do it, some of the etiquette involved and stay tuned at the end of the episode when we have our campground review of our recent stay at Bronte Creek Provincial Park. So after last week's episode on our five best travel apps, we did mention boondocking I got a text Not long after that episode came out from our friend Jason asking if I could please explain what boondocking was. And after mentioning that to a few people, it turned out there was more than one person a little confused by the concept of boondocking, or at least what we were referring to. So we decided to change our episode schedule a little bit and slide this one in there so that we could address the issue what is the definition of boondocking so boondocking is

1:00  
When you don't have power and you don't have water and you decide to camp probably in a parking lot, maybe at a Walmart Cabela's Bass Pro Shops truck stop somewhere like that. If you've ever driven down the road and it's seven o'clock at night, you see an RV in the back of the parking lot, there's a good chance that that person is probably boondocking boondocking can mean out in the boonies, which is literally in the middle of nowhere. But usually and when you hear us talk about it, it's going to be referred to blacktop boondocking which is essentially parking lots boondocking so not to be confused with what we call dry camping or free camping when you're using crown land or a national park say that doesn't have services and you are literally camping dry, which means you don't have access to like freshwater hookups and dump stations and things like that with those options, particularly around land in Canada or what's called BLM lands in the United States, which is the Bureau of Land Management. It's basically just land owned by

2:00  
The government that you can go and you can camp on for free in Canada and in Ontario, particularly, we have a lot of crown land. So 87% of Ontario is actually crown land, which kind of blew my mind when I thought about it. But when you think about the size of our country and the resources in our country, it kind of makes sense. But for crown land camping in Canada, if you're a Canadian resident, or you've lived here, at least seven out of the last 12 months, you can actually camp on crown land for free on one site for up to 21 days each year. If you're a non resident, there's a nominal fee for crown land camping of about $10 and 50 cents a night give or take taxes included. So if you were looking at that type of option, which is certainly an option with an RV, you have to be aware of a few things and one is that crown land is often really remote IE very hard to get to if you're towing something and it's not maintained. So if that's something that you want to do where you're interested in I would suggest that you do your research well in advance there is a very random

3:00  
Entry mapping system online that can help you find crown land camping opportunities, which I will put the link to that in the show notes if you do want to do some of that south of the border, and I know when we were in Utah, we saw a couple of really cool sites that you could do that in down there. It's called dispersed camping. So if you roll up to any sort of Park office or Visitor Center and say you want to boondock they're going to look at you like you have a toaster on your head, but called dispersed camping in the United States. So that said, that kind of covers what we would call dry camping or free camping. But when we talk about boondocking the way Dan previously described it, we're parking in a parking lot on our way somewhere, overnight. So with that said, Do we want to talk about the basics of boondocking? Yeah, so you know, dry camping connects you with nature. And I think that boondocking connects you with your urban environment. And I don't think you want to spend two weeks boondocking but I will tell you that a life is what you make of it and you can see some really interesting things and do some good people watching

4:00  
You're boondocking. So when do you want to use it? We tend to use it when we have a long travel day. And we're going to push through maybe dinnertime and we just need a spot to get a quick sleep and we're going to be back on the road. First thing again in the morning, probably what I would say is you're going to use it when you're not gonna have the opportunity to avail yourself of the services and facilities of an RV park. So by drop 50 or 80 bucks on a 12 hour sleep, why do you want to use it? You know, I think that using boondocking, probably as a matter of convenience, chances are you're going to be parked either near groceries, which you might need or you're going to be parked near gasoline, diesel, or you're going to be parked near both. So I think that's probably why you would use it, where to use it. You could stay at a Walmart parking lot, you can stay at truckstops some restaurants like cracker barrels have spots for that I think that each of them has their own pros and cons. And so I think you just have to decide what it is you need and when

5:00  
You're trying to achieve and then you can make a decision about where you want to go. And a note on that a lot of rest stops, particularly south of the border will allow you to stay overnight and rust stops being like a rudimentary stop where you can pull off the highway and you have, you know, a bathroom and some vending machines and like a park area with some picnic benches if you want to have a picnic, but I think that I would boondock there kind of as a last resort if you really need to get some shuteye, but there's generally particularly south of the border for those Canadians who haven't traveled down there yet. The rest stops don't have gas, they don't have restaurants, there's usually not a lot nearby, so you're kind of out in the middle of nowhere. So I think for us, it's definitely more beneficial or kind of jives with the way we travel a little bit better to kind of take some of those boxes off like gas and showers and food instead of staying at a restaurant but if worse, comes to worse and it's the middle of the night and you have to get some shuteye for safety reasons, then by all means, pull off and grab a bit of shuteye at a restaurant. Yep. So there's some etiquette to boondocking the first one

