Finding Free Campsites Part 3, City Park Campgrounds

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Posted May 25, 2018

May 3, 2018

Click on the photo above and see the Dtube video.

The easiest places to find free campsites are in the national forests. Eighty seven percent of this land is west of the Mississippi, therefore, it is more difficult to find free camping east of the Mississippi. In my free camping series of blogs and vlogs, I want to inform you about where I am camping and how to find free campsites when you travel. I car camp mostly in my Nissan Xterra SUV and sometimes use a tent.

I was on my way to check out a Wildlife Management Area in Kentucky called Jones-Keeney WMA before my car broke down three days ago. Now back on the road again, I decided to see what was happening here. I’d read the hiking was excellent here, having three trails leading to a waterfall, some cliff overhangs and some high bluffs, all in a thick treed forest of mostly towering hardwoods, like hickory and oak. My plans to hike here were interrupted by rain, with even more in the forecast, but I did find the trail heads and the roads leading to all three.

None of the parking areas were flat enough or were too muddy for car camping though. Generally the WMAs don’t allow camping in Kentucky and have rules about vacating them by dusk. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t stay at a WMA in a pinch though. Most of them are in very remote and unpopulated areas of the state and if they have dirt or gravel roads leading into their interiors it would be very unlikely they would be patrolled by law enforcement. If you did get caught you would likely just be told to leave and not be ticketed. One of the advantages to car camping is you can vacate quickly, since you don’t have to pull up and pack a tent.

Obviously a state map is very useful for finding public lands in your area like national forests, state forests, and WMAs. Once you locate a public space it is easy to see if camping is allowed by utilizing Google to find this information. I also look for green areas on Google Maps in my locale in order to find the name of a park, so I can then google it to see if camping is available. I noticed that the next town, Dawson Springs, had a WMA called Tradewater located nearby. There really wasn’t any information to be found on Google about camping here, so sometimes you just have to investigate on your own and see for yourself. While I was looking for Tradewater, a canoe rental sign caught my eye, and then a sign reading, “WELCOME TO TRADEWATER PARK.”

The perfect spot to camp for the night and best of all it was free, right along the banks of the Tradewater River and I had the place all to myself. It was primitive with only one picnic table, along with one tiny metal fire ring. If that site was occupied there was plenty of space in the park to camp. I did an internet search of this park and found no information. Sometimes you just have to keep your eyes open and get lucky to find these spots. This is only the third free campsite in a city park that I’ve found in 4 years of travel. The other two were by using https://freecampsites.net/. Information on this website comes mostly from registered users, with reviews and information about the campsite. It’s a good reference to use for finding free camping in your area. Just put a city in the search engine near where you would like to find camping and it will generate on a map the locations for free camping and some lower priced pay sites as well. Unfortunately it does have some misinformation at times, so be advised not to use this as a last minute guide. Many of the campsites in this guide are in remote locations, down dirt or gravel roads, sometimes in bad condition, so it’s definitely not a good idea to arrive at night, except as a last resort.

There is a hiking trail that starts in the park, which goes as far as the Pennyrile State Resort Park, 25 miles to the south. The trail looked interesting and might be a great backpacking excursion. This trail also leads to the Pennyrile State Forest, where one might also find a place to free car camp.

I spent an afternoon at the Dawson Springs public library. Across the street is where the 150 room New Century Hotel was once located. This hotel was built in Dawson Springs’ “golden age,” when people from all over the South would come to drink the supposed healing mineral waters, that came from the wells located here. The town was initially called Dawson, then Dawson Wells and finally the name Dawson Springs. “Springs” was a more attractive name, than “Wells, label the town in order to attract more tourists to the town, even though the waters people drank for their health was from wells, not springs. The hotel, built in 1902, was quite majestic, and it is a shame a fire destroyed it in 1960. Here is a video of the fire.

I have been a permanent or nomadic traveler, since my retirement on January 1, 2014, with no plans, except to satisfy my insatiable wanderlust. I love to find off the beaten trail locations where little information on the internet can be found regarding the place. Exploring through spontaneity and intuition and then immersing myself in a place are what gives me happiness. Learning through new experiences is what make travel meaningful for me. My current location will be near or in the city listed on the Steemit blog home page banner. I try my best to keep this up to date. I like my blogs to give you some ideas, information and hopefully entertainment, but mostly I do it for myself to document my travels and help me hold on to these memories in some way.

Peace, Love and Voluntaryism

Chris Greyson

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