By Bob Difley
You’ve probably read about camping and boondocking on public lands, or maybe you even bought my e-book, BOONDOCKING: Finding the Perfect Campsite on America’s Public Lands  (that’s a hint). I’ve long been an advocate of using the millions of acres of public lands that are available to everybody for many forms of outdoor recreation, including camping and boondocking, most of it free or inexpensive.
One of the best sources for information on public lands is the Public Lands Information Center website, which is a great find for boondockers, hikers, mountain bikers, and just about anybody that utilizes public lands. As the site states in its introduction:
“Public Lands Interpretive Association initiated the Public Lands Information Center project in response to demand for a single source of information about recreation and land use on all public lands in a state, regardless of managing agency. We realize that when you have a destination or an activity in mind, your concern is to find out where to go, when to go, what to do, and how much it will cost. But up until now, getting those answers often meant an endless goose chase of contacting government agencies and trying to pinpoint the correct agency, department, or office.”
The site provides, all in one place, the information you need to know about using public lands, including: visitor facilities, campgrounds, hiking trails, scenic drives, wildlife refuges, rockhounding areas, wildlife viewing locations, historic sites, lakes and reservoirs, wild and scenic rivers, fire and news alerts, maps and guides, fees, a bookstore, and much more – even visitor information about the surrounding areas. An added bonus is the FREE National Geographic Public Lands map that you can have sent to you (postage fees will be charged).
Take a look at the Public Lands website, poke around inside it, and see if you don’t think it will be a valuable source for your RV Lifestyle, and a source of good boondocking information as well.
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There is a great app called U S Public lands available in Apple store, not sure about google play. It shows all types of public lands and has filters you can use to show only specific land such as BLM.
Nice idea, but no help for those of us in the Eastern US. From that website, you’d conclude the only public lands are in the far west.
Hi, TechiePhil,
Here’s a little map that indicates why it may “seem” like “the only public lands are in the far west”:
This image is from Wikipedia and says it shows “all federally owned land in the U.S.” (I had no idea, until I just looked it up.) —Diane at RVtravel.com
There is no link to a map
Hi, Wanderer. That was from April 2018. Reading my comment, I think I had just inserted the image of the map, or I would have said it was a link to the map. I think the image of the map just disappeared from the comment over the years. So, here’s a link to where I copied the map from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_lands Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Take care. 🙂 —Diane at RVtravel.com