6:00  
One is get permission. You know, I think YouTube is littered with examples of people that have gotten kicked out of a parking lot at 3am because they didn't clear it. And so getting permission is really easy. It's a matter of phoning ahead to a specific restaurant or store that says that they offer it and just confirming it with the manager and then going inside even if you need to when you get there and just double checking that where you are is okay, where you parked is okay with them. Second thing I would say is be a customer. So yeah, you're trying to save a bit of money, but listen, get your gas there and get your groceries there, grab a cup of coffee, maybe a small meal, be a customer because that's why they're offering it so you won't make sure you want to represent the RV community. Well Park away from other cars, you know, park with the other RVs So first of all, don't be a nuisance by clogging up a parking spot at the front of the store park at the back. You'll appreciate that more because it's probably a little bit quieter and park with other RVs because hey, I know that right now. There's a husband and wife somewhere out there having a conversation about how safe is it parking with other people's

7:00  
makes it more safe. Use your slide out wisely. If you're going to put your slide out out Be conscious that you're not putting it into a lane of traffic through the parking lot or taking up yet another parking spot. So position your trailer or your RV as much as you can that you're sliding your slideshow over grass or over a curb for example, and not into traffic not into another parking spot. With all of that being said just slide it out enough for you to get in and out or get past whatever the slideshow blocks you from getting to it doesn't need to go all the way out just enough to get get past because remember, most of the time that that slide out is out you're probably going to be asleep anyways. So for our trailer, you have to put the slide out at least six or seven inches for the girls to be able to get to their bedroom at the back some models you might not even have to put the slide out in order to do that. I think just being really mindful of that. And particularly, as Dan said, not taking up an additional space we have ruled by places where we wanted to boondock and the spot

8:00  
are absolutely full like you will get in the busy season a short supply of places to boondock in very popular areas. So if you have a slide out, you're basically effectively taking an opportunity for another boondock or away. Yeah, so a couple other things I would say to keep in mind, only stay one night and don't put out your awning and your lawn chairs and your barbecue and all of those things because when you do that, that's not boondocking that's called squatting. And if you have time to put all that out, you have time to go to a proper RV park. Don't blast your generators, maybe you're in a more quiet neighborhood. Maybe you're near a hotel so you don't really don't want to disturb everyone else around you. So if you have a loud generator that's outside the trailer that's probably not a good idea. But that's not to say that I haven't run the generator Hey, during dusk or early evening to get things cooled down at a truck stop to that's a super good example because we did stop at a Cracker Barrel in Kansas and it was the hottest night in history and it was a great place fairly quiet but the back of the parking lot

9:00  
Have the Cracker Barrel actually met up with the windows of a hotel. So we did use the generator when we got there in the early evening just to try to get things cool, but it was definitely one of those nights where we talked about in our best apps Episode Episode Number three, check it out. If you haven't where we talked about maybe sometimes it's better to throw down 20 or $30 and find a paid site near the interstate that's got power because let me tell you folks, I was out in the middle of that parking lot in my pajamas at three o'clock in the morning trying to catch a breeze so weather can possibly play a factor in that unless you have access to power right and some of you are gonna have nice quiet generators that built into your rig and that's probably not a problem but be thoughtful as you're going down the highway whether it's a heat wave or something like that. The other thing I would say is don't be afraid to look for power sources. So we pulled into a flying j one time we stayed in the RV designated parking woke up and the people beside us asked if our power went out last night and it turned out that we had parked beside a pole that had power on it you know regular you know light, light, standard, light standard in the middle of the parking

10:00  
had power in it and we could have had power. So take a look at the light standards and perhaps there's power that you can connect into. My other word of advice is if you're going to a truck stop park in the RV parking RVs stay with RVs and trucks stay with trucks. truck drivers have a hard enough time finding a spot to park their truck. You don't need to go take one of their spots. The other thing I would tell you is that if you parked beside a truck in a truck stop, they're loud. They're gonna run that engine all night long and you're not going to sleep as well. So if you stay on your side of the yard and they stay on their side of the yard, everybody will be happy and everybody will get along just fine. So that's the etiquette for boondocking or blackout boondocking in a parking lot, however you want to put it it's definitely something that has changed the way we travel as weekend warriors or part time RV years, it really has allowed us to see a lot of the continent, whatever qualms or whatever fears you have about it. There's tons of information online, you've got trustworthy reviews from people

