Human Nature tends to wreck good deals in life.
Our European friends like to regale us about how in their countries, you can just camp almost anywhere. You take off in your VW Westfalia and at the end of the day, park it in some farmer's field and camp for the night. No one seems to care. The farmer doesn't come out and yell at you. The Police don't come and hassle you or give you a ticket. No one tows your camper away.
Our Canadian friends have a similar deal. You can camp on the "Queen's Land" for free, and we saw many people in rural areas doing just that. Up in the Yukon Territory, and down along the Cassiar highway into B.C., there were plenty of free overnight places to stay.
And maybe that sort of thinking permeates in other cultures - that you can stop for the night somewhere, and so long as you are not bothering anyone, that's your business. One afternoon on Jekyll, we had a knock on the door. A French Canadian couple in their Mercedes van said they didn't want to bother us, but they saw our RV in the driveway and, well, the campground was full and could they stay the night in our driveway?
I said yes, of course, as Mark elbowed me in the ribs. They stopped by at 9 that night and left early in the morning, leaving a can of Canadian Maple Syrup on our doorstep. I left a hose and extension cord out for them, but they said they didn't need it.
Now, in America, if you want to settle down for the night, you'd better have money. Because unless you pay to sleep somewhere, you ain't staying. Maybe this is a legacy from our vagrancy laws or something, but the high cost of housing is number one on everyone's bitch list - always has been, always will be.
There have been some "free" places to stay in the States, but they are rapidly disappearing. And most are disappearing for two reasons. First, the folks who sell you a place to stay don't want you to stay anywhere for free. Second, the people who take advantage of these free places to stay often abuse the privilege, which causes landowners and municipalities to crack down.
For example, Walmart used to be a place where you could park for the night if you were "just passing through" and no one seemed to care. At some Walmarts, the security guy would even come around and promise to keep an eye out for you. Of course, you can see there, the first problem - this implied security means implied liability if someone gets hurt. In some smaller Walmarts, they had to put up signs saying "no overnight parking" because the parking lot wasn't big enough, and with some rigs taking up five or more spaces, well, you can't blame them for wanting their parking lot back.
But then again, human nature. There is always someone who will park in a prime area, or leave their garbage in the lot, or even dump black water on the ground. And some folks will park in a Walmart parking lot in a $500,000 motorcoach (you know, a cheap one) and never even shop inside ("I never shop there, I only go to Harris Teeter!"). So what't the upside for Walmart? None. So many more are banning the practice.
Then there are the live-aboards. We've seen in more than one "free" location, people basically set up permanent housekeeping in a parking lot. You can tell they have been there for days - maybe weeks or months. There is junk all around the trailer, which is not hooked up to any vehicle. And the trailers and motorhomes of these folks are in sad, sad shape. It is an eyesore, and no one wants to go into a store where a third-world slum is going on in the parking lot.
But not all are poor. We stopped at a Walmart in Ellesworth, Maine to get groceries, and right out front is a guy in a brand new "toy hauler" 40-foot 5th wheel trailer, who has marked off no less than 17 spaces with highway cones. Behind the trailer is his brand-new Harley, and in front is a jacked-up 4x4 dually diesel pickup. We're talking well over $150,000 in vehicles parked there, and judging by the number of boxes under the camper, he'd been there awhile. Maybe he worked there or something, but it was quite odd - he clearly had enough money to park in a campground or even an RV resort, but chose to make a semi-permanent home in a Walmart parking lot.
The local campground owner is not amused. They are seeing lost revenue by people parking for free in parking lots. So they pressure the town board to outlaw overnight parking in parking lots, and the Walmart manager is pressured to put a stop to it. The combination of abuse by some folks and the upset of the powers-that-be (read: money) has caused the number of "free" places to stay to dwindle.
I recounted before how at our local shopping plaza, we used to put cars out for sale or buy cars that were parked there with "for sale" signs on them. It was a fun way for locals to buy and sell their jalopies, but the local used car dealers were not amused. They had a lawyer write a "cease-and-desist" letter to the strip-mall owner, claiming that under the law, if there were more than three cars on the lot with "for sale" signs on them, the strip-mall owner would be required to have a used-car dealer license and face fines if he did not do so! Never mind it wasn't the strip-mall owner selling the cars, but just people from the neighborhood.
Well, it was probably a specious claim, but the owner decided to be safe and put up signs and tow a few cars. That put an end to that! We can't have people buying and selling their own cars without a dealer getting a "taste" of the action, right? Probably the reason why there are so many fraudulent and time-waster ads on Craigslist. The car dealers put them up to frustrate us. Perhaps - trolling has gone pro, you know.
