👍"Top 13" Tips for FREE Overnight RV Parking at WALMART

hey guys we are Sean and Christy my goal of the world-famous long long honeymoon blog also known as Lola today we've got a really fascinating if counterintuitive topic we're going to give you our top 13 tips for successful overnight parking your RV and Walmart parking lot and I know that there are some of you out there right now who are having a very negative reaction you're saying Sean that is the worst idea for a camping topic I've ever heard bear with me for a moment yes in theory ideally it would be nice if every day you were able to park your RV on a beach at the Grand Canyon maybe in Yellowstone or Glacier maybe up in Alaska and birds would be singing and greeting you every morning and your coffee would always be hot so you know yes in a perfect world we'd like to stay in national parks every day too but in reality we live about 2,000 miles from Yellowstone so there's a lot of ground to cover between here and the park and we do stay in a lot of independently run campgrounds that are really nice that we really enjoy so we're not telling you to not do that but you know sometimes if you're just trying to get from point A to point B and you don't have a lot of time to linger trying to make the most of your day of driving overnight parking is your best option and it's safer for everyone because you know you can stop when you're tired sometimes we even just stopped in the middle of the day for a couple of hours to take a break you know and then we get out and keep driving an oasis of asphalt that is welcoming to your rig that's right no reservation required stopping in these sorts of places is an important part of the whole RV equation if you really want to use your rig to see no America a viable question up front is can you do this anywhere can you stop in any Walmart parking lot there's an old urban legend that Sam Walton the founder of Walmart was big RV camper and he really loved the RV lifestyle and so he always wanted to allow RVs to park at Walmart I have no idea if that's true or not I didn't know Sam Walton it sounds good it sounds good and I will say that for the most part Walmart's have been very welcoming throughout North America and when I say that I mean from the deep south all the way up to Alaska this also applies for Walmart's in Canada the only place we've had trouble have been usually communities where there's a local ordinance forbidding this practice I don't know how strictly these things are enforced there is that risk that you know if you're in an area that does not allow overnight parking you might get a knock on your door 4:00 in the morning asking you to leave now I will say one time in California we stopped and parked in this Walmart where there were a lot of other RVs and next morning I got up and I went outside and we had parked right underneath the no overnight parking sign blatantly violating the law not even a lot of towns they really are trying to discourage big rig trucks from parking overnight not so much RV campers so sometimes I think that might be the case rather than RVs but you know some people say that you should always go in and ask we basically usually drive around if there's no sign saying that you can't we park there and also if we see other RVs there we park there there are some Wal Mart parking lots that literally are like campgrounds the one near Glacier National Park I mean when we stayed there there were probably 40 RVs in the parking lot the Walmart in Whitehorse Yukon Territory so there are a lot of places where you see it's very common but you know surprisingly some Walmart parking lots are really well landscaped and can be in scenic areas the Palm Springs Walmart is really nice yeah two thumbs up for Palm Springs California Walmart yeah beautiful landscaping yes if there's any question about whether or not you can stop at a certain Walmart one thing you can do is call I mean we from time to time will call in advance when we're in route to a place and just ask if it's okay for us to park there some people will say you could go inside and talk to the manager if you have intentions of parking there I think that's a little weird personally it's called and usually they know a lot of times they'll just say oh yeah sure no problem and sometimes I have had them say well hold on let me ask and they'll come back and say sure no problem I've never had anybody on the phone tell me no so without further ado we're gonna get straight to the tips our first tip you guys have it so easy these days you youngsters with your GPS devices spoiled spoiled spoiled find Walmart's using your GPS now this is a no-brainer today but back in the old days of RV camping like you know 2007 we had to hunt for Walmart's but today you can just do a GPS search and find the Walmart where you might want to stop when you do your search search for a Walmart Supercenter that's very important as our GPS pronounces it super Santa he's a little snobby and British but that's okay so look for a Walmart Supercenter why a Super Center because these are the larger Walmart's the smaller ones we call small Mart's and you can't actually always overnight park at a small Mart a lot of times they're parking lots are a lot smaller you know they're in sort of smaller little neighborhood areas so you know it's just not easy to get in and out of those a lot of homes so the Super Center brand actually does mean something I mean for one thing it means they'll have a full grocery store inside the Walmart complex but it also usually means a much larger parking lot let's say that you've got your Walmart selected you know where you're going now we're getting down to the nitty-gritty of best practices for parking in the Walmart first of all you pretty much want to park in Siberia yes I mean this is kind of obvious but you don't want to park your 50 foot rig right next to the front door you really want to be in the our reaches of the parking lot and look specifically for low traffic areas and what do I mean by low traffic areas well if you size up pretty much any Walmart parking lot you can quickly ascertain where the traffic is flowing you know the in and out in an exit you know you just want to steer clear of those I mean you can sort of see there are certain channels of traffic but even on the perimeter of the parking lot you'll you'll figure out there are certain lanes that a lot of people tend to use when they're getting in and out of the Wal Mart you want to be away from those mainly because it protects you from the incompetence of your fellow drivers because people have been known to wreck their cars and to park cars and park vehicles and you know you don't want to be sleeping in the back of your rig and wrecks money drive through your living room of course it's good for Walmart you're not taking up a lot of parking spaces right next to the door because that's what everybody wants to park so we look for those low traffic areas and we look for a buffer or edge area and now we don't always Park on the edge but quite often the Pharm perimeter of the parking lot is the best choice when you have that buffer of a curb on one side well it just protects you there's not going to be any traffic on that side and by the way it's quieter for you also I mean you're not listening to cars drive past em somebody's not gonna come park right next to your rig at 6:00 in the morning on their way to work and slam their door and wake you up although you'd be surprised yeah you would think sometimes you're in this huge expansive parking lot and there's like a