Newbie: How to travel without reservations?

[FL-Guy]

I'm a meticulous planner and I almost never make reservations until the day of. I hate to schedule days and times. But what I do do is preplan.
Before the trip I lay out waypoints about every hundred miles, then I find three potential sites near each waypoint. I try for one free (Walmart, rest stop, BLM, etc.) one park (national, state, or BLM) and one private (RV park). We keep a printed trip sheet with the waypoints and the names and phone numbers (if available) of the sites. Dailey drives are 1, 2, 3, and occasionally 4 waypoints, depending on what's happening at the time. If we intend to stay at a park or RV Park, we call after lunch for a reservation. There have been times I've been hoping for a nice long hot shower and we ended up in a Walmart lot, but I've never not had a place to stop.

I've started calling the Walmarts as part of the pre-planning, just to confirm they allow RVs. More and more don't.

I use freecampsites.net, recreation.gov, and Allstays.com. I also find state park websites.

Imagine XLS 17MKE and Transcend Xplore 200MK are good choices for freestyle traveling. Shorter is easier and you want to be able to use the trailer with out extending the slide. Its considered bad etiquette at Walmarts and rest stops.

Last bit. It is harder to get spots in State/National parks on weekends. We try to be on the road (free) Friday and Saturday nights and in parks Sunday through Friday morning. Less people in the parks too.

Can't get the Murphy bed down in a 17MKE with the slide it.

[BoredWeasel]

I also agree with that, as truckers by law have to rest after so many active hours, but many truck stops have RV specific spaces.

and more often than not they are full of semi's

[LMagelitz]

About all of my travel is west of the Rocky Mountains. If I'm willing to dry camp or just have electricity, I haven't had much trouble finding spots for overnighting.

I know I'll get flamed, but I'll stay in Wal-Marts, rest areas, or semi-uncrowded truck stops if it needed. Also, I'm very familiar with BLM and USFS dispersed camping regulations. It's usually easy to find spots there.

Finally, any spot I find that's worthwhile I'll try to do a writeup on https://campgrounds.rvlife.com/

We spent 6 weeks in the PNW last summer with only two reservations…one in the far NW corner of Washington, and one near Mt. St. Helens (and that one would have been unnecessary). I hate planning every move for a trip. One breakdown and you have a big mess on your hands. A genny, batts, and an inverter make it pretty easy to travel without reservations. The prettiest places we stayed were campgrounds with no services, but they were also wooded, so might be a problem having enough solar for a/c use. We haven’t done much BLM yet, but that is my kind of camping. I’ll check out your writeups for next time we go!

[jjbbrewer]

We haven’t done much BLM yet, but that is my kind of camping. I’ll check out your writeups for next time we go!

Definitely! BLM land tends to have a lot less vegetation on it - most forest areas were assigned to the USFS. Camping on BLM land is pretty easy - no reservations - go there and find a nice spot and stay up to 2 weeks for free. Here's what they have for camping guidelines (specifically dispersed camping).

https://www.blm.gov/programs/recreation/camping

and here's an interactive map showing the BLM land in yellow ..

https://webmaps.blm.gov/program_apps...Opportunities/