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Tax Funded Treasures: Public Land, Dispersed Camping, and the BLM

The Bureau of Land Management manages over 245 million acres of public land. Here’s how I spent weeks in the vast BLM lands of the Arizona desert, for free.

By TrizenicPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
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BLM land, Ehrenberg, AZ

You don’t have to be a lion, or a king, to experience the feeling of looking over your land as it stretches as far as the eye can see (and much farther, realistically.)

The Bureau of Land Management looks after millions of acres of land between Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, the Dakotas, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, and a few eastern states.

Yellow: your taxes turn into something beautiful. (BLM land shown here in yellow.)

While the uses of this land are varied,

Congress tasked the BLM with a mandate of managing public lands for a variety of uses such as energy development, livestock grazing, recreation, and timber harvesting while ensuring natural, cultural, and historic resources are maintained for present and future use.

much of the BLM land is just yours to spend time on.

You could browse the BLM website by state for their developed campsites, which may require fees and permits to utilize, but if you’re like me, you just want to roll out without any fuss. That’s called dispersed camping, boondocking, or primitive camping, and that’s exactly what I did.

Getting away from the crowds on BLM land.

Dispersed Camping

Camping on public lands away from developed recreation facilities is referred to as dispersed camping.

Dispersed camping is free, but the BLM has a few general rules for it, along with specific rules for each state. On all BLM land, you’re expected to follow the seven Leave No Trace principles:

  • Plan Ahead and Prepare
  • Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces
  • Dispose of Waste Properly
  • Leave What You Find
  • Minimize Campfire Impacts
  • Respect Wildlife
  • Be Considerate of Other Visitors
Walking through this was amazing.

A stay of up to 14 days is allowed at any one site you choose, and then you’re supposed to move to another site anywhere outside of a 25 mile radius. This isn’t always enforced, so it isn’t unusual not to see anyone monitoring things.

The Freeroam Guide to Boondocking is an excellent way to learn about dispersed camping.

How do I find BLM land for dispersed camping?

YouTube videos were the most vital source of information that made dispersed camping on BLM land possible for me. The official BLM websites provide a wealth of valuable information, but YouTube channels like CheapRVLiving will show you comprehensively how to get to BLM land and what to expect when you get there.

This is the video that gave me the confidence to get out there. Bob Wells, the host of CheapRVLiving, drives you into one of the Ehrenberg Sandbowl BLM lands, here:

YouTube videos are also helpful because the official coordinates to BLM land aren’t always the best.

Let’s say I wanted to go dispersed camping in Utah. Using the search term “BLM dispersed camping Utah” in YouTube, for example, the first video I get shows me around some of the Moab BLM land, including nearby resources and amenities:

When you’re in or near BLM land, you may see “primitive road” signs, and RVs spaced apart in the distance. Sometimes you’ll see markers that look like the ones I saw in Arizona:

The BLM logo is at the top.

Once you get into a BLM land, you may notice other entrances to other segments of it, and find your own favorite places by exploring.

And how do you set up camp? You park at any flattened/previously disturbed area to the side of the road that you like, and that’s it. Like you’re pulling into your own place—because you are.

The Freeroam App

The Freeroam app is a free app for iOS, but also runs the same if you use the browser version at freeroam.app. The advantage of Freeroam is your ability to scroll over the map and see all of the BLM land as an orange overlay. You can discover dispersed camping areas and other BLM areas this way.

To enable the orange BLM land overlay:

1

Push the “layers” button at the upper right.

2

Select the “BLM Land” layer.

Now, you can zero in on your current location, or anywhere you’re curious about, and see if there’s BLM land there. Or, you can just look through the orange areas for red campsite markers:

Red markers are free campsites that have reviews.

Orange markers are also free campsites, but don’t have reviews. They may still have information about the BLM land, when you select them.

If you’ve got a promising target, you could see what comes up about it in your preferred search engine, or YouTube. Putting the coordinates into Google Earth can be a great way to scope the area out.

Sometimes, if I see BLM land near me in the app, and there aren’t any campsites, I’ll see if there’s a road I can take in to explore. There’s a good chance that these kind of BLM lands aren’t for camping, but I’ve found some interesting places that way, too.

Looking at Cathedral City suburbs from BLM land tucked away behind it.

A cemetary from the 1800s on Washington State BLM land.

Facebook Dispersed Camping Groups

Even if you don’t want to join them, some BLM land dispersed camping Facebook groups are public. You can use the search function within these groups to see what dispersed camping places they’ve enjoyed or recommended. Searching by state can show you a lot of results.

What was dispersed camping in Arizona like?

It was one of the most liberating feelings I’ve had. I was looking for peace and quiet, and I just drove into this gigantic desert, found a spot far away from everyone else, and parked there.

Taken during a walk through the desert.

When the sun went down, I was a little afraid because the desert became a sea of darkness. It’s probably because of having a writer’s imagination.

The other side of being in a sea of darkness is how incredible the night sky appears.

Aerial photo from above my campsite, the sea of darkness.

There’s a laundromat nearby—the Ehrenberg Laundromat—that also provides trash and recycling bins for dispersed campers to use, and a place to refill your water containers.

I went to the Ehrenberg Post Office and signed up for “general delivery”. It’s a free service that allows you to have your mail and packages sent there, as if you lived there.

I would have stayed longer if not for the snowstorm earlier this year. I went to Arizona for sunshine, and then that happened!

Arizona? Where’d you go?

Thank you for reading!

You can get involved with the BLM and keep in touch with their social media accounts! Add them through the link below and enjoy their beautiful photos of our land, and news about upcoming events!

america
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About the Creator

Trizenic

Twitter: @Trizenic

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  • Lyndsay Maas9 months ago

    Interesting

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