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Show HN: Van, truck or car camp for $0 a night

landcamp.org

31–40 of 236 posts

Re: Show HN: Van, truck or car camp for $0 a night

#32
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"rich vacationers" ? Most American adults can afford $100/year. Edit: I'll even add: most american adults spend $100 per month , not per year, on frivolous stuff. Fast food. Cable TV. Unnecessary high-end phones (instead of mid-range phones). All these people could definitely afford $100/year.

I think that's a pretty privileged viewpoint. That's $100/year of disposable income for maybe a parking spot where you want to go, maybe available when you want to go. That's definitely not a trivial dollar amount for something like that, especially when there are free alternatives (strip mall parking lots, rest stops, federal lands, moving between neighborhoods, etc.). Then there's the question of being able to offe…

$100/year, $0.27/day is not in the realm of privilege. The groups you mention spend more than that a year to upgrade gear/etc. I call bollocks on this.

Re: Show HN: Van, truck or car camp for $0 a night

#33
post #9

For anyone looking for actually free, no strings attached (and no subscription) camping, check https://freecampsites.net/ instead. It's a community wiki of free camp sites, usually on federal lands of various sorts (National Forests and BLM lands often have primitive campsites with fire rings and not much else). It's great for travel around national parks, especially. But please do leave no trace, pack out what you b…

Everything you wrote is bang on - please, please, PLEASE: Leave no trace. Haul out your garbage. Don't shoot, shit, or camp within 100 yards of streams, creeks, or rivers. Don't make fire rings where they already exist. Abide by fire restrictions that might vary by county. Stay on existing, marked hiking and motor vehicle trails.

As a resident of the West (which has huge swaths of "public" land) I am so tired of folks coming to "camp" on public land and just absolutely trashing the place. We're losing access to land because people can't be bothered to dig proper cat holes for their shit, pick up their trash, and they're just setting up semi-permanent #vanlife outposts. All these great free spots are getting overrun by people who have no common sense and slowly by slowly they're turning into paid, reservable spots.

Re: Show HN: Van, truck or car camp for $0 a night

#34
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't use land camp if you don't own a home / property that has parking space and restrooms. At least after your 3 free stays are done.

Correct, but solardev was criticizing the $100/yr price, specifically.

And if you own a home, $100 is NOTHING compared to all costs incurred.

Re: Show HN: Van, truck or car camp for $0 a night

#35
1 host = 1 credit looks like a problem, similar to how it can be hard to build up ratio on well established private torrent trackers. The distribution of credits will not be even with many hosts building up credits for some nebulous future trip. How do those actually travelling around earn credits past the first 3 complimentary?

Bonus point systems or just ignoring ratio solved this from my pov for trackers, the 1 to 1 ratio stood out as something that would need a solution long term.

Re: Show HN: Van, truck or car camp for $0 a night

#37
post #33
post #9

For anyone looking for actually free, no strings attached (and no subscription) camping, check https://freecampsites.net/ instead. It's a community wiki of free camp sites, usually on federal lands of various sorts (National Forests and BLM lands often have primitive campsites with fire rings and not much else). It's great for travel around national parks, especially. But please do leave no trace, pack out what you b…

Everything you wrote is bang on - please, please, PLEASE: Leave no trace. Haul out your garbage. Don't shoot, shit, or camp within 100 yards of streams, creeks, or rivers. Don't make fire rings where they already exist. Abide by fire restrictions that might vary by county. Stay on existing, marked hiking and motor vehicle trails. As a resident of the West (which has huge swaths of "public" land) I am so tired of folk…

Also, you leave out (which the comment you mentioned does) - please respect local rules. For instance, in Death Valley, you can free camp most anywhere (refer to NPS guidelines) two miles off of a designated roadway.

Re: Show HN: Van, truck or car camp for $0 a night

#38
post #9

For anyone looking for actually free, no strings attached (and no subscription) camping, check https://freecampsites.net/ instead. It's a community wiki of free camp sites, usually on federal lands of various sorts (National Forests and BLM lands often have primitive campsites with fire rings and not much else). It's great for travel around national parks, especially. But please do leave no trace, pack out what you b…

Freecampsites.net is fantastic (minus the UI which leaves a lot to be desired, and can be problematic on mobile). I used it extensively over the past two months as I roadtripped across Colorado/Utah/Arizona/Nevada. It has a neat trip planner feature where you put your route and it will show you all the places along the route where you can camp.

It's not a complete source of information since it's community submitted, so I often cross-reference these other two sites:

https://freeroam.app

https://www.campendium.com/

It's important to read the reviews of each campsite, since sometimes they will say things like "road is inaccessible without a high clearance vehicle" or "now private land; camping is no longer possible".

Also, make sure you pick a few nice places and jot down their coordinates BEFORE you get there. In my experience, most BLM land doesn't have the best (if any) cell service, so YMMV.

Re: Show HN: Van, truck or car camp for $0 a night

#40
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"rich vacationers" ? Most American adults can afford $100/year. Edit: I'll even add: most american adults spend $100 per month , not per year, on frivolous stuff. Fast food. Cable TV. Unnecessary high-end phones (instead of mid-range phones). All these people could definitely afford $100/year.

I think that's a pretty privileged viewpoint. That's $100/year of disposable income for maybe a parking spot where you want to go, maybe available when you want to go. That's definitely not a trivial dollar amount for something like that, especially when there are free alternatives (strip mall parking lots, rest stops, federal lands, moving between neighborhoods, etc.). Then there's the question of being able to offe…

Yeah, if I'm going to be honest, if you can't afford $100/yr you can't afford to host, so you're not going to be a contributor to their community. Looks like the filter is working.
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