Customer Reviews

Guide To Free Campgrounds-West 13h Edition: Includes Campgrounds $12 And Under In The 17 Western States (Don Wright's Guide to Free Campgrounds Western Edition)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

See also my review on NW rv destinations. I know the NW pretty well but am always looking for better and cheaper ways to travel around, hide out, and explore. For ecomony camping and rv'ing this is the book. A little cheaply done (newsprint type paper) this 440 pp reference guide is full of all the little hidey holes and cheaper places to hang out. Much more fine detail for this geographical area than say Trailer Life's RV Directory. Has complete information and prices on all the out of the way and mainline economical places to stay. Does not include commercial places like Wal-Mart, Cracker Barrel, etc. Very broad coverage (Entire Western US). While on you way to a destination park you can explore these out of the way and local money savers. Such camps usually don't have full hooks ups, but for ~ $12 or less who cares, you can boondock for a a night can't you -- maybe even a whole weekend!

Please clean up after your pets and keep them controlled. An increasing number of camps are not allowing pets due to owners' abuse of this privilege. Its not the dog's fault. Our Miniature Schauzer loves to RV and we love taking him, but are often dismayed by the number of parks that will not allow pets anymore.

This guide provided me with valuable info from the first use. The campground detail is quite thin, but it gives me a great starting place to locate potential inexpensive camping spots. From there it is usually easy to get more detail using other resources. To be clear, this book is not a good single source but a valuable component and the data is well organized.

Let me first say that I bought the east and west versions of these books to offer up solutions for an entire cross country 5000 mile off road motorcycle adventure known as the trans am trail. I didn't buy this to be frugal and get free camping everywhere I plan to stay, but the book is a bit misleading. Saying that Free or UNDER $12.00 is a bit much. Sure there are free campgrounds, but the Under $12.00 usually only applies to Senior Citizens for the majority of the sites I reviewed in the both books. Maybe a more fitting title would be "Camping for Seniors - Free or under $12".
It does offer a wealth of information that would be hard to access on the move without access to the Internet is the reason I am giving it three stars and not one.

I am traveling by car, tent camping and doing so on shoe string budget. This book has been an excellant resource for finding free and extremely low cost camping options. It is user friendly, provides very accurate site descriptions, as well as local activities. The guide saved me hours of research prior to trip to identify low cost camp sites. So far I have visited many sites listed in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona and found most were not listed in local or regional printed material. Thank you Don Wright.

We never travel without one of these editions.....not only because we find low priced campgrounds, but because we find quiet "out-of-the-way" campgrounds.

We do alot of travelling in our RV and this book has helped us find some great overnighters that are either free or has a nominal fee. We have found some of these spots to be much better then a big RV park. They haven't all been wonderful but considering that not all RV parks are wonderful either, I'd rather pay a small amount (or nothing) for a bummer place than a crazy amount for a bummer place. The only thing I can really recommend is to buy one every year because places get dropped and added to the list every year.

We have had Don Wrights Guides to Campgrounds before, this being the newest edition. The Western edition covers all the areas that we are currently interested in with many many listings and choices for people that like to Boondock. A great resource!
The only reason I did not give this a 5 star rating is that it is a little hard to read the numbers on the maps and then relate them to "state" or "county" roads. The maps of each state only show the main roads, not the links from those main roads to the camping areas. You have to refer to an addition map to get more of the location of camping areas.

I am always in the market for new editions of these gems. Having a small RV, living in Washington State but having children and grandchildren in Virginia and Maryland, I have used both the the east and west versions of this book extensively for cross country trips. Some small errors slip in, usually due to the rapid changes in fees at state parks, but overall these books are the best buy anyone can have if they are looking for places to stay and enjoy without breaking the bank. You save more than the purchase price the first night on the road.

This book is full of information to make RVing more convenient and hopefully a little less expensive.

I love this book! It has helped me quite a bit while on the road... The only qualm I have with it is that sometimes the campgrounds aren't EXACTLY where it says. I've even gone to one that there definitely was no camping allowed. All in all, great investment.