Extra two-by-fours, for adjusting the angle of the plywood when parked at an angle.Flat plywood “mattress”, for evening out the bump where the seats fold down.Thermos, for those cold nights when you make tea and extra hot water and retreat to the car.Cambodian picnic mat, made of woven plastic so you can sit anywhere.Portable speaker, for those nights when you’re just chilling in your car.Multiple large water bottles, for long drives and long hikes.Fancy car with all-wheel drive, which kept me safe multiple times.Lots of recharging cables to plug into the car.Tupperware for leftovers, preferably water-tight for swimming in the cooler.Camping plate, bowl, cup, and silverware.It was good to have it be fairly wind-proof, though. Camping stove - mine had two burners but that’s not strictly necessary.Extra blankets for extra comfort (and, at times, warmth).If I had access to a computer or was going to be in a tricky spot without too much BLM or USFS land, I would often do a quick search here before heading off into the wilderness. was also good to find places to camp, but less user-friendly.It also has all the public land boundaries, and some layers that show where you can get service. The “just park anywhere along this road” campsites aren’t super well-marked (and the forest service roads aren’t all correct), but it was a pretty good thing to cross-reference. I did find the Freeroam app on Android, which was pretty good for the parts of the US that don’t have a huge amount of public lands.I wasn’t able to find an equivalent on Android. If you have an Apple phone, there’s apparently a USFS and BLM app that shows the boundaries of all public lands.As far as I can tell, apart from the are around Moab, public camping is unrestricted on all BLM land, so the BLM maps were all I needed there. The Forest Service Motor Vehicle Use Maps sometimes also indicated which roads allowed dispersed camping this was my go-to for forests. I used this to find campsites on public lands. Avenza is key: you can download geo-located PDFs, so that you can be located on the maps.I loved camping right next to the Grand Canyon – for free!! Highly recommend. Speaking of which, lots of national parks have free camping in the national forests just adjacent to them.In well-frequented areas like forests outside of national parks or Utah, you don’t need to stress too much to find the areas you’ll camp because once you get there you’ll see other people.The USFS website tends to have this information fairly easily accessible, you just have to remember to check for it. I found that many forest service campgrounds didn’t open until April or May (and many were delayed because of the shutdown). Be careful though, and make sure they’re open when you’ll be there. The BLM and Forest Service also have lots of campsites, some of which are free.This sort of camping is called “dispersed camping” or sometimes “primitive camping” In case you didn’t realize, camping is free on almost all public lands (AKA forest service or BLM land).Here are some notes and tips to keep in mind for future road trips! Camping Camping on public lands If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that I just completed a three-month road trip across the US and back (in two parts)! I had an amazing time and learned a lot about traveling across the US.
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