Are you searching for scenic California boondocking outside of the usual Long Term Visitor Areas? We found plenty! In fact, we documented nearly one hundred unique free camping locations in California's desert and Eastern Sierra regions. Most of them are accessible to any size RV and suitable for tents as well. These photos are just a few examples. What is your preference in a California boondocking location?
Is your ideal free campsite in a pine forest?
Or in a Joshua Tree forest?
Do you prefer the jagged uplift at this free camping area on the San Andreas Fault?
Or the weathered granite rocks in this Joshua Tree National Park campground?
Could you sit for days soaking up the view in this idyllic free camping area?
Or do you prefer a different kind of soaking in one of many free natural hot-springs?
Will you spend your days hiking unique trails in the California desert?
Or paddling on a pristine mountain lake on the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada Mountains?
No matter what your preference, the The Frugal Shunpiker's Guide titled "California Boondocking: The Desert and Eastern Sierra" covers them all. It provides precise, easy-to-follow directions to more than 140 frugal (mostly free) camping options that we've discovered throughout California's deserts and Eastern Sierra regions.
This California boondocking guide covers eastern California from the Mexican border to Lake Tahoe. It suggests routes and camping along the Colorado River Valley, throughout California's deserts, and everything east of the Sierra Nevada Range as far north as Lake Tahoe.
Many other guidebooks and web sites will tell you about campgrounds but not the free ones.
Through almost twenty years of shunpiking (driving the back roads) we've discovered many scenic boondocking options where we camp for free.
Millions of RVers who prefer boondocking in the desert flock to RV communities in Southern California and Arizona called Long Term Visitor Areas (LTVAs). They're great - especially if all you want is to live cheaply in good weather. The guide covers some of these but many RVers have discovered them so they tend to be crowded in peak season.
If you prefer to camp for free in the most scenic locations, prefer traveling around rather than staying in one place, and are looking for affordable adventures and variety in your RV travels, you need this guide.
It takes you on a most affordable and adventurous trip including areas of eastern California that many typical Snowbirds never visit.
This guide is not just for RVers. All but 6 of the 142 suggested frugal and "camp for free" areas listed in this guide are suitable for tents as well as RVs. A complete camping accessibility index will tell you whether a tent can be set up at each campsite. The same index tells you what size of RV can most easily access the sites.
This 213-page printable downloadable file contains:
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Bruce and I are in California right now following your California guide. We love them all!! We have gone places and seen things we never would have if it weren't for your guides. We have been able to spend the last three winters down south because of your e-books. We can't tell you enough how we have loved and used them. Keep up your super work.
Arlean and Bruce Parker
We just returned from 7 weeks that saw us travel from Vancouver, down the west coast, through California, Las Vegas, Utah, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and back via Yellowstone. We used your guides for California and Utah extensively, and the combination of your free spots, some nights with Boondockers Welcome and a few at a Walmart meant we spent only $263 on camping fees for 45 Nights on the road in just over 7 weeks! Not only did you help us save money, but some of the sites you suggested were spectacular! (Seqouia, East of Bryce, Movie Flats, Mono Lake and Hilltop Hotspring were real stand-outs.)
Rainer Mehl
Hi - we used your CA Desert & E.Sierra ebook and liked it so much we bought Coast & W.Sierra also.
Elisabeth Wadleigh
We bought the Eastern Sierras guide last week since we headed south from Tahoe on our way down the eastern Sierras eventually to San Diego and it paid for itself the first night. Your favorite spot on the southern shore of Mono Lake was FANTASTIC. After that we stayed at your spot on 168 on the way up to Bristlecone, again a primo location, even for our 41’ foot rig with a toad. Feel free to quote us. We've saved huge amounts of time by using your guides already.
Jim and Colette Johnston
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