10 FREE Places to RV Park Overnight

campfire question Fred Hawser asks where you have camped

overnight

in emergency situations when you couldn't make your planned destination a great question. Fred, in this video we're going to give you ten

places

where you can camp or actually

park

your RV

overnight

for

free

. Number one and number one for a reason, Walmart, you should call first before you go and

park

there just to make sure it's okay, it's pretty widespread across the country, especially if you're in the middle of the country or the northeast. You'll have more problems if you're in California or Oregon, you'll have even more problems, but if you're somewhere in between you'll probably be fine, yeah, we have two very long videos on how to park overnight at Walmart, so if you haven't seen those videos , watch them and you'll get your PhD in the overnight parking lot at Walmart.

We've done it from the Deep South to Alaska and many points in between. The more urban the area, the harder it will be to stop at Walmart number two Cracker Barrel Cracker Barrel, that's right in recent years Cracker Barrel has really been embracing RV campers; In fact, when you see signs advertising Cracker Barrel, you may notice a small RV symbol hidden in the corner of the sign indicating it's an RV-friendly Cracker Barrel. We stopped at Cracker Barrel earlier. It's probably good practice to ask management if it's okay to park there overnight and if you stop there, go in and get Grandpa's old breakfast of biscuits and sausage or whatever. es or buy something from the store, thank them for the service of allowing you to park there overnight by spending some money and most of them advertise that they have RV parking so they will be like designated RV parking spaces for you , so I won't be taking up spaces for other people or that kind of thing, yeah, the Cracker Barrel parking lots can be a little full, so it's not like stopping at a Walmart where you just have acres and acres of asphalt, no However, they do have bus parking in the RV parking lot. and a lot of barrels of cookies and I think it's one of those

places

where you know you come in later at night and you try to leave as early as you can in the morning, right after the cookies come out of the oven, that is. number three Cabela's, yeah, shout out to Cabela's, if you're out West, you know Cabela's has these huge sporting goods stores, two really nice stores with big asphalt parking lots and most of them are very RV friendly, so In fact, some of them even have dumping stations. and fresh water you can use for

free

, so it doesn't get much more RV friendly than that.

You should probably call ahead and make sure it's okay, but I know, for example, we stopped at Billings Montana Cabela's and Idaho. Falls Idaho Cabela's and I stayed the night, come in, buy some socks or something, could you be number four? This is an often overlooked RV opportunity. Casinos, yes, as long as you don't have a gambling addiction, casinos can be a great place to spend the night with your RVs aren't always free, but some of them offer complimentary RV parking, assuming you're going to come in and spend a little money. Yes, you don't even necessarily have to bet.

Most of these casinos have some pretty decent casinos. restaurants inside, come in and have a steak and lobster dinner or not, you know, yeah, I think very often the food is very reasonably priced because they want to lure you into that casino, yeah, we've done that several times in Area California Nevada and then more recently we did it in southern Alabama and in Louisiana, Louisiana and parts of Mississippi, so there are actually more casinos than you would imagine because of Indian reservations and that kind of thing in a lot of places and sometimes the casinos have small dedicated RV camping areas and they will tell you okay, you can pay your fee to stay in the campground or you can park for free overnight in the parking lot, so if you prefer To do so, many casinos will offer you that option.

Yes, we have done it several times, number five. Oh, rest areas. I use the term rest very loosely, it's a safe place to spend the night, so if you're in an emergency situation that's the most important thing, but don't do it. There really aren't many rest and rest areas because a lot of times 18-wheelers come, stop for like two hours and then leave again, so they come in slamming on the brakes, which makes a lot of noise, and then they start up again. They run their trucks two hours later and sometimes the trucks are just sitting idle overnight, if they are large refrigerated trucks you will hear those things rumbling all night every time you are parked right next to a large truck.