million spaces and then some guy pulls in right in front of the front of our rig so it's like to get out we have to back out I remember one time we were Walmart parking lot in South Carolina and we were awakened at like 6:00 in the morning by the local humane society was like having a spay and neuter clinic bein neutered and we drop-off was set up literally like four feet from our back bumper so we booked out tommy's dogs barking and like cats meowing I mean it's just what it's going the hall is going on and like it was a huge expanse of parking lot and they set this thing up right outside our window I don't know but so you'd be surprised what it might happen but anyway parking in Siberia helps you avoid those types of situations usually and sometimes you know we like to park under the large lights in the parking lot just one for safety you know so you're sort of illuminated there it's it's another buffer and sometimes a little you know curbed areas with trees in them yeah if you can't park on the edge you look for those little buffer zones that are laid out through the landscaping and so forth throughout the parking lot in our philosophy there is strength and safety in numbers in other words usually when you're Walmart overnight parking you will see other RVs doing the same thing especially in certain parts of the country so we usually park in a little RV neighborhood that tends to crop up late afternoon early evening in these certain Walmart parking lots always feel better if you see some other RV travelers kind of in your vicinity right next tip Walmart parking lots are not terribly level so this is a lesson that you'll probably figure out one time you want to park so that your headboard of your bed is angled in the upwards direction yeah you don't want your feet above your head however your bed is configured and your rig ours is actually kind of sideways ours isn't front to back at Subway's so really that side to side level makes a big difference for our head in our feet if your bed is you know front to back and your rig then it's probably a little less of an issue you're worried about rolling off you're better rolling into your partner or whatever so take that into consideration just for your own personal comfort you know yeah you don't want to be sleeping like this I mean maybe you don't know I like that next tip be a good guest you are not camping in the Walmart parking lot you're parking overnight parking this is not a tailgate session don't break out your grill or like fire up your stereo or whatever you normally would do at a tailgate it's kind of a violation of etiquette to extend your awning don't put down your stabilizer jacks things like that you don't want to look like you're letting out for the long term no flamingos no potted plants flags no Flags no rugs sorry yeah lawn chairs campfires are frowned upon yeah you want to look like your overnight parking you part you're gonna arrest and then the next morning you move on Walmart doesn't have to allow us to park there overnight they allow RV campers to do it for a variety of reasons but we want to be good citizens and good guests and be on our best behavior and so not only do you not litter from time to time if you see litter you might even pick it up and toss it in one of the many available receptacles the funny thing about RV Walmart parking lots is a lot of times you have to be prepared for this in the middle of the night sometimes they have street sweepers that come through and actually clean their parking lots so if you hear that in the middle of the night don't be alarmed that's right that's part of the entire on beyond so the Walmart parking lot at 5:00 in the morning believe me and it goes without saying that to be a good guest you might go inside and do a little bit of shopping because certainly there's a symbiotic relationship here and another little tip is if your want to watch a current movie you can go inside and they usually have like a red box or even their own proprietary little machine that dispenses new released DVDs entertainment to so I want to talk just a minute about safety because safety is always an important consideration always carry an ak-47 no no no just getting good we have stopped overnight at Walmart parking lots throughout the country and have had very few issues I can think of maybe two different occasions when we felt that our spidey sense was going off that something was wrong and parking a lot it was not a place to linger when we detected that there might be a problem guess what we did we left yeah our rig has wheels and that's what I advise for you to do if your intuition is telling you that it might not be a safe area now in reality Walmart parking lots are generally well lit they're often patrolled by private security yes and they're cameras everywhere recording what's going on out there so it's a relatively safe place to stop but if you get the vibe that it's not safe what you do is you leave and there are a lot of other places you could potentially go truck stops by and large are always relatively safe place to stop they're also kind of noisy and they're a lot louder than Walmart parking lots so you know we've stopped it truck stops we've stopped at Cabela's Cabela's is a great place if you can find one because they even have dump stations and free fresh water free fresh water and dump station so that's great we have stopped at barrel Cracker Barrel now when we stopped at Cracker Barrel we did confirm with the management that was okay to park there and they were very accommodating and they usually have big rig parking because they get a lot of like tour buses and stuff so if you ever get the sense that's not cool to be in the Walmart parking lot you just move on you'll find another place that concludes our little list of tips for overnight parking in Walmart parking lots we've done in a lot of places we've had very very few negative issues or experiences and we're grateful to have this kind of option because if you really are going to use your rig I mean in hardcore hit the road and get out there and see America you're going to take advantage of this from time to time hopefully these tips will help you yeah don't be scared to do it you know we'd heard about it when we first got our RV and we were like I don't know if we want to do that that seems kind of sketchy and then we got in a situation where we really needed a place to stop and there was a Walmart and so we did it and you know once you do it it's a breezy we are Sean and Christian Michel of long long honeymoon if you have not already subscribed what are you waiting for subscribe button is just waiting for you to press it until next time we're wishing you a hearty if you liked the video give it a thumbs up disliked it give it a thumbs down feel free to leave a comment and of course don't forget to subscribe if you like the video thumbs up if you didn't like it you

Channel: Long Long Honeymoon

Views: 1,025,566

Rating: 4.9155035 out of 5

Keywords: Recreational Vehicle (Industry), Parking, Walmart, Camping, Loloho, Long Long Honeymoon, walmart rv parking, free walmart rv parking, walmart camping, free walmart camping, walmart rv camping, walmart overnight, walmart overnight parking, walmart overnight rv parking, walmart free overnight parking, free overnight parking at walmart, rest area rv parking, free overnight rv parking, rv parking at walmart, camping at walmart, walmart boondocking, walmart rv, boondocking at walmart

Id: sVvScIscBdo

Length: 16min 6sec (966 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 06 2015