What got me started on this was we decided to stop at a Cabela's for the night. It is not something we usually do, but they offered free overnight parking for RV's and we needed new life vests for our kayak anyway. Mark has an app called "RV Parky" that lists places to park for the night. The list gets shorter every day.
Anyway, we get there and the water spigot and dump station are sealed off, and there are a plethora of signs saying "no overnight parking, local ordinance. You may be fined and your vehicle towed!" We asked the manager what was going on and he said that if we were staying for the night, it wasn't a big deal, but that some people abused this and stayed for weeks - it was near a popular Maine beach - and it was getting out of hand. I mean, they had a specific parking lot for "Trucks, Buses, and RVs" and there were truckers spending the night there and no one bothered them. No one bothered us, either. But if we stayed a second night, or a third, we would have gotten a note on our windshield, at the very least, if not a ticket.
There was some discussion as to whether the parking lot was public or private land - apparently part of it belonged to the local municipality. If so, they could regulate the use of it. And even private land can be regulated by local government through zoning. If you let people park overnight, you may be construed as running a campground, and for that you need proper zoning and permits.
Whatever the reason, I think the same effect was in play here. Some people abused the privilege by turning an overnight stay into a week-long free vacation. And we see this on Jekyll Island - people pay for a week-long pass and spend the day on the island, parked across six spaces at the beach, and then spend the nights in the parking lot of the local truck stop. Local truck stops are putting and end to that as well.
And likely the "ordinance" was instituted at the instigation of "concerned citizens" who just happened to work for a large nationwide campground chain. You laugh, it happens. When I did work for the cable business, it was a poorly-kept secret that the people who attended city council meetings calmoring for zoning laws to outlaw 8-foot satellite dishes as an "eyesore" were in fact paid shills and employees of the cable companies. The "Citizens United Against Satellite Dish Blight" was in fact, an astro-turf organization. And you slip the council-members enough campaign cash, and they look the other way. Act shocked.
There are other places to stay, of course, but they may be going away in short order. There is another app called "Harvest Hosts" which costs $40 a year, and they hook you up with wineries, breweries, distilleries, museums, organic farms, and whatnot, who will let you park for free overnight. The app was recently bought by Thousand Trails which is a chain of RV parks owned by the same people who own Camping World, the Good Sam Club, and all the RV magazines and guides - affinity marketing. Do you think they are going to keep this "free" camping thing going? I kind of doubt it.
And the other shoe is already dropping. People who camp for free at these places are not buying anything from the hosts, so there is no profit in it. Worst yet, they leave bad reviews on Harvest Hosts complaining about trivial things. One reviewer complained that the Harvest Host didn't provide 50 Amp, 220 Volt service for their bus motorhome, and had the nerve to suggest that they buy something! I mean, after all, it was a free overnight stay, shouldn't there be free electricity?
The Karens and Kevins of the world ruin everything.
Another site, called "Boondockers" may suffer a similar fate. It is based on the ludicrous premise that people would let you camp on their property for free just for the hell of it. You are encouraged to give the host a "gift" but of course, if that was mandatory, the host is running a campground without a permit - same old problem! And all it takes is one boorish person to leave trash behind or dump black water on the ground, for the landowner to say, "enough of that!" and opt-out of the game.
Not to mention insurance. You invite people to stay overnight on your property or at your place of business, and if they are robbed, burgled, assaulted, raped, or killed, well, you could be liable, at least in part, for their injuries. It is a lose-lose situation for the business owner or landowner, who has to make a logical economic decision. Unless a law is passed exempting landowners from liability from people who stay overnight, the whole thing will fall apart. And as we have seen, the only laws being passed are those outlawing overnight stays, entirely.
This is not to say there are no free places to stay left in the world, only that they are fast disappearing. And even the few left are being over-booked. Harvest Hosts, for example, never took reservations - you just showed up and hoped there was a spot. But now, with the Pandemic and "CoVid Campers" taking up all the RV spots, you need to reserve weeks in advance. And you know what? The businesses who subscribe to Harvest Hosts are realizing this is a royal pain-in-the-ass to take reservations and keep track of them. It is like running an RV park without getting paid one penny.
And as a result, the cost of camping, even in a State Park with no hookups, has risen. Used to be you could find places for under $20 a night, and show up on a moment's notice. Now you are paying $30 or $50 or more, and you'd better make a reservation through Reserve America - and pay their reservation fee as well. Costs are going up due to CoVid! That's the excuse people are using these days to jack prices on everything, it seems.
Human nature is an ugly thing, and it ruins everything, it seems. Maybe our European and Canadian friends can camp out for free, but in America, it is fading fast. And maybe overseas it will fade as well - as out planet gets more and more populated. It is a shame, too, because the idea of camping near a pristine mountain stream is appealing - but it is just a dream.
