A boondocking trip across the Southwest States

There are many places in the US for dry camping or boondocking. Places to camp for free but do not have services so your RV must be self contained with its own toilet, electricity, and water. The long term places( at least 14 days) are usually found on some kind of public property like BLM land, forests, or grasslands. For short stays, you can find overnight camping in many places like rest areas, businesses, and even multiple days in city campgrounds. Some of the city campgrounds may even include services.

Across the southwest to the LTVA sites.
My plans are simple. I started with the criteria that each site much be no more than 200 miles part and allow camping for at least 14 days. Every 14 days, I plan to stay at a campsite with services so I can recharge my batteries, fill my water tanks, dump my holding tanks, and take that all important long hot shower. So, I spend no more than 4 days in a paid campsite every 2 months. By the way, the forest service does have some really reasonable campsites for a low fee that includes electric, water, and hot showers. Each excursion is planned for two months which includes 4 stops.

This group of 2 month excursions will take you from the Oklahoma panhandle all the way to the LTVA sites near California. Of course, you can stay less at each site and take less time for the total trip.

1. The Grassland Excursion

2. Northern New Mexico

3. Western New Mexico

4. Eastern Arizona

5. LTVA

Free BLM camping

I like to stay on BLM land but not at the campgrounds. You can stay on a BLM site but you generally need something more than a tent to camp there. These are free areas to park your travel trailer or motorhome for boondocking. Rarely will you find anything more than a vault toilet except in some of the Long Term Visitor Areas( LTVA) in the southwest. One of the most well known is near Quartzsite Arizona. It attracts quite a crowd each January.  Check out this LTVA page for more information on the these LTVAs. LTVAs do have rules that require you to have a toilet with a black water tank of 10 gallons but the price to stay is cheap.

I plan my stays for 2 weeks. According to the rules, you have to move every 14 days so 2 weeks worth of supplies is a good place to start. How much water you need to be carrying varies with your personal needs but the bare minimum you need is 1/2 gallon per person. This does not include any water for taking a shower. If you take a navy shower(2 minutes) which is designed to conserve water, it takes an additional  3 gallons( 1.5 gpm)  per shower. So you need a lot more water and even more to take a normal shower.

In order to be frugal, I plan meals for 2 weeks without a including a refrigerator. If you need a refrigerator, include the cost of a 20 lb bottle of propane just to run the refrigerator for 2 weeks. Some of the things I take fresh vegetables that will last, dry beans, assorted canned fruit, canned vegetables, dry rice, 5 lb potatoes, pasta, canned milk, dry milk, peanut butter, eggs, assorted spices, tortillas, chips, canned meat (tuna, chicken, spam, and salmon), margarine, cheese, mayo, mustard, flour, cooking oil, olive oil, nuts, hard candy, crackers, coffee, and tea. I developed my list from cooking recipes at home. I had a cabinet that contains only the items I take in the travel trailer. So, I looked for recipes that I could modify to take only those ingredients. Experiment a little to find those meals you can cook while boondocking.