Hello all,
I am about to embark on a cross country ride from Asheville, NC to Black Rock City, Nevada. Yes I have a specific destination and time table but I hope to enjoy the a few days of riding out west on both sides of my trip. As everybody (well, most people anyways) I am working on a budget and trying to stretch it out as much as possible. My biggest concern is finding a safe place to crash at night. Hotels are expensive, and puts my bike a good distance from me, meaning I have to load and unload everything each night and day. Motels could work, but camping would be ideal.

Is it still possible to camp places like they did in easy rider, or is that a dream long forgotten? Somebody mentioned walmarts, but I think that is only for RVs, not tents. Any advice?

PS: My plan is to document an Iron Butt ride to get out west. If that helps at all.

 

If you are traveling alone you have a couple of options:
If you are stopping after sunset and it is dry you can stop in a roadside picnic area and crash on a picnic table ( or under it)
You can check out small town municipal parks they sometimes have free tent sites.
Many small private campgrounds and RV parks have a few tent sites (less than $20)

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This is a good source:

http://www.uscampgrounds.info/

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pick up a rand- mac. atlas it will show all state parks, their usually the cheapest, most states 15 to 20 bucks, and there are a lot of them. Wal-marts? rv only, rest area? troopers will run you off and can ticket you, if you don't get robbed, and or killed first. And something i learned from long distant hiking, find the eating place in a small town where everybody hangs out, if your good at talking and you offer to pay, it'll amaze you how often you'll end up in somebody's back-yard. good luck JB

I just returned home from a 6 month trip around the country from Atlanta up to MI, across to WA, down to CA and back to GA, hitting pretty much everywhere in between.

National Forests are public locations and ALWAYS free. Same for BLM land out west and often National Recreation Areas. National Forest campgrounds are not free. The little advertised trick is you can camp anywhere you like inside a national forest that's not in the campground and it's free, as long as you're more than 50ft off the road. It's called decentralized camping or sometimes primitive camping. They are everywhere. You can also generally use the facilities inside the campground for free - toilets, water, etc, just so long as you don't camp there. They sometimes charge for showers if they have them but usually only a couple of $$.

It doesn't include National Parks.

Another option I discovered while on my trip is www.couchsurfing.com

It's an amzing site that links together total strangers to stay at their home, completely free. If you're not afraid to help out, talk to strangers and get to know an area by the locals it's great. You can look on the site without signing up to see if it might work for you. I loved it.

If you provide details of your route I can suggest camping locations, particularly out west.

Enjoy your trip.

ADVrider has a list of Tent Spaces. ADV members all accross the country and world willing to help and have space for you to pitch a tent. Check it out here and here and here is a list of campsites

Hope this helps.

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