There are all kinds of places to park your RV for the night—or even longer.
“Boondocking”, or dry camping, is when the RV is parked somewhere other than a private, full hookup campground. Generally there are limited to no hook ups available. This is a great option if everyone involved wants to be in a more secluded area. It also requires that you ration water and power. We have a 100 gallon fresh water tank and have gone as long as 3 ½ weeks without adding water to our tank. Limited power is always our challenge. We are not able to have solar right now because our 5th wheel doesn’t have the space available for the battery storage necessary to store the solar power. Generators are not a good option because there are limited hours that it is appropriate to run a generator, no matter where you are parked. Although the scenery can be breath-taking; this is not our preferred way to camp. Power is just too big of an issue for us.
There is “Mart-docking”. This is basically staying in a Wal-Mart or store parking lot. This is a reasonable option, although power is still an issue. In some cases an RV can be parked far enough away from anything or anyone that running a generator is not a big problem. We will do this if we are passing through and just planning to sleep for a few hours. We have also done this when there were NO campgrounds available for us.
Steve and Charlotte, Lisa’s brother and family have a very long and relatively wide driveway. We have stayed in their driveway “campground” so often that we now refer to this as our Kansas City Vacation Villa. We plug into their regular 20amp outlet and are able to power one air conditioner and basic electronic needs. We came from Colorado directly to Steve and Charlotte’s and we plan to be here for 2 or 3 weeks.
We have plenty of room and they still have room for all of their vehicles. They live in Edwardsville, which is outside of Kansas City. It is a more rural community. We feel like we are camping in the country. Our parking space at their house is larger than some of the campgrounds that we have stayed.This visit has been especially great. Every day Kimberly, our niece, comes down to the RV to hang out and visit for a few hours. At 24 we still really enjoy her company, and we love to be part of her life journey. Steve has been able to work his normal schedule and has not been able to take time off work—he has a very new job so it is hard to get time off. Although he drives an over-the-road semi-truck; he is home most nights. Charlotte is in the middle of a very big project at work, so she has been busier than normal; so we are happy when she is able to slow down and visit. When we are here for the longer visits, encourage them to continue their regular schedules. We have dinner together throughout the week and have more great times on the weekends.
