Boondocking Report
Free Camping on BLM Land (sort of)
Part 1
After reading about camping out in the KOFA area by some of our fellow forum members, we thought we would try our hand on doing the same in that area. We camped in our Class A Coachmen Mirada 33 footer. The Mirada has a payload capacity of 3,100 lbs. Disclaimer: I'm not an expert at what I am doing and don't profess to be, but rather just attempted to do this sort of camping in order to see what all was involved. No doubt there are better ways of doing some things and always look forward to people offer bits of advise and comments not only for us but for others who might attempt this fun way of camping.
I thought I would share our first time boondocking experience with others on the forum who may want to try this sometime. Since everyone has different tank sizes/fuel sizes, your time out will vary compared to ours. There are many factors including how long you can go personally, if your with a partner how much they use or even how much you use the resources. It also depends on your comfort levels and how long you feel you can take living away from some comforts. Also depending on weather conditions (as I found out) how long you can spend out before needing to replenish your supplies. Our goal was to be out three weeks without having to go and replenish our resources.
Before the trip to camp we filled out tank up with water which is 55 gallons. We don't use this for drinking but for cleaning, washing and showers. We also took two blue 6 gallon tanks for drinking and fixing food, and nine one gallon containers for a total of 21 gallons. I filled the gas tank up after we got close to our camping site in Quartzsite. I took a chance with our LP as it was half full. You can only fill LP tanks to about 75% to 80% full so when the tank registered 50% it was about 2/3's full. We had stopped off at a big city and shopped for 2/3's of our food. We had bought food at the start of our trip and had use those supplies for two weeks before we boondocked and while on the road to camp. We had also went out to eat at some restaurants while near the big city so that helped save a number of our supplies. We also keep some boxes of freeze dried food for back up in the event we ran low so we did'nt have to run into town.
We drove to our camping spot (my wife liked a certain area and we checked it out and stayed) It was nice and big in the KOFA area without many plants to worry about, near some nice cactus and somewhat away from the noise of the main road and the road we traveled down to get to the site. It also had a nice camp site fire ring made of rocks that we could use. We bought some firewood before heading out as they don't want you using any of the wood in the camping area. It was also near a boarder guard check point which offered some feeling of safety in the area. Part of my goal while camping was to walk, do astronomy, enjoy the beautiful setting and do some work on my computer, mainly our taxes.
Free Camping on BLM Land (sort of)
Part 1
After reading about camping out in the KOFA area by some of our fellow forum members, we thought we would try our hand on doing the same in that area. We camped in our Class A Coachmen Mirada 33 footer. The Mirada has a payload capacity of 3,100 lbs. Disclaimer: I'm not an expert at what I am doing and don't profess to be, but rather just attempted to do this sort of camping in order to see what all was involved. No doubt there are better ways of doing some things and always look forward to people offer bits of advise and comments not only for us but for others who might attempt this fun way of camping.
I thought I would share our first time boondocking experience with others on the forum who may want to try this sometime. Since everyone has different tank sizes/fuel sizes, your time out will vary compared to ours. There are many factors including how long you can go personally, if your with a partner how much they use or even how much you use the resources. It also depends on your comfort levels and how long you feel you can take living away from some comforts. Also depending on weather conditions (as I found out) how long you can spend out before needing to replenish your supplies. Our goal was to be out three weeks without having to go and replenish our resources.
Before the trip to camp we filled out tank up with water which is 55 gallons. We don't use this for drinking but for cleaning, washing and showers. We also took two blue 6 gallon tanks for drinking and fixing food, and nine one gallon containers for a total of 21 gallons. I filled the gas tank up after we got close to our camping site in Quartzsite. I took a chance with our LP as it was half full. You can only fill LP tanks to about 75% to 80% full so when the tank registered 50% it was about 2/3's full. We had stopped off at a big city and shopped for 2/3's of our food. We had bought food at the start of our trip and had use those supplies for two weeks before we boondocked and while on the road to camp. We had also went out to eat at some restaurants while near the big city so that helped save a number of our supplies. We also keep some boxes of freeze dried food for back up in the event we ran low so we did'nt have to run into town.
We drove to our camping spot (my wife liked a certain area and we checked it out and stayed) It was nice and big in the KOFA area without many plants to worry about, near some nice cactus and somewhat away from the noise of the main road and the road we traveled down to get to the site. It also had a nice camp site fire ring made of rocks that we could use. We bought some firewood before heading out as they don't want you using any of the wood in the camping area. It was also near a boarder guard check point which offered some feeling of safety in the area. Part of my goal while camping was to walk, do astronomy, enjoy the beautiful setting and do some work on my computer, mainly our taxes.