Traveling long-term in a schoolie conversion means that we have our entire home with us all of the time. This makes traveling so convenient, but anyone living this lifestyle knows what it challange it can be to find a safe place to park overnight. Over the past few weeks, when speaking to friends and family about our travels, the number one question my husband and I are asked is “where do you stay?” So, I figured I would make a blog post to talk about it!

If you would like more information on our school bus, refer to my first post on this topic.

There are three primary resources that we use to find places to stay, but tend to focus on the free options.

• Campgrounds and RV Parks
• Boondocking, iOverlander, and Freecampsites.net
• Harvest Hosts

While there are SO many other options, these are the resources that Jacob and I use most frequently.

Staying in Campground and RV Parks With A Schoolie

This one seems pretty obvious, considering most of us have stayed at a campground at some point in time. These can range from forest service or government run campgrounds (like those attached to national or state parks) to privately owned campgrounds or KOA’s. This option is best when staying in areas that do not allow boondocking, lack state land that you can park at, or are in very populated areas. For example, while spending a week in the Florida Keys we are staying at a KOA campground.

There are a few things that we consider when choosing one of these options, but the major factor is money. There is a large variation in prices per night and if we can find a free option, we nearly always take that. Down here in the Keys, campsites during peak season will run you about $200 per night which is by far the most we will ever pay for a site (hopefully), but the campground offers great facilities, cheap laundry, ocean access, and a great place to fish!

One other factor we have to consider is whether or not a campground or RV park will allow school buses. There are some that either do not allow school buses or other less common vehicle types, or do not allow RVs over 10 years old (we are FAR outside of that requirement with a 1996 vehicle!). Luckily, this rule typically only applies to private campgrounds or RV parks. We are able to stay at KOA’s and government owned campgrounds without any issues and always make sure to call and ask before booking.

Boondocking and Free Parking Apps

Boondocking and apps such as iOverlander or freecampsites.net are a primarily used out west, or in states with a lot of BLM land or state forests. For those of you who don’t know, boondocking is dispersed camping which includes parking alongside roads or in forests with no amenities. We use iOverlander and freecampsites.net to locate good, safe places to park for free overnight.

The options for places to stay range significantly. Many nomads will park at Cracker Barrels, Walmarts, or Bass Prop Shops when in populated areas and can use these apps to identify which locations other travelers have had good experiences with. Additionally, we use these apps to find the coordinates of commonly used dispersed camping areas throughout the country.

Before living in the bus, we took two month long road trips that involved a significant amount of dispersed camping. With the use of these apps, we were able to find some unique places such as: a plateau outside of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, a great roadside stop on the Oregon coast, and many others.

I know some of you will ask, what do you mean by no amenities and where do you go to the bathroom or shower? Well, no amenities means you’re literally parking in a field with no bathroom access of any kind. How do we handle that? Well, we have access to hold 20 gallons of fresh water, have a built in shower, and a small cassette toilet We estimate that we can comfortably spend 5 days in the middle of nowhere before needing to return to civilization for supplies.

Harvest Hosts

This app is our FAVORITE and most used of any method to find parking. It’s an app and online community that costs about $80 per year to be a part of. It allows people traveling in RVs, campers, and conversions to stay at a variety of locations including vineyards, breweries, gold courses, churches, farms, and other businesses overnight. Hosts are able to register their property with the app and take requests from users to stay with the incentive of increased traffic to their business. Additionally, Harvest Hosts encourages travelers to spend $20 to thank hosts for their generosity.

While being encouraged to spend $20 doesn’t sound like a free option, we have only spent money on things we needed/wanted so far. For example, when staying on farms, we have purchased farm fresh eggs and sustainably raised beef and pork, all of which we would have purchased anyway. When staying at breweries or vineyards, we will order one drink each or a flight to sample whatever they make. If we like it, we may order more, if not, we just stick to the first try.

As most of our friends and family knows, my husband and I hope to become homesteaders after our time on the road. So, we have been using our stays at farms to ask the farmers questions and take notes on our likes/dislikes. For instance, we learned that we really like sheep but aren’t fans of alpacas. We DEFINITELY want to have a big vegetable garden and probably won’t make livestock our focus. We have so much to learn and have been loving the opportunity to see how different people live.