What is dispersed camping?
The short answer
Dispersed camping is camping on public land outside a developed campground, usually in a national forest, a national grassland or on land run by the Bureau of Land Management. You choose your own spot, often a pullout or clearing along a forest road. It is usually free and needs no reservation, and there are no facilities: no water, no toilets and no trash pickup.
How it differs from a campground
A developed campground has numbered sites, a host, toilets, often water, and a fee. Dispersed camping has none of that. You bring your own water, carry out your trash and deal with your own waste. The upside is that you can camp away from other people, in places no campground reaches.
Most dispersed sites are just a flat patch of ground near a road, sometimes with a ring of rocks left by earlier campers. People camp this way in tents, cars, vans, trailers and RVs, and backpackers do it in the backcountry.
Where it is allowed
The two big systems that allow it are the national forests and grasslands run by the U.S. Forest Service and the public land run by the Bureau of Land Management. Together they cover about 438 million acres. On most of that land, camping is allowed anywhere that is not posted closed or closed by an order.
National parks work the other way: camping outside campgrounds usually needs a backcountry permit and a designated site. State land varies by state, and national wildlife refuges generally do not allow camping. Private land inside a forest boundary is not public at all; see what an inholding is.
The rules that usually apply
Each national forest and BLM field office sets its own rules, and they change with the season. The common ones are:
- A stay limit, often 14 days in one place, after which you have to move on.
- A minimum distance from water, commonly 100 to 200 feet from lakes and streams.
- Vehicles only on roads and trails open to them, shown on the forest’s Motor Vehicle Use Map.
- Fire restrictions that can limit or ban campfires, especially from summer into fall.
- In some places a permit, such as California’s free campfire permit or an overnight wilderness permit.
How to find a place
Start with the land. Check who owns it, which roads lead in and what the current rules are. Then pick a spot that has clearly been used before instead of making a new one. The area pages list the published rules for each researched forest and field office, with the date they were checked, and the scouting map shows ownership, roads and those rules together.
Leave No Trace applies everywhere: camp on durable ground, keep away from water, pack out everything you bring in, and leave the site as you found it.
Related questions
- Is dispersed camping free?
- Usually, for the camping itself. Some places charge for parking or need a pass, wilderness areas can need an overnight permit, and long winter stays at BLM long-term visitor areas need a permit.
- Is dispersed camping legal?
- Yes, on most national forest and BLM land, unless an area is posted closed or closed by an order. Each forest or field office sets its own limits, so check the area’s rules before you go.
Sources
- Camping on public lands, Bureau of Land Management
- About the agency, USDA Forest Service
- What we manage, Bureau of Land Management
- The seven principles, Leave No Trace