Quick Overnight Parking Options During RV Traveling
For our first long road trip, we were nervous about where we were supposed to park overnight. We were traveling from MA to CA so we knew we would have to make multiple stops along the way. We were hoping to keep costs as low as possible so we really didn’t want to stay at campgrounds too often because we knew the cost would add up very quickly.
We started researching alternative options and were surprised by the number of options we came across.
Here are our top overnight stay locations
Harvest Host
Harvest Host offers some of the most interesting places to set up camp for one night at participating locations. There is a wide range of participating locations that vary from wineries and breweries to farms and ranches. It offers a unique overnight experience as these are often places you wouldn’t expect to stay.
There are different membership options. We chose the basic plan, which cost us $67 for the year as we purchased it with a discount code. They frequently have sales so I would recommend waiting for a discount to pop up prior to getting your membership to avoid paying the full price of $79/year.
You can also upgrade your membership to include staying at golf courses, which would cost an additional $20 for the year so if you enjoy hitting a few rounds, this may be the membership for you.
To save 20% of your membership, use our referral code
http://harvesthosts.refr.cc/ryaneldridge
With Harvest Hosts, there are a few rules of etiquette that make them different than staying at a campground. For instance, you can only stay onsite for one night (unless you have permission from the owner/manager of the location for longer stays), you have to call ahead to book your stay and it is expected that you purchase an item or items for a $20+ value.
Some of these places allow for extended stays but you have to call to set it up and it will likely cost an additional fee. We stayed at a farm in Washington for 2 weeks. The first night was included in the HH membership and then we paid an additional $15/night for the remaining 13 nights. This was a much cheaper option because the only available campground in the area would have cost us about $1500 for the 2 weeks but staying at the farm cost us $200.
There are some caveats to this, though. For starters, not all of these places offer electricity, water and/or sewer so you have to prepare for not having some or all of those amenities. If they do offer it, it will likely cost more. We stayed at a place in North Carolina that offered water, electricity and a dump station, but it cost us about $40/ night, which was still cheaper than the campgrounds in the area, plus it was a much nicer and more unique experience.
Harvest Host is very big on good etiquette. It is important to treat these companies with respect (as you should for any place you stay) since they do not have to participate. If they are not treated well, they may feel it is not worth participating so they may discontinue allowing Rvers to stay the night. The money they make off of it is minimal so most of them are not doing it for financial reasons.
Part of good etiquette is to call ahead to set up a reservation rather than just show up. With campgrounds, it is recommended to call ahead to ensure they have sites available but it is not required. With Harvest Host, you need to call ahead because these places are often not set up for receiving frequent campers. They need the heads up that you are coming so that they can make sure someone is available onsite to help you find where you are going/parking. They don’t get people coming and going every day like a campground so it’s helpful to them to prepare for your arrival. Plus they often only have a couple of spots that may be full. It is very easy to reserve a spot when you call or text. We get an immediate answer when we call. With texting, it typically takes less than 5 hours for a response. It is a very quick process.
As I also mentioned before, good etiquette involves a $20 minimum purchase or donation. You may think, why am I going to pay $20 a night if I have to pay for a membership on top of it? How would that be cheaper than a campground that offers full hookups?
The way we look at it is that the cost of staying at a campground is a set price and you don’t get anything other than a place to stay with amenities. With Harvest Host, you can pay as much or as little as you want as long as you meet the $20 minimum, but you are purchasing an item or items for that cost. (Some of them also have amenities available).
We stayed at a winery in North Carolina for one night. Part of the agreement for us to stay involved participating in a wine tasting. It was a small private tasting after hours. It only lasted 10 minutes. It was just to allow us to sample a few wines so we could decide on a purchase. We tried 3 different wines and we bought 2 bottles for $25, but they also gave us 2 wine glasses included in the purchase. With this option, we got 2 wine glasses and 2 bottles of wine for less than what we would have paid if we stayed at a campground for $40-50/night. They also let us use our generator at this particular location (not all of them do) so we were able to use our electricity.
Overall, this membership is helpful to save money if you are able to use it enough throughout the year. If you only use it once or twice, it may not be worth the membership fee, but with frequent usage, it can be a money saver with the added bonus of having an interesting experience.
Boondockers Welcome
Boondockers Welcome is another interesting option that we tried. It is similar to AirBnb as people can list their own personal properties on this website offering their land for people to park their RVs and vans. The difference is that it is free if you have the Boondockers Welcome membership. They can charge additional fees if they offer water, sewer, or electric, but these fees are peanuts when compared to a campground fee.
They can also offer as short or as long of stays as they want. Many of these options only allow for a 1-night stay but many offer 2, 3, 4+ nights. You can see what each person offers by going to their profile page. On this page, it will list the amenities that are included, the amenities not included, the maximum amount of nights, and a calendar that shows the availability. From here, once you choose where you would like to stay, you can send a message to the person to see if they are agreeable to having you stay. The profile page also lists the typical response time that person has generated from previous reservations. Response times can range from a couple of hours to a couple of days. Since these are just regular people offering their own space, they are not always in a rush to respond since they do not get paid for your stay. It's nice that it shows a potential response time because if you are booking last minute, you can see what the chances are that they will respond in time.
For example, we attempted to book a stay in a particular location. We saw there were 2 options for our size RV. One had a response time of 2 hours and the other had 24 hours. We needed the response for that night so we chose the option with the 2 hour response time as we figured our chances were best with that one.
