When looking for campsites, we prefer privacy, easy access, gorgeous views, on or very near water for fishing and kayaking, nearby hiking and biking trails, not too far from towns for amenities, entertainment, good food and water/dump. We also love areas with history, breweries and other fun things. Since Steve works from the rig, all of these spots have great Verizon cell signal unless otherwise noted. We also love to boondock and love FREE camping. If we have to pay, anything in the Twenties is what we shoot for. Anything above $30 stings a bit but sometimes that's what it is.
Here are our favorite camping spots of 2019 (in no particular order):
1. King Rd, Kofa Mountains NWR, AZ
The nice thing about this boondocking site is that it is in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge bordering the BLM. You can go back about 1 1/2 miles and still get super fast, 5 bars of Verizon LTE. It's free to camp here but there are no facilities. It is fairly close to the border inspection. station. I like it better than the LaPosa South area of Quartzsite because it is so quiet and much prettier as it sits at the base of the Kofa's. Plenty to do. You're fairly close to Quartzsite, Yuma, Palm Canyon, the Yuma Proving Grounds, old mining towns, etc. We always spend time in Q with friends, but this is a nice spot to be in for a week for the peace and quiet.
Great place for some unwinding after the crazy holidays.
2. Lost Dutchman State Park, Apache Junction, AZ
Beautiful, sparkling clean campsites, nicely spaced with a spectacular view of the Superstition Mountains and great hiking! $30 to camp with electric and water ($20 with no utilities). This is an all-time favorite and is always on our list! An annual stop for us. If you get lucky being here at the perfect time in March/April , you may hit the peak bloom. Spectacular!
So much hiking!
3. Lone Rock, NV
$14 no hookups but there are some outhouses and a dump/water station. This National Rec Area has some great boondocking down on the beach with a great view of Lone Rock in Lake Powell on the Utah side. Hardpack sand, with kayaking, great views and much to do in the Page, AZ area.
As beautiful as it is, it's not so fun when the wind kicks up! Think "sandblast".
4. Goblin Valley, UT
If you drive around the mesa from the State Park there is some unbelievable free boondocking! You do have to drive back a ways on a long bumpy dirt road, but WOW! Just a few miles from this boondocking spot is the
amazing Little Horse Slot Canyon hike. Read about it on my
blogpost. You can pay a day fee and still visit the amazing park itself or camp inside the park. Absolutely no cell reception here.
5. Green River BLM, Daniel, WY
This free BLM boondocking spot is right off the highway down a decent dirt road. There are at least 12 separate drives that lead down to the river. Some, including the one we chose, require driving down a fairly steep dirt/rock road. Our 4x4 truck pulled us up/down with a little effort. I can't imagine how gorgeous this would be if there wasn't still ice on the river and the grass and bushes were lush and green.
Such beautiful views, right on the river and fishing with no one around!
Long, well spaced sites right on the lake.
7. Carbella Rec Area, Gardiner, MT
This is free BLM boondocking just outside of Gardiner and right on the Yellowstone River. It's right off the main road and down a dirt road with large rocks. Just go slow and you'll be fine. Great fishing with nearby off roading and within minutes to town and the Roosevelt Gate into Yellowstone National Park.
Our spot on the river. Great evenings! That's our spot down on the river.
8. Clarks Canyon BLM, Dillon, MT
Another BLM winner! This developed campground had bathrooms but no utilities. It is FREE though. Across the lake is a campground with water/electric and dump for $5. Nice spots with gazebos right on the lake. Fantastic fishing on the lake and the river. Great 4wheeling too. The town of Dillon has a nice historic downtown with dining and breweries. The ghost town of Bannack is nearby as well as a drive to Lemhi Pass for gorgeous scenery and the headwaters of the Mighty Missouri River.
Lots of room between sites. Great fishing! River fishing & 4wheeling too.
9. Hope Valley NF, Hope Valley CA
This is a free boondocking area along Highways 88/89 in Hope Valley outside of South Lake Tahoe. This is one of the most gorgeous areas. So much hiking in the Sierra Nevada, many lakes to fish and kayak, near Lake Tahoe and you now get 5 bars of very fast Verizon LTE thanks to a new, nearby cell tower. There is only a central outhouse but you can get water at nearby campgrounds. There is light, distant highway noise during the day. It's one of our favorites and we always camp here when we can. There are limited areas and it gets busy on holidays.
So much hiking, kayaking and fishing all around. 20 minute to Lake Tahoe.
