Find free camping on public land
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Find free camping in my state →What are campgrounds costing you?
A developed campground runs about $38 a night across the US. Dispersed camping on public land runs $0. Slide your nights out per year.
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Read this before you drive out there.
Army Corps of Engineers Land: Camping Rules and Stay Limits
Camping on Corps of Engineers project land is allowed only at designated sites, capped at 14 days in any 30, and carries a $5,000 penalty cap. Here is what 36 CFR 327 actually says and what it leaves to the local project office.
Dispersed Camping: What It Means and Where It Is Allowed
What dispersed camping actually is, which public land allows it, the stay limits and vehicle rules that come with it, and where the agencies leave the number up to the local office.
How to Find BLM Land and Free Camping Sites: The Actual Method
Agency maps, Motor Vehicle Use Maps, and a phone call to the ranger district. The method that finds legal free camping, and how to read the maps so you do not camp on someone's ranch.
The BLM 14-Day Rule Explained: How Stay Limits Actually Work
What the BLM 14-day camping rule means, how the rolling window counts, how far you have to move, and why Forest Service limits are different in every forest.
Latest
Latest in free-camping
A California Campfire Permit does not let you have a campfire under a fire restriction
Three current California forest orders say it in the same sentence: permit holders are not exempt. What the permit buys you under a restriction is a gas or propane device with a shut-off valve, and the required clearance is 3 feet on two forests and 5 feet on the third.
You need a hunting license, a fishing license, or a $43.87 pass to set foot on a Colorado state wildlife area
Colorado Parks and Wildlife requires everyone 16 or older to hold an SWA pass or a valid hunting or fishing license just to enter a state wildlife area. Camping is a separate permission, set per property.
Driving off a forest road to a campsite is a designation, not a default: 36 CFR 212.51(b)
The Forest Service travel management rule says a forest may designate limited motor vehicle use within a specified distance of certain roads for dispersed camping. If it has not, 36 CFR 261.13 makes driving off the road prohibited.
Free camping questions, answered.
Is free camping actually legal?
On most federal public land, yes. Dispersed camping outside developed campgrounds is the default across most Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service land, it costs nothing, and it needs no reservation. The conditions are that you stay within the local limit, camp on ground that is already disturbed rather than making a new site, keep the required distance from water and developed areas, and only drive roads that are open. National parks are the big exception: they run on designated sites and permits instead.
How long can I stay in one place?
Commonly 14 days within a 28-day period, then you have to move a set distance. That is a pattern, not a rule. Stay limits are set locally by the BLM field office or the Forest Service ranger district that manages the ground you are on, and they genuinely differ between units. Heavily used areas are often shorter. The office that manages the land is the only authority that can tell you what applies where you are standing.
How do I know if I am allowed to camp where I am?
Two questions decide it. Whose land is this, and is this road open? Land ownership is not marked on the ground in most of the country, and much of the west is a checkerboard of federal, state, and private parcels, so you need an ownership map layer. For roads, a national forest publishes a motor vehicle use map showing exactly which routes you may drive and where you can pull off. If you cannot answer both, do not camp there.
What does free camping not include?
Water, toilets, trash, hookups, cell signal, and usually a level spot. That is the trade. A developed campground charges roughly $38 a night in exchange for solving those problems for you. Free camping means you carry your water in, carry your waste out, and generate your own power. If you are not set up for that, the campground fee is buying you something real.
Where is there the most free camping?
The west, by a wide margin. Federal land is not spread evenly: Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho are largely public, while most eastern states have very little outside a handful of national forests. That single fact shapes how people travel. Our state pages show what is actually available where you are.
Next step
Found a spot. Can you actually run on it?
Free camping means no hookups. How long you can stay comes down to power and water, not permission. Size your solar and battery before the trip, not from a pullout with a dead fridge.
Sort out your power →