We used our Boondockers Welcome membership a couple of times and our experiences worked out well for the most part. We did run into one issue. We stayed at a place in North Carolina for one night that said it would accommodate a 40-foot rig and we have a 36 feet 5th wheel so we figured we would fit no problem. What they failed to mention was that parking in that spot would be extremely challenging for an RV of our size. They weren’t even on-site during our stay so they never even saw the challenges we faced. We personally felt that the people listing this site did not have a good awareness of the space and shouldn’t have advertised it for rigs larger than 30 feet.
It took over 30 minutes to back our 5th wheel into this spot where it fit somewhat okay. It was extremely tight and the neighbors had to help us because they were worried we would run over the plants and sprinklers in their yard. According to the neighbor, they have run into multiple issues with other large rigs. People have run over their sprinklers causing damage to them so they are very wary of people parking here.
When we finally parked, we realized it was not wide enough to take our stairs all the way out because of their deck. There was no wiggle room to move the RV enough to make it work so we had to pull our stairs in every time we needed to go in or out, which was extremely irritating. We didn’t even bother opening the slides because the space next to the electric hookup was too tight and we wouldn’t have been able to pass through from the living room to the bedroom with the stairs blocking our path.
As I mentioned, the people offering the space just had a poor sense of the size rig that could fit here. When looking for places to stay, make sure you take a good look at the space in the pictures they post on their page and if you still don’t feel you have enough information then ask them questions prior to arrival. The length of the site is always posted but they don’t list the width so it is not always clear as to whether there will be enough space for slideouts.
Don’t just go off the length because a lot of these people have not attempted to park a large rig in this space so they don’t know what to account for. They just think this space is large enough to accommodate an RV of a certain size, but they don’t know to think about slideouts or stairs. I would recommend reading the reviews that other people have posted to see what their experience was like when they stayed there. Some people will also post pictures of their setup so you can see how well they fit in the space.
I believe we paid about $80/year for our Boondockers Welcome membership but it was recently bought out by Harvest Host so there is now an option to upgrade your HH membership to include BW. The plan offering HH and BW costs $119/year. You can also purchase a membership that includes HH, BW, and the golf courses for $129/year.
To get a 20% off discount, use our referral code
http://harvesthosts.refr.cc/ryaneldridge
Currently, we do not have BW, but still have HH. We felt BW did not have as many good options as we would have liked because most of the places were far from the highway when we were en route to our destinations so it would have added more time to our trip. Since HH are businesses, they are often closer to the highway making them more convenient. The plus side of BW is that you could potentially stay for a few nights in a row so it’s just a matter of what you are looking for.
Other Options for Free Quick Overnights
Some other options for a quick overnight stay include Cracker Barrel, Bass Pro Shop, and Cabella’s. You can also stay in a large parking lot such as Walmart, Home Depot, or Casinos. With any of these places, I would recommend calling ahead to ask the manager to see if you are allowed there as some will not allow it. You can also look online to see if it states whether they allow big rigs to park overnight. When staying at Cracker Barrel or Cabella’s, it is recommended to purchase something (breakfast or dinner for example) as it helps to keep these places willing to allow us to park overnight. If we don’t do anything to show our appreciation, they may decide to stop offering.
The last option that we have tried is staying at a welcome center on the highway where you see semi-trucks park for the night. They have parking spaces large enough to accommodate all rigs so as long as there is space available, this is another option. It’s convenient since you don’t have to detour from your route but it is not as nice of a pit stop since you will be able to hear the traffic on the highway and smell the fuel from the surrounding trucks.
There are a few different websites that we use to find these free overnight sites. There seem to be new ones popping up all the time but here are the ones we like using currently.
Campendium
This is the website we use the most. You can filter to see just free stays, but it is a good place to find paid sites, rest stops, dump stations etc. as well.
FreeCampsites.Net
This site is more specifically for free overnight stays. Otherwise it is very similar to Campendium, but focuses on places such as casinos, rest stops or parking lots.
iOverlander
iOverlander is more geared towards smaller rigs such as vans and cars. We have found places for our RV here that we didn't see on other sites still though. Plus they have much more data on filling up with water, and other amenities that can be tough to find.
All of these sites are very similar. We usually look at the map view and look along our planned route to find places that aren't too big of a detour so that we can get to our next destination quicker. Make sure to look at the pictures and reviews to make sure your rig can fit there comfortably. Read the reviews, but keep an open mind. Often times we find bad reviews are from minor complaints such as road noise at a free rest stop on the side of a highway but it ends up being a good, perfectly safe spot for the night, which is all we really need.
It can be a bit daunting to set out for a long-distance road trip, especially if you do your trips like us. We usually wait until the last minute to book anything because we like to keep our plans as flexible as possible, but waiting until the last minute can be nerve-racking since you have to quickly come up with a place to stay.
When we first set out on our trip, we were very nervous about not finding a place to park overnight, which was why we planned the first week of our road trip prior to our departure, but as we became more comfortable with learning and implementing these options, we felt we could avoid the far in advanced planning.
There are obviously downsides to last-minute plans since many of the Harvest Host or Boondockers Welcome locations are filled, but that's why we like to see what parking lots are along our route to have backups.
The more options you have, the less stressful it is to find a place to stay last minute.
