So, Johnny and I have been going over whether or not to add another type of campsite. The ones where you pay a fee and are able to camp for numerous days, sometimes the whole year.

Back when we were visiting Mississippi, I almost broke my own rules and added Mississippi WMAs to the site. For $10.50 you can stay in an a WMA for 3 days. Then we hit Texas, there you can by a LUP (limited use permit) for $12. The permit entitles you to camp in Texas WMAs and is good for the year (may be some limitations, didn't research it fully since we weren't getting it). Then there is the LTVA permit in NM/CA $180 for 7 months. There's also a $200 yearly camping pass for the Arizona state parks. Heck, there's even a private campground in Texas who's website claims it costs $1500 a year to camp there.

We are wondering if you would be interested in these kinds of sites. If so, we would make a different colored marker for them on the maps and call them "Permit Only Sites". They would be sites that are only usable by purchasing a multi-night pass/permit.

We would also appreciate feedback on where the ceiling should be. Do we stop at a certain price? Nothing over $80 for a whole year of camping? If we stick with the $10/night, a lot of campgrounds fit the bill at $300/month; Personally, I don't want to start adding those. Limit it to wilderness locations? How about both wilderness and price?

I think wilderness would have to be a prerequsite for sure.

$12 for a year is a heck of a deal and should be included somewhere.

Maybe I should just make a page on the site that lists various permits and where they can be used… map driven of course.

Any thoughts?

WMA = Wildlife Management Area. Most of the time, these are used by hunters and fisherman with little or no improvements for camping. Most states in the US have a ton of these, all run by the state, so different rules every time you cross a border.

LTVA = Long Term Visitor Area. The most common use I've seen of this is BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land. Specifically, Arizona allows camping for up to 7 months for a $180 permit in any of their BLM LTVA areas.

Editing posts is kind of a touchy subject at the moment. We want to allow people to edit their own posts, but their are some interface issues to work out so that you do not need to learn an entirely different interface to edit a post than you use to submt one. A method to address this issue is in the works, but it's only about 30% done at this time.

johnny

Rene,

It certainly would be a lot of work if one person were to do it all. I entered all of the WMA's in Virginia that seemed safe (far enough from water to pass the limit) as well as all of the National forest campgrounds that met the criteria. There were only fifty or so and it still took me close to a week to try and track down gps coords for them (so blame me if you get lost in VA).

It's really not so bad if you can get a people committed to a various states to do a few sites a day. In a state with well documented public lands, this goes considerably faster. We'll never get all of the possible areas, but if I could plot a route cross country and never have to detour more than fifty miles or so, I'd be ecstatic.

The only real flaw with the 'have a penny, leave a penny; need a penny, take a penny' system this site uses is that it relies on people with spare time and interest to do the bulk of the work while casual users may submit a few sites, or more likely, none. I'd like to think that over time, even those casual users will add up and turn it into a real resource, but reaching critical mass so that the casual users get an eyeball on the site in the first place is a tough hurdle to cross.

I think if we ever manage to get the bulk of the official public lands mapped out and described, those hard to find unofficial spots will come trickling in over time to fill the cracks. Big deams!

johnny

Bob,

We actually want you to sway us. This is a community driven site and as such, we need to aim for what the bulk of the community is looking for. Unfortunately, this means we aren't going to be able to please everyone, but we'd like to get as close to a consensus as we can.

Please don't take anything below this line as 'official'. This is Jenn's baby and I'm just weighing in my own two cents.

We almost never pay for campgrounds, and when we do, they are usually in the $5 range… it's just easier on the budget when fulltiming and still being a long way from a real retirement. We will, however, occasionally pop in for a night somewhere if it's the easiest way to dump, get water, do laundry, wash the rig and anything else we can think of to get our money's worth.

My personal opinion on paying for long term camping priviliges is that they are a good thing. What we're talking about in this instance is still very much boondocking. It's just doing so in an area that requires you to purchase a special permit. The Texas example is a good one as it's $12/person for a year of camping in ALL of their WMAs. It's more than $10, so it doesn't fit the current site rules, but if you're going to be in Texas for any length of time, it's darn near free camping.

As for truck stops, Wal-Marts, etc – on the east coast, they are often the only game in town that fits the 'free' criteria. We haven't done mass imports on these, but if someone has taken the time to add one, it's been approved. This goes back to the community aspect of the site. Someone found enough value in the information to go through the submission process and the site technically meets all of the rules. Sure, there are lots of lists of Wal-Marts out there and we don't need another one, but I do kind of like the ability to look at a map while we're on the road and see if there is anywhere nearby to stop. Better yet, I like the idea of doing it from a single site. I'm still a fence-sitter here and lean towards just approving one if someone submits it rather than mass importing them.

I'm going to steal Pianotuna's idea and add a couple wrinkles of my own as a proposal. Green pins = free, yellow = $10 cap, and red = 'tremendous value'. Now, since there's no good way to define 'tremendous value', I would suggest that a user must have X (where X is a reasonable number) of posts in the green and yellow ranges, before they are allowed to post 'tremendous value' sites. This helps insure that campround owners don't just plug their own campgrounds without at least doing some research for the community.

It also helps to insure that the person submitting the site is aware of the lower cost alternatives. For example, if Bob submits his $12 site at Atherton Creek because he thinks it is 'tremendous value', I'm a lot more inclined to believe him as he's already submitted 20+ sites that are free or under $10.

Most of this post is just my own opinions. Jenn is looking for community input here and is Big Chief. I'm just Noisy Monkey.