An 18 wheeler that's running, you'll be woken up, you won't have a very restful night's sleep, yeah, unless you have earplugs, so pack my earplugs and they'll help you, so it probably depends on the location of the rest area. The closer you are to an interstate, the busier the rest area will be and the more large 18-wheelers will be there, but when you get to more rural areas, if you can find those rest areas on the smaller highways, those can be more pacific the number six, something we call pull-outs or pullovers and these are basically places on the road that you will find in rural areas, especially north of the border, like if you are in the Yukon Territory or British Columbia or on the way. to Alaska, anywhere in Alaska you will find huge patches of asphalt and there is no problem parking there overnight.

Now, when you're in the lower 48 states, it's a lot harder to do that. Yes, there have been times when we have simply parked. a city street that is similar and just overnight, but it's absolutely as long as it's free parking and you don't violate any codes. We have parked overnight in many cities, in fact, yes, it is one of those situations that you normally get into. after it gets dark at night and go out earlier in the morning to have the least impact. This is a side street. It's preferable just because you know there's less traffic and you know less people and that kind of thing and it's free parking. area or even paid parking, we have paid metered parking before number seven malls, which sounds strange, but there are actually a lot of malls that welcome our viewers because I want them to come in and spend money and if you talk to management, they will order it.

He explained, Hey, we're having a problem, is it okay if we park here overnight? A lot of times we'll say yes, that's right in the big mall in Eugene, Oregon, there's an overflow parking lot across the street from the mall they're dedicated to. our viewers who come through the area and it's a really great place to visit and I think they have a limit on the amount of time you can stay there, you could probably stay there for two nights, yeah I'm close to registering your name. and take your tag number and they have security that patrols the parking lot and you're welcome, BLM land number eight, so this is a Bureau of Land Management land, this takes a little more homework, you won't just do it on any old exit and find BLM land, but if you are in the west where BLM land seems to be more abundant, your chances of finding a safe place to park overnight are probably much higher and this, for example, is what people do in Quartzsite Arizona, there are huge swaths of BLM lands there where you can park for up to two weeks practically free every night.

Number nine gas stations are almost a last resort for us now, but we have found ourselves in situations a couple of times where we had no other option. option except stopping at a gas station and I'm thinking about one time in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, all the campgrounds were reserved, we probably stopped at a dozen campgrounds and they were all reserved, none of them had overflowing campsites and at this point It was about 11 at night and it was getting dangerous for them to keep driving because we were very tired and we talked to the lady at the gas station and we said: Hey, can we park behind your gas station until around 8 o'clock? morning and she said she was sure it was no problem and that every now and then you can stop at a gas station and that really brings us to the number 10 place on our list where you can park your RV overnight for free and that they would be stops trucks yeah and before you try that Kurz get mad we are giving this option as a last resort for people and honestly if you are in an RV look at the truck stop and assess the situation because a lot of times truck stops they will do it. they have the truck stop part of the truck stop and then they will have cars and rvs on the other side so if they have that situation make sure you go to the car and rv side and park on that side where the truckers can't go so as not to take up space from a trucker, right, it's very rare that we stop at a truck stop and they're really lousy to begin with, you're not going to get much rest, actually, and most trucks Las Second stops are often very busy and truckers need those spaces because they are working and need a place to stop and rest, so we don't really encourage people to stop at truck stops, but if you are in an emergency situation. and you're tired, you know someone's sick or you have a flat tire or whatever, your trucks are getting hot, you know things are happening and a lot of truck stops have that section designated for RVs so you can park in the parking lot. for RVs and Don't worry, yes, and if you are somewhere where the truck stop is not very busy, then I wouldn't feel bad about parking there, they are those truck stops that are obviously packed to the brim, where every space matters. more concerned about stopping, so that's it guys, ten places where you can park your RV overnight for free if you need it or in some kind of emergency situation.

We have done this in almost every state we have taken our RV to, even the Northeast where it is harder to do it and then it is harder to do it, but we have done it and I have the video to prove it, so it can be done, you just need have all of these places on your radar screen if you find yourself in trouble you can usually find the place where you will have a safe place to park overnight and worst case scenario if you can't get to any of these places and you need a place to stop, many times you can find an RV. park that is close to where you are and that will allow you to enter after hours and pay only in the morning, as always, thanks for tuning in, we are Sean and Kristi, this is a very long honeymoon and we would like to call it lolo ho if you like.

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