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Comment by ghostly_s | Hacker News Reader

Like this website, the important caveat is in the Southwest. Public lands other than formal parks and preserves are basically nonexistent elsewhere.

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I'd say the West in general, not just the Southwest. By that I mean most of the West Coast (California, Washington, Oregon) has abundant federal lands. Some of the adjacent states do too. Alaska as well. It goes east a bit. Colorado has a bunch. It's more the Midwest and east of there that doesn't have much of them. (edit: actually there are some near the Great Lakes too!)

Here's a map: https://maps.usgs.gov/padusdataexplorer/#/public-access (edit: this map viewer isn't super clear, but go to the Public Access tab. You can zoom in and click on an area to see who manages it. Google it by name to look up specific rules & regulations). They encourage you to use it to find campsites: https://www.protectedlands.net/uses/pad-us-2-0-helps-rv-user...

There's a lot of different public land classifications, with different rules and administrators: https://www.doi.gov/blog/americas-public-lands-explained

In general, you're most likely to run into free camping on USFS or BLM land, which also tend to be mixed-used (as in not reserved for recreation, but also used for forestry or ranching etc.).

> I'd say the West in general, not just the Southwest. By that I mean most of the West Coast (California, Washington, Oregon) has abundant federal lands. Some of the adjacent states do too.

Pretty much every state West of (or split by) the Contintental Divide, not just the Pacific Coast states and some of the adjacent ones.

Thanks for the clarification! I wasn't born here and US geographical terms still confuse me (like why is the "Midwest" not called the "Mideast" when it's clearly east of center?). I had to look up what the Continental Divide is... useful term to know!

No?

https://www.fs.usda.gov/whitemountain

https://www.fs.usda.gov/dbnf

https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/nfsnc/recarea/?recid=48114

And lots, lots more

We’re so lucky out here in the west. Practically infinite access to nature. Contrast this to Maine, which despite being enormous has next to nothing for public land.

True, but Maine (and NH/VT) have the distinction of having implicit/legal trespass. So if you are in the know on where there are large tracts of unposted private land managed for logging (not talking about the North Maine Woods, which is amazing - and vast - but requires a fee to enter) you can have really great experiences in wilderness-ish places.

That’s news to me.

VA/WV has the George Washington National Forest, Mt Rogers National Recreational Area, Shenandoah National Park, multiple Wilderness areas (Dolly Sods, etc). Abundant state parks with a mix of established campgrounds and backcountry camping.

We don’t have the huge swaths of BLM land. But outdoor access is still pretty great (at least from the DC/Mid-Atlantic urban corridor).

Those come with significantly more restrictions though, so it’s not useful to point those out there in the context of places where you can camp with few restrictions.

Depends on what restrictions you mean. The biggest here is vehicle access - BLM lands tend to have lots of service roads/gravel that are open for van-lifers. Around here, it's a lot more backcountry backpacking. But the land is still largely open to the public.

Public lands even in the west get more restrictions in the places where too many people start ruining them. It really all comes back to population density, and that shouldn't surprise anyone: nature is easier to access in less populated places.

That's not true. New England has limited free public land but most of the country has national forests, state forests, and other public land. Some states, like Nebraska, even have free campgrounds in some small towns.

There's a lot of free camping out there, you just have to look for it.

> Like this website, the important caveat is in the Southwest. Public lands other than formal parks and preserves are basically nonexistent elsewhere.

What I call the greater west (all of the “West”, “Southwest”, and “Pacific Northwest”) are largely public, federal lands.

(laughs in Alaskan)

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