Van Life - Top 10 Free Overnight Parking Spots

hi everybody we wanted to share with you all of the places that we've ever stayed in our travels throughout America or when we're staying local for a long period of time there's a lot of different places you can stay overnight and we wanted to share with you so the first rule of thumb and this applies for when you're traveling too is to never stay in one place two nights in a row unless you're allowed to stay over your permission or to campground or something like that it's the two day rule that we came up with the one time we did do it two days is when we were told to leave so yeah after that we have not done that and and we've done well never having trouble yet any trouble first thing is probably what everyone knows is Walmart there's free parking all over the country you do have to check on their website we'll leave a link in our description description John there are certain Walmart's that don't allow overnight parking for RVs now trucks and tracks and campers as a van that looks like a family van we've been able to stealthily Park overnight without any trouble nobody was upset keep it private keep it private until Kelsey you can get away with it as a van as an RV so next thing is a lot of 24-hour restaurants Denny's 24 hour McDonald's Steak and Shake I hop Waffle House and then Cracker Barrel which is not study for hours but they lot of times do have RV parking and or they'll let you park in the parking lot overnight it's nice to ask if you're not sure and with all of those 24-hour restaurants will generally go in and eat something before going to bed or if it's in the middle of the night that we came in Park will come in the morning and have breakfast if we didn't feel like it was a good place to park for the night we just wouldn't for example a tan to give at Denny's ones that the manager found out that we were the ones who lived in the van and we're like rag on stay here for the night oh great all the employees now know that we're gonna ban just it in our life and they thought it was cool they weren't against it they it was obvious that they all knew so it's kind of like all right let's not park here but you know when everybody knows it's a different feeling so we ended up going to a Walmart after that so the next thing is 24-hour gas station we parked at a site of like the main view and again kept it kinda stealthy and then Home Depot or Lowe's is another common one we had a lot of trouble parking at those a lot of times there were signs telling us we couldn't that we'd be towed so there was only once or twice that we stayed yeah there are generally really good staff and really willing to have people parked overnight if you ask them they're they're friendly and we've heard a lot of stories about Home Depot being really and I think loads as well just being really friendly to travelers and stuff like that it's another really good place to stay out of 24 hour gyms well we signed up for Planet Fitness they have 24 hours Monday through Friday I think and then on the weekend it's not right so we would go in and use the showers and then sleep there but I'm sure you don't need an actual membership if you didn't want to you could actually just park at a 24-hour gym and you'd be fine as long as you do make it too obvious again and leave the next morning the next one is something we haven't done but it's Park and rides we didn't see there's a lot down south but more up north on the East Coast we would see Park and rides and we got that idea from a few other travelers and those are good places to park overnight because some people actually do park there and take buses to go other places and so they're not monitoring that sort of place one really good spot for cities like big cities like New York Boston things like that is residential areas parking in those places can be a nightmare if you find a parking space and you've really carefully watched the signs you can stay there you know as long as it's at all like it could be multiple days it could be a whole week it could be forever but if you're following the rules it's getting a little complicated but just make sure you like drive around in a red zone residential area and familiar familiarize yourself with the signs and the rules and then a lot of times you can just drive around and than 10 minutes probably you can find spot even in Brooklyn or in Manhattan yeah we were we found a lot we found a spot took a long time but you just plan ahead invest your time and just finding a good spot for yourself in Richmond Virginia it was kind of like that as well the residential spaces are usually close to cafes and all that and there is houses right in front so if you park more than one day people are going to remember you so they follow the rules all in one night if somebody's uncomfortable about you and living in your band you're going to have to find a new street those kind of things you just have to pay attention to next rest area rest areas there are certain states that don't allow you to stay overnight certain restaurants and if they do sometimes there's certain rules about it like one night only very strict so I'll leave a link in the description we did stay at rest stops a few times yeah but yeah it just gets a little bit um difficult to figure out you have to research ahead of time so this first camping I kind of have brought it up in some of our travel vlog videos this birth camping or boondocking is allowed in national parks and public lands so or national forests rather there's no real like list of where you can stay on the land it's pretty much anywhere unless it's marked otherwise so we would park at trailhead we would find wildlife management areas all these different public lands and just kind of drive around find a nice little spot in part sometimes it'll say don't park on the side of the road on the shoulder and then we'll drive a little further we realize oh my gosh there's a parking space right there we could just stop for the night yeah they're pretty they're pretty lacks about it about public land and those were some of the nicer places to park obviously and it's really nice nature and especially like New Hampshire and a lot of national forests up there and a lot of places to park right by a stream or something this really yeah whose varnish it is kind of risky when there's no cell service a lot of times you won't have cell service so so you kind of have to more people is it you might want to have no civilization no phone service which can be a plus and then also like a I'm not sure what's going to happen so it is up to you and and how you feel about that kind of thing for the most part we felt pretty safe but honestly I'd be by city research ahead of time a couple unverified options which just means we didn't really do this or we didn't do it often enough to know the consequences hotels we know about some people who have parks and hotel parking lots we have before a couple times but we do recognize that walking into a hotel lobby to use restrooms maybe someone's going to ask you questions they might but generally they don't however definitely wouldn't stay there more than one day if you're traveling yeah early probably so lightly really maybe if it's an emergency I don't really recommend it I think that especially in like populated cities like I know like Orlando for example I read a lot about it but they do require parking passes and a lot of the hotels because to get so many people there that they can be more strict about it but right in smaller towns we felt a little bit more gentle about that idea realizing that there wasn't anywhere to stay Oh secondly is hospitals I do know that you can park in a hospital parking lot without much worry I would look into that more we couldn't tell you we can't really tell you cuz we haven't done ourselves oh we have heard about it so yeah yeah so that's about all of them yeah so if you guys have any other really cool options that you've experienced or heard about feel free share on our comments um thank you for watching hope you enjoyed it and happy trails [Music]

Channel: The Road Abode

Views: 207,213

Rating: 4.9192824 out of 5

Keywords: van, vanlife, van life, alternative living, vandwelling, dodge ram, conversion, camper, camping, road trip, travel, traveler, the road abode, campervan, conversion van, van conversion, campervan conversion, living on the road, living in a van, traveling in a van, converting a van, park, walmart, free parking, free campground, dry camping, boondocking, dispersed camping, how to, where to park, best overnight parking, free camping, free overnight parking, van life parking

Id: oqPiP2JYVNc

Length: 9min 0sec (540 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 26 2017