RV MAIL
LETTERS FROM THE ROAD
FEE VS FREE
I have followed with interest your recent articles
on the relative pros and cons of caravan parks
versus free camping (GoRV #23 and #24).
First, I must say that I think your authors have
done a great job in compiling these points and I
would like to add a few thoughts.
When we bought our van five years ago, my wife
and I had every intention of regularly free-camping
and staying in national parks. Hence, we bought
(what was at the time) a self-contained van and
made further purchases such as solar panels and
portable grey water tanks to assist in this.
However, we soon became disillusioned. We
found, as your author pointed out, that many
free camps tend to be crowded and often in
quite unattractive areas – far more crowded than
caravan parks.
In addition, we felt that some occupants of free
campsites were not there to appreciate the
environment but purely there to save money and
as a result did not care about their neighbours or
the mess left behind. All around, we did not find
them very pleasant.
the privilege of staying in these places. However,
very soon state governments began to decide
that national parks were cash cows and the small
amounts became far more considerable. In many
cases it is cheaper to stay in a pleasant powered
site in a nearby caravan park than it is to stay in
an unpowered (albeit slightly more pleasant site)
in a national park.
This is often aggravated by the need to book
online for the national park campsite. The obvious
solution (to me) is for national parks to charge
a small (token?) amount (such as $10 per site
per night) – especially in non-peak times. Small
enough to be easily affordable but large enough
to discourage those who don’t appreciate these
lovely places.
The booking system is another matter but online,
although at times frustrating, is here to stay.
It would be nice, however, if it was more flexible.
We can only hope.
Bruce Davis
Via email
“Not to worry,” we thought, “there are always
national parks.”
As your author said, campsites in national parks
tend to be large and in very scenic locations. We
were also very happy to pay a small amount for
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