We’ve been full time travelers for almost four years now, and we’ve traveled in several different ways. We’ve lived in Airbnbs, we’ve parked our toy hauler RV exclusively in campgrounds, and now we’ve mastered camping off grid. So I feel really qualified to answer the question: what is boondocking? And even more qualified to tell you why we love it and help you learn how to do it, too.

If you’re considering RV life, or if you’re a seasoned RVer who’s intimidated to learn how to boondock indefinitely, this is the post for you! I was really overwhelmed by learning how to boondock successfully (with three small children!). But we’ve lived off-grid for most of the past year now. If you want someone to make it SUPER simple and SUPER easy to learn how to boondock, I’m your gal!

What is Boondocking and Why Is It Different?

So seriously, what is boondocking? It’s a funny word that just means camping anywhere that’s not a campground and that doesn’t have power, water, or sewer hookups. It’s both logistically more complicated than RVing in a campground and also SUPER cool to do! All of those amazing out-your-front-door views you see van life or RV people posting on social media? They’re probably boondocking.

I’ve created a guide that’s just SEVEN dollars that will walk you through everything you need to know to get started boondocking, from how to find boondocking sites to how much solar we have to tips for water conservation to rules for being a good boondocking neighbor.

Get the INSTANT download right now, with all of my best boondocking tips and tricks so you can start enjoying these fantastic views, too:

Boondocking 101 Guide

$7.00

This 10-page guide will assist RVers in learning the basics of boondocking, or camping off-grid! We share everything we’ve learned as a family living off-grid and boondocking in our RV.

Boondocking 101 Guide quantity

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Category: Ebooks, RV Life

Tags: Boondocking, How To, RV

This guide is packed full of ten pages of everything I share with RV friends around the campfire about how we’ve enjoyed the MOST amazing boondocking sites and saved THOUSANDS of dollars on campgrounds this past year. I wrote the guide I wish I’d had when we were first learning!

What is Boondocking: Pros & Cons of Camping Off-Grid

Okay, so you want to know more about WHY boondocking is worth it. And also why sometimes it sucks. I’m here to tell you! We’ve done both — lived full time in RV parks and also lived full time off-grid.

Here are the boondocking pros:

• Seriously, have I mentioned the views? SO MUCH PRETTIER than staring at your neighbor’s slide.
• You can often camp closer to hiking, kayaking, and other outdoor adventures
• It’s free or extremely cheap, while RV parks can cost anywhere from $500-$2000ish a month (we averaged about $1,000 a month)
• There’s so much room for our kids to play without silly campground rules or cranky park neighbors
• Dark night skies for things like stargazing (and northern lights!)
• You don’t have to have months of an itinerary planned at a time
• It’s easy to change plans and stay longer if you love a place or there’s an emergency
• Sunsets, sunsets, sunsets

Okay, so what are the boondocking cons:

• You have to pay close attention to your power and water consumption (but I’ll teach you some tricks in the guide!)
• Sometimes campgrounds are more centrally located to towns
• It can be nice for adults and kids to have campground neighbor friends
• You don’t have campground amenities like pools, laundromats, or activities
• Roads to access boondocking sites are often bumpy
• It’s more difficult to keep your rig and your possessions clean

What is Boondocking: Tell Me More About How You Do It

We’ve spent almost a year living primarily off-grid now, and our routine looks about the same except for when we’re traveling to get somewhere quickly. We generally boondock in a spot for two weeks, then dump and fill our tanks on the way to another spot where we’ll spend two weeks. Every month or two, we’ll mix in a short stay at an RV park to deep clean everything (including ourselves!).

For more about how we find and choose spots, how we stay clean with a limited supply of water, and what supplies you’ll want to consider, check out the Boondocking 101 PDF guide!

What is Boondocking: Share Your Favorite Spots!

I share our top four favorite boondocking sites of the past year in the Boondocking 101 guide! But I also plan to share many more sites that we discover right here on the blog.

Here are all of the boondocking spots I’ve blogged about so far:

I hope this post has been helpful as you consider whether you too might like to jump into boondocking. If you want to take a look at our boondocking gear list on Amazon, check it out! At the very least, I think we’ve definitively answered the question: what is boondocking? 🙂

Disclaimer: Product links in this blog post may be Affiliate links, and I will earn a small commission for each purchase made through these links at no extra cost to you. Affiliate income helps fund our family travel and allows me to keep creating inspiring family travel content for you. I so appreciate when you use my links to make purchases you would have made anyway.

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