How often do you spend a night in some place other than a traditional campground or RV park?
Is it routine for you, or only on rare occasions when you can’t find an official campground or RV park to stay?
Or maybe you don’t feel like tossing away $40 just to park and go to sleep for the night.
The most famous free “campground” is Walmart, where most stores will permit you to stay overnight in a self-contained RV in an out-of-the-way spot in their parking lot.
Let’s keep today’s poll simple and just ask you if you have spent a free night in the last year in a parking lot of one kind or another.
And remember, we’re talking about parking lot “camping” here, like Walmart, Cracker Barrel, Cabela’s, a casino parking lot (not a casino RV park) and others like it.
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At an RV service center, we overnighted in their parking lot waiting for an appointment. They provided power. Nice to have water in the fresh water tank.
We will also doing this on Sunday night.
Don’t get excited, these were appointments for enhancements.
We’ve become a fan of “Cracker-docking” and have done so several times in the last year. It’s noisy but convenient, plus we either get a hot breakfast before hitting the road or dinner after a long day of driving.
No, but we plan to this winter. Trying the snowbird thing for the first time.
When traveling from point A, Florida, to point B, New England area, we always stay at free places overnight. Normally at Walmart’s, Sam’s Club’s and Cabela’s. 5 days of driving with 4 overnights. The money and time saved goes towards fuel or supplies purchased on the way north. We do the same on our return trip to Florida.
Casino. We do a semi-annual N<>S migration darn near border to border and try to break up our travel to about 300 miles a day. At the north end, many campgrounds, like the black bears, have gone into or not yet come out of hibernation. Nothing was open around the 300 mile point. So we overnight in a tribal casino parking lot.
Broke down, at a Freightliner lot, waiting for repairs count?
I voted “NO”, however we have stayed at various brewery, vinyard, golf course and museum parking lots through Harvest Hosts. What an amazing program!
Currently we are waking up in the Home Depot parking lot after being unable to get into our planned campground. Long story, but we have alternate arrangements for the next 2 nights!
Often, we are traveling from point A to point B, and due to distance, like to make one long day of driving, stay at a Cabela’s or Cracker Barrel (we actually have a few we prefer, and make them part of the trip) and save a bit. We also use Harvest Hosts, and ALWAYS thank the owners/managers for letting us spend the night.
I stayed at an airport parking lot as I had to pick up some folks at 7:00am. Cost me $37 dollars but I didn’t have to get a motel room or find my way around a strange city 300 miles away from home.
Not in the past few years.
When doing the seasonal migration travel, we stay overnight in freebies any chance we get. It sure offsets the high fuel bills!
The growing adoption of the overnight stays in parking lots is what’s driving municipalities to create legislation that prohibits overnight parking.
Unfortunately, what was once considered an “emergency only” exception has become an expectation of the entitled, misinformed and downtrodden.
If YouTubers promote “self-appropriating” open motel rooms (specifically designed for overnight stays) “cuz it saves money”, how many here would try to legitimize that?
But overnighting in business parking lots to the extent it’s becoming more and more illegal doesn’t compute with some?
I’m all for liberties but not the liberty to force cities to make an emergency overnight stay illegal.
I don’t think it was ever “emergency only.” Walmart, etc. allowed overnight parking as a service to their customers and to increase sales by those customers being already there. They never allowed it where there was a city ordinance that would have prohibited it. Usually, those ordinances confused RVing with vagrancy, poor aesthetics, or because hotel owners or campground owners perceived it as lost revenue. Some communities are outlawing it now because of abuse or a (misguided) attempt to deal with homelessness by prohibiting it.
Bill, thanks for the dialog.
The average person considers sleeping in a parking lot as a last resort versus a preference, hence my usage, “emergency” but we can replace that word with “service” for conversation.
Other than the financially restricted and Sharon Waters, who buys an RV to spend their nights in parking lots?
There’s a big difference between “wanting to” and “needing to” sleep in a parking lot but regardless, city ordinances can’t address one without the other. The optics and negative connotations are the same though and I fear it’s only getting worse. Stay safe out there my friend!
Does a rest area/truck stop count? Ok, we’ve also stayed in a church parking lot, but that was for a special reason.
Thank you, RV Travel! 🙂 In the last 12 months? No. In 2023? Yes, two nights. Tried to do it this past March, but broke down en-route, so never did. Thanks again, have a great weekend, safe travels, and safe stays! 🙂
Mercy Gilbert hospital in Gilbert, AZ allowed us to spend 2 nights in their lot for an outpatient surgery.
Staying in a museum parking lot right now through Harvest Host. Yesterday was at a parking lot of a lavender farm. Tomorrow will be a parking lot of another farm. This has saved us a bunch of money.
We love Harvest Host, use it all the time.
Just went for a 20 minute walk and the poll still hasn’t shown up.
Never….
Sorry, David. There have been almost 1,500 votes so far, and I haven’t heard any other comments about it not opening. Here’s a possible cause, however, from one of our IT folks awhile ago: “Sometimes script blockers and ad blockers interfere with our polls since they are from a 3rd party site. If you have one of these try and turn it off and see if that fixes the issue.” I hope that works for you.🤞 Have a good night. 😀 –Diane at RVtravel.com
We are on a trip right now where we have spent several nights in free spots, including BLM dispersed. We see no reason to spend money on campgrounds if we arrive late and leave early when passing through. We are willing to pay if we want to leave the RV and go sightseeing.
We belong to Harvest Host and we are saving a lot of money staying at many different places. We meet so many different people and see some fun things. We feel much safer than staying in a Walmart.