11:00  
like us who have kind of worked it into the way they travel, and it's really opened up a ton of doors for us to be able to go further when we have vacation from work. And I think that's something that's so important. There's so many amazing things to see in North America, you know, really cutting down on some of that time. So you can make tracks and kind of get across the country is really, really helpful. So I fully endorse it. And I think I mentioned on the last episode, it was something that I was super nervous about before we had done it for the first time, but it's a really, really good thing to think about if you want to see more than a 10 hour radius around where you live. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay, so we've almost come to the end of our episode, and we have rounded up our thoughts about our recent stay at Bronte Creek Provincial Park, which I would say was probably one of our more unexpected provincial parks that we've stayed at meaning it was totally not what we expected it to be, but in a very, very good way. It was a really nice pleasant surprise, I think. Yeah. Oh, totally. And for those of you who kind of aren't from Southwest

12:00  
Ontario or haven't traveled here a lot. Bronte Creek is a Provincial Park and it's basically located smack dab in the middle of the city on the western edge of Oakville, which kind of borders Burlington, Ontario. And it's almost a six and a half per square kilometer Park. You know, it's something that you kind of drive past and kind of think of who would camp there, right? Like, don't people know that nature exists type of thing. And this is coming from two people who lived in the GTA, we just kind of we lived there and kind of had never stayed there, just kind of having the same thoughts about it, but it's a really fantastic park to stay great for families, a lot of activities. There's 144 sites there, most of which have electric hookup. There's four camp ground loops, there's four group sites that each fit up to 25 people there's three yurts, the campground side of the park has two conference stations and the day use area has nine conference stations. The day use area pretty much dwarfs the campground area in size, I would say one thing to be aware of is that

13:00  
The de use Park and the campground side are kind of separated by a massive ravine that goes down to Bronte Creek and it's 115 feet deep. So there's really no good way to get from the campground side to the day you side on foot or on bike. So if you want to visit the day you side and you're camping at Bronte Creek Provincial Park, you kind of have to get in your car and you have to go on the highway and go down one exit and then get off and go around to the day you side. So that's something we spent the better part of a day trying to figure out how to get down to the creek and we couldn't do that until we went to the day you side. But that being said, there's five different trails that total about 10 kilometers in different hiking trails and biking trails. There is a children's farm and activity center there there is a Victorian farmhouse the spruce lane farmhouse which is a museum and in the operating season, they have costumed interpreters. Now a lot of those activities aren't running right now because of COVID. But we certainly went through the day use area and we're able to see some of the sites we walked around

14:00  
In the farmhouse, we were able to use the trails. They have one of Canada's largest swimming pools. It's a 1.8 acre pool, and it's kind of shaped like a pond. It's really cool. Actually, it's zero entry and it kind of just gradually goes down. Like if you were walking into a pond and the depth in the middle is six feet, you do have to pay a user fee to visit the pool even if you are camping, but it is a nominal fee. I think it's like $4 for an adult and $2 for a child or something like that. And there's also there's an 18 hole disc golf course there, which is kind of cool, like frisbee golf. So there's a lot of cool activities to do. They have a ton of events, they run a maple syrup festival every March, there's ghost walks in August at the spruce lane farmhouse, which is kind of cool and kind of creepy because it's right next to the halfmoon trail. And in the day use area of the park in the ravine, they actually allow you to scatter ashes if that's your jam, so it would be kind of a cool place to do a ghost walk during the summer. There's a harvest festival every September. They do a campground Halloween in October. And of course they have a

15:00  
Victorian Christmas setup at the museum as well. So there is a ton to do for families who want to explore the history of the area and the agriculture and whatnot as far as the campground itself. What do you think, Dan? I think it was a great place. I think that if you want to explore Toronto and Niagara Falls in, you're looking for a base camp, it's a great spot to be. I think that if you want to ride your bike or get out for a run on a few trails that are nice and easily groomed and get some exercise, it's a great place to be first impressions driving in think the roads are nice and smooth. The campsites are pretty spacious, I'd say they're angled in a really good fashion. So it makes easy to back up I backed in in one shot with which has never happened. So really easy entry for RV sites. And I think just driving around I think most of the campsites look pretty level reasonably good privacy. Listen, if you want shade, there's some shaded site if you want a nice big sunny site, there's some sunny sites. So I think there's a little bit of something for everybody. I don't think we were too

