The rules, and the part that changes when the car is electric
Dispersed camping on public land is legal, free, and better than most paid campgrounds. It is also governed by rules that vary by district and get quoted wrong constantly.
This is the method: what actually applies, how to find legal sites without an app deciding for you, and the battery math that is specific to doing it in an EV.
The legal position, with the caveats that matter
BLM: 14 days in any 28-day period in one area. Then you move, often a required 25 to 30 miles. That is the default, and districts can and do set their own.
Forest Service: usually 14 days too. Some districts allow 16 in 30. High-traffic areas go as low as 5. There is no national number you can rely on, which is why the confident answers you read on forums are usually wrong somewhere.
What holds almost everywhere:
- Public land only. Not private, and not inside national parks outside a campground. Park rangers are not casual about this.
- Stay 200 feet from water, minimum, usually more.
- Use existing sites. If there is a fire ring and flattened ground, camp there. Making a new site is how areas get closed.
- Pack it out. All of it.
Finding sites without trusting an app
The official maps are the real answer. The Forest Service MVUM (Motor Vehicle Use Map) and the BLM viewer show you what is legally open. They are ugly and they are correct.
Apps are a supplement. iOverlander and similar are useful for knowing a site exists and whether a sedan can reach it. They are not authoritative on legality, and they are frequently out of date on closures.
Reading a forest road: numbered roads on the MVUM are open to vehicles. A road that has washed out since the map was drawn is still on the map. Look at the surface, not the number, and turn around early rather than late.
Arriving
Get there before dark. You cannot judge ground, clearance or drainage by headlight, and the good sites go first anyway.
⚠ Never camp in a dry wash. It is flat, sandy, sheltered and obviously the nicest spot, and that is because water made it. Desert flash floods arrive from storms you cannot see.
The EV numbers nobody publishes
Camp Mode costs about 1% per hour, so roughly 10% over an eight hour night. Temperature moves that a lot: a mild night is 8%, a cold night with heat running is closer to 20%.
Window and roof covers save a real 2 to 3% per night. That is why they are in our packages rather than an upsell.
The math that matters: start at 80%, wake at 70%. Two nights out, 60%. That sounds comfortable, and it is, right up until you remember you also have to drive back out on a dirt road.
Our rule for guests: always be able to reach the nearest fast charger with 20% still in reserve. Not 5%. Boondocking areas are exactly where the road is slower and longer than the map suggests, and where nobody is coming to get you.
Where this works best
Southern Utah around Moab, the Coconino forest outside Flagstaff, BLM land near Joshua Tree, and most of Nevada. The Southwest is unusually generous with public land, which is the real reason these routes work.
The short version
- Public land, not private, and not in national parks outside campgrounds.
- BLM 14 in 28. Forest Service usually 14, sometimes 16, sometimes 5. Check the district, do not trust a forum.
- Official maps beat any app.
- Arrive before dark. Never in a wash.
- Budget 8 to 20% battery a night and keep 20% for the way out.
Free camping is not a hack. It is the ordinary way to use land you already own, and the rules exist because enough people ruined enough sites to make them necessary.