The different types of campsites range from what we call boondocking which has no amenities at all to extremely fancy resorts that have pools, spas, group activities, tours, etc. Since we traveled a lot in the western US this summer, we became familiar with the land managed by the federal government. This includes Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and national forest land. Most of the BLM land is where you can boondock for free - just pull over on the side of the road or wherever you like and set up camp. The National Forests usually have campgrounds for a small fee and then can vary in their amenities from nothing to supplying water, electricity and sewer hook ups. There are a number of people who don't want to camp near others or just don't have the money for campgrounds. One famous person like this is a man named George. He has a small motorhome and he travels all over the western US and Mexico boondocking. He has been doing this for several years and, if you are interested you can visit his website - http://vagabonders-supreme.net/.

We have discovered that this is NOT for us. We like having at least electricity provided for us since we are such computer hounds and don't want to go without our daily fix. We could do without supplied electricity since we have our own generator, but we choose not to use it much. We tend to stay in commercial campgrounds but sometimes go to parks run by the Corps of Engineers. That being said, you might ask "Well then how do you choose a campground?" In answer, we do several things. First we fire up one of the computers - LOL. Told you we were geeks. We bring up a program called Trailer Life which is just a database of campgrounds around the US and Canada. We tell it to give us the campgrounds in the city where we are going and then read what it has to say about each. There is a rating system provided which rates a park on a scale of 1 to 10 - 10 being the best. After that, we go to a website called www.rvparkreviews.com . On this website, you read user reviews of various parks. Not all of them are listed obviously because they rely on people like us to write reviews of parks we have stayed in. We look for parks on both lists and read what other folks like us have had to say. If the park has a website, we will then usually take a look at the ones we are considering and sort of make an "intelligent" decision. So far this method has served us well.

On the trip back to Texas, we have been trying some of the Corps of Engineer parks and those seem to be good choices as well. They are usually more of what you think of as "camping" but provide electrical hook ups and some have water. The sites are usually roomier and there are certainly more trees and usually a lake. We think we may start using them more often.

One thing I would like to mention, is that we could boondock if we wanted to as we can be totally self-contained. We have tanks to carry fresh water, to hold our sewer water which would be dumped later at a dump station, a generator for electricity, and propane for cooking, powering the refrigerator and the hot water heater. We have tried this, but we were just not that in love with this kind of living and prefer to be closer to cities (or in them) and to have other people around. We are just more convenience oriented and more social. We have had some wonderful experiences this summer and have met some wonderful people.  So, I guess you could say we have found the method that works best for us.