16:00  
From a water tap, which meant we could kind of just top off with a water jug into the fresh water. From a practical standpoint, I would say as you depart the park, the dump station and the filling station for fresh water are both in line with each other. So it's only one dump station, only one filling station. So if somebody is filling water in front of you, and you've just finished dumping, you're going to have to wait for them to finish before you could move on. But hey, like we told you in our previous episode, don't be in a rush at the dump station. Or when you fill in somebody dumping you'd have to wait before you can go in and fail. But really listen, I went there a couple of times to dump the lagoon, the honey wagon, and I didn't run into anybody. So it never cost us a problem, I don't think right but when you go in to camp, you're kind of basically doing a U turn and you're exiting the park to fill up and then you have to do another U turn and come back into the park to make it to your site. So that's just something to be aware of. I mean, the corners were tight, but they weren't. They weren't unaccessible by a larger RV by any stretch. Oh yeah.

17:00  
I think the other thing I would tell you is listen at the dump station, they have your normal hose there for rinsing things off, they also have a connector for you to connect up to your Blackwater flush out if that's what you have on your rig, but you do have to provide your own hose for that. So from a practical aspect, I thought this was a pretty well laid out Park and probably a good spot. You know, just to get started, especially if you don't have a ton of experience and you don't want to go too far from home in the GTA, for when we went to visit, you know, obviously, we're in the midst of COVID still, but they actually had every second campsite give or take was blocked off or not available to reserve in not in every area of the park. But certainly in areas where the campsites were a little bit closer together just to keep people separated and practice some of that social distancing, which I thought was great, but if you do want to go this year in 2020, keep in mind that you know close to half of the sites aren't going to be available at this time. And one other thing I noted as we were going around and riding our bikes, which we thought was cool, given the age of our kids, but in the 300 loop. You have a lot of sites that back onto the

18:00  
ravine trail and let me tell you this ravine is steep, it is like straight down steep. So if you have smaller kids or animals that wander, you probably might want to choose a different loop or just be aware of the fact that at the back of those campgrounds you do go right onto the ravine trail, and it is a quite a steep drop. So that was one thing I just noticed from a mother's perspective. Yeah, so that was Bronte Creek. I think I would definitely return. I think it makes you think differently about how you can use your RV. We've talked about road trips, we've talked about weekend trips, we've talked about your typical nature camping, this is the first time we've probably used it to go into the city to do something to cut down on commute time, save on hotel costs, and the whole reason we were down there as our youngest daughter was in a goalie camp, and this really made that whole experience a whole lot easier and more enjoyable for everybody. It really did. It was fantastic. And even being in the middle of the city, we were kind of in the middle of the meteor shower that went on earlier this month. And we managed well. I didn't manage to see any because I somehow happened to be looking at

19:00  
Wrong direction every single time there was a meteor but Dan and the girls certainly saw a number of meteors in the sky, which we didn't think we would be able to being kind of in the midst of the city with all of that ambient light. So that was kind of cool too. And that is our review of Bronte Creek Provincial Park. I will put links in the show notes to all of the things we've talked about all of the reservation sites and of course we'll do our campground review and right up of Bronte Creek where you can see some images and some other amenities of the park. Last episode we did say that we were going to answer our listener question on solar power however, we decided to move that to next week's episode, which where you are going to be focusing on a really good walkthrough of your trailer. So if you have just bought a trailer new or you bought it us and didn't quite get a great walkthrough, we're going to kind of look at some of the basic things, the basic operating systems of your trailers or your Arby's and kind of how to navigate them. You're gonna learn from our mistakes. You're gonna learn from our mistakes.

20:00  
For sure, so I think it kind of fits a little bit better to put that solar power tag that onto that conversation. So we are going to move that to Episode Five next week. So that being said, thanks for joining us. Again, if you haven't subscribed, please subscribe so you get notified when future episodes come out and follow us always on Instagram at RV connects. We are going to be heading off at the end of this week for another adventure. And we'll have lots of images up there and more to talk about. So thanks again for joining us. Bye bye, folks.

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