10. Carson City Regional Park, Carson City, NV
A county run park in the forest. It is much cooler than across the lake at Washoe State Park but there are no electric sites here. Just water and dump. $25 a night. Plenty of hiking and much to do in nearby Carson City. Limited cell.
Cooler spots under the pines with a nice view from our spot overlooking Lake Washoe.
11. Elks Lodge, Gilroy, CA
This is one of our favorite Elks Lodges so far. Far from any busy road and very quiet. On the golf course with lots of spacing between rigs. Water & Electric $25. Mt. Madonna State Park nearby.
Not too far from the Southern Bay Area or the coast and close to hiking.
12. Silver Springs SP, Silver Springs, NV
$5 for a State Park! Central water and garbage, no electric. Many spots right on the lake. This was a nice quiet place in October. It was going to be just a stop over but we ended up staying 4 nights.
We enjoyed the downtime and walking along the sandy beach. Lots of birding.
Honorable Mention:
-Elks Lodge, Boulder City, NV: Small park, very campground-like. Clean, quiet, great location.
-Elks Lodge, Merced, CA: A few miles west of Hwy 99 makes this cute, small campground very quiet. Train is quite a distance away and muffled. Nicely landscaped, spaced, clean and long sites.
For those that might be interested, here's a breakdown of the places we stayed, and the costs:
| Stays | Nights | Total | AVG (per night cost) |
| Private Parks | 9 | 39 | $1276.00 | $33.00 |
| Elks | 11 | 84 | $2085.00 | $25.00 |
| State Parks | 7 | 31 | $684.00 | $22.00 |
| State Rec Area | 1 | 4 | $88.00 | $22.00 |
| National Park | 5 | 19 | $382.00 | $20.11 |
| COE | 1 | 5 | $100.00 | $20.00 |
| Thousand Trails* | 4 | 26 | $470.00 | $18.01 |
| National Rec Area | 1 | 3 | $42.00 | $14.00 |
| County Park | 6 | 11 | $135.00 | $12.28 |
| National Forest | 3 | 17 | $192.00 | $11.30 |
| BLM | 6 | 22 | $104.00 | $4.73 |
| Boondocking** | 15 | 103 | $0 | $0 |
| Walmart | 1 | 1 | $0 | $0 |
* We bought a Thousand Trails membership for $470/yr in September. For my purposes I chose to divide the number of nights we actually stayed at TT parks in 2019 into the membership fee to get my "price per night". The rest of 2020 will show as $0 per night through the remainder of the membership until it ends on September 30, 2020.
** Boondocking for us is anywhere we stay for free which is not an organized campground. It can include time at family and friends and other areas. Also, this year, one night each at a Burger King and a Gas Station/Truck Stop. Some of our boondocking will be at BLM, National Forest, etc, but I give them a separate category because we generally spend a lot of time at them and I like to keep track of that. Sometimes there can be a small fee to camp at them but most of the time it is free.
Yearly Comparison
2014 - (need to add)
2015 - (need to add)
2016 - Yearly Campsite Total: $3494.50
Daily Average: $9.57
2017 - Yearly Campsite Total: $5090.50
Daily Average: $13.94
2018 - Yearly Campsite Total: $4038.00
Daily Average: $11.06
2019 - Yearly Campsite Total: $5530.00
Daily Average: $15.15
What was different?
We boondocked less and stayed at more Elks Lodges due to our sons wedding in California.
We don't care for memberships or private parks but we needed a back up place to stay since the Placerville, CA Elks Lodge has been full on more occasions so we bought the Thousand Trails Membership as we are "back home" for 6 weeks.
Plans for 2020:
We will spend January and February in Arizona as usual, but we'll be heading back to Monterey, CA in March for the birth of our first grandchild!! We also have another son's wedding in May and a close friends wedding in June. Because of this we decided to stay mostly in CA to visit our grandson several times, spend more time with my parents and get our money's worth out of our Thousand Trails membership. We'll be staying at the other 14 of 16 TT parks in CA to check them out. Camping in California is very expensive so besides TT I have chosen all the Elks Lodges that have camping along the coast and we will stay at those as well since they are usually only $25 - $35. Much better than the almost impossible to get into CA State Parks that are well over $50. This will make up the majority of our camping. We will sneak away to our favorite CA & AZ boondocking spots but I doubt we'll get much boondocking in this year :-( It will be interesting to see how this affects our camping fee totals. We will get back to Arizona for Sep/Oct before returning once again to CA for the holidays.
Incredible scenery and privacy. Our group found our own slot/cave behind the trailers where we had our campfires. Slot hike is on the above right.
