Longtime readers may recall that many years ago we had a very popular website called FreeCampgrounds.com. For a few years, it attracted as many visitors as this website, RVtravel.com, and at times even more.
We have been banging our heads recently (against pillows, not walls) trying to figure out how to bring back the website without duplicating the many other sites and apps on the same subject. We finally hit upon what we believe is a good idea — one that would provide a very useful — and free — service to RVers.
The idea is to create a searchable directory of free and inexpensive places to stay the night within two or three miles of America’s Interstates. Locations could include casinos, truck stops, rest areas, Walmart stores, Cabela’s, Cracker Barrel restaurants, and other places we determine are safe and where RVers can stay without fear of being kicked out in the middle of the night. We’ll encourage RV parks close to Interstate exits to provide overflow parking for $20 or less — no hookups, no services, just a safe place for traveling RVers to pull off the road for 8 to 12 hours, eat dinner and sleep.
Our hope is that RVers who are traveling from Point A to Point B without reservations along the way can easily find places to stay a night. A map will show the route ahead with locations identified. A click on any one of the locations will reveal the details, including reviews by RVers who stayed there. Our goal is to provide enough information for the traveling RVer to know when setting out for the day that there will almost certainly be space for them that evening near where they plan to be.
Our editors are already hard at work putting together a list of probable locations. For now, we welcome your suggestions on what information we should include in the listings to make them more useful to you. Email us at editor@rvtravel.com. Our goal is to have the website up and running sometime in November.
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##RVT1019
Used freecampgrounds.com all the time, really missed it while you were gone.
LOVE this idea! This will be very helpful for the times we have to drive several days to get to our destination.
FANTASTIC!!! I know that we’ll use this site over and over again. Loved it in its old form, but this sounds even more perfect.
Thanks for taking the initiative and the time to put it all together.
I’m in! lmk how many of us can help in our areas. Look forward to having this database at my fingertips. We’ve had those few times when we had to stretch our miles to get to the next place!
I am kind of curious as to how this would be/is different than the myriad of apps that already provide this(?) information. There are so many apps doing this now that the information is diluted among them because people provide information, reviews, etc., in one app, but not the other apps. Would this just further spread the information by providing yet another venue? I am not knocking your idea, just asking because it seems to be a battle of apps and websites.
Near an Interstate Exit? Yes.
Easy to access between two close Interstate Exits? Yes.
How about along major U.S. highways where it is a long distance to the next interstate?
Maybe the occasional State highway a long distance to the next U.S. highways?
So kind of like Next Exit guides?
This is a great idea. Need max length without unhooking. Having to unhook would defeat the purpose of looking for overnight spots. We are in a motorhome towing, but imagine same issue with truck/trailer, truck/5th wheel.
I have not checked out the other sites in a long time. But, what I normally do not see are free sites off the freeways. I like to travel secondary roads vs the interstates.
Looking forward to it, as we hate having to make reservations for overnight