The badges
These are the small colored tags at the top of a camp page. Each one says how we know something, and how sure to be.
Agency-listed
A public agency's own data lists this camp, or names the agency that manages the ground it sits on. Nobody from this site has stood on it.
The catch. Listed is not the same as visited or current. Agency lists go stale: a campground can close, a road can wash out, a fee can change. We copy the record and we have not checked it on the ground. Call the managing office before you go.
Mapped, not agency-listed
Somebody marked this spot as a campsite on the open map (OpenStreetMap), and we could not match it to a land manager's record.
The catch. Anyone can add a pin to that map. It may be a real camp, an old one, or something else entirely. Without a land manager we cannot say camping is allowed there. Treat it as a lead to check, not a place to count on.
Field-verified, Dave's own
This spot comes from Dave's own travels, not from an agency list.
The catch. His visit is one point in time. Roads, gates, fees and fire rules change after he leaves, so the page still tells you to confirm access, stay limits and fire rules before you go. His note, when he wrote one, sits on the page in his words.
The land-manager tag (USFS, BLM, a state agency, Public land)
The agency or owner the record names for the ground this camp sits on. If it also says dispersed, the record flags the spot as dispersed camping.
The catch. Some records only say Public land, Federal, State or Municipal. That is a category, not an office you can call. The managing office's own rules, including its stay limit, are the ones that count.
Free
We found no fee for camping here. The Cost line on the page names the evidence.
The catch. Free is a verdict from the evidence we could find, and sometimes that evidence is the absence of a fee. Fees change. An entrance fee or a permit is a separate thing: a park can charge to get in while the campsite itself is free.
Fee
A source says this camp charges: the land manager's own page, the record itself, a Recreation.gov reservation link, or a matching Forest Service inventory entry.
The catch. The badge says a fee exists. It does not promise today's price. Check the agency page or the gate sign before you count on a number.
Unpriced, confirm
No source gives a price, and the camp looks like a developed campground, or the agency's page lists both free and paid camping. Assume it may cost something.
The catch. We would sooner say we do not know than call a paid campground free. In September 2026 we found that we had done exactly that on 715 developed campgrounds that nobody had ever priced. This badge is the fix. Confirm before you go.
Fees likely, or fee or permit required
On the older camp pages, the amber tag warns that this place may cost money or need a permit. It comes from the kind of place (national park, monument, state land, developed campground) or from the camp's own record.
The catch. It is a flag drawn from the kind of place, not a posted price. A particular site inside a park or on state land can be free. Check the managing office.
The site-type tag
What the record says kind of place this is: a developed or primitive campground, or a spot inside a national park or monument. Some pages show the setting instead, such as a lake or a stream.
The catch. The record decides, not a site visit. Primitive is the record's own flag for a campground with few facilities. It is still a campground, not dispersed camping. A park or monument can be run by different agencies, so check who manages it.
Recommended
On the older camp pages: this camp comes from the GPS points and field notes of veteran overlanders Dave vouches for, gathered over decades.
The catch. That is other people’s travel, gathered by Dave. It is a recommendation, not an inspection, and conditions change. Where Dave has stood on a camp himself it carries the Field-verified tag instead.
Open today
The agency's season dates in this camp's record put today inside the open window.
The catch. We turn the agency's words (for example May 15 to October 31) into dates and check them against your device's calendar. We cannot see snow, a washed-out road or a fire closure. The date window is the paperwork. The gate is the truth.
Closed for the season
The agency's dates in this camp's record put today outside the open window, or the record says the closure is permanent.
The catch. We only say closed when the record's words give clear dates. Dates shift from year to year and some agencies post changes late. If you hold a newer notice from the agency, trust the notice.
Season: check first
The record mentions a season, but its words do not give a plain open-and-close window, so we do not guess.
The catch. Typical cases are weather dependent, closed in late winter, or a rule that covers only part of the area. Ask the managing office. We never turn this into open or closed on our own.
Road season: open (MVUM)
The nearest Forest Service road on the Motor Vehicle Use Map is open today by its listed dates, for the vehicle class the map names.
The catch. This is the road's season, not the campground's. It is matched only when that road is within a quarter mile of the pin, and the nearest road is not always the road you will use. Open on paper can still mean snow or a downed tree.
Road season: closed (MVUM)
The nearest Forest Service road on the Motor Vehicle Use Map is outside its listed open dates today.
The catch. That is the road's season, not a verdict on the camp. The map is published forest by forest, as the Forest Service gets to it, so check the forest's current notices. Driving a closed road is a violation, not just an inconvenience.
Road season: check first
The Motor Vehicle Use Map gives dates for the nearest road, but they are not a plain window, so we do not call it open or closed.
The catch. Ask the ranger district. The map may also list a different season for each vehicle class.
The sources behind them
Where the numbers and maps on a camp page come from, and what each one cannot tell you.
USGS 3DEP elevation
3DEP is the U.S. Geological Survey's national elevation model. This site reads nine points around a camp to work out how steep the hillside is, and prints the elevation from a USGS elevation service.
The catch. The model cannot see what you park on. A graded pad, a pullout or a flat bench a few meters across is invisible to it, so we never say level, flat or easy to level. How sharp the model is varies by place, from 1 meter to about 30 meters, and we record the coarsest one we saw.
In the game. The game reads the same program's 1 meter lidar in the places it has built.
USGS NAIP aerial photo
NAIP is the aerial photograph of the lower 48 states flown for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The camp pages show a piece of it, centered on the camp's pin, labeled Aerial, USGS / NAIP.
The catch. It is a snapshot from the year it was flown, not today. Trees grow, roads move, and a campsite can be gone. A pin on a photo is not a property line.
In the game. The game reads the same photos for tree cover in the places it has built.
National Weather Service forecast
The seven-day outlook on a camp page is the National Weather Service's own forecast for the grid square that holds the camp's coordinates.
The catch. A grid square is about 2.5 kilometers across and is not corrected for elevation. A camp high on a ridge can be colder and windier than the forecast says. A forecast is good for hours, not weeks, and the page shows a recent copy of it.
USGS NHD water
The National Hydrography Dataset is the USGS map of streams, rivers and lakes. For the water line on a camp page, we measure from the pin to the nearest named water feature within one mile.
The catch. Perennial is a map class, not a flow reading. It means USGS drew it as year-round, on the date of the data. The data was last refreshed in October 2022 and USGS stopped maintaining it in October 2023. A creek on the map can be dry, and we never call natural water drinkable.
The MVUM (Motor Vehicle Use Map)
The Forest Service's official map of which roads you may drive. For a Forest Service camp, we find the nearest road drawn on it and show its surface, its maintenance level and the dates it is open.
The catch. The nearest road is not necessarily your access road. Not every forest has data in the national layer, and finding no road within a mile means none that close, not no road. The agency publishes it forest by forest, as needed.
The cost verdict
One rule runs over every camp and lands on Free, Fee or Unpriced, and it keeps the reason so the page can show it.
The catch. The land manager's own page, read by a person and dated, outranks everything. Below that come the record's own fee field, a Recreation.gov link, a Forest Service inventory match and the open-map tag. With no evidence, a developed campground is Unpriced, and dispersed public land is Free by default. The Cost line on each page says which rule fired.
The season window
A season window is the open and closed dates an agency's record states, turned into month-and-day ranges and checked against today's date on your device.
The catch. Most camps say nothing about season, and then there is no season badge. No badge does not mean open. The original wording stays on the page so you can disagree with our reading of it.
Last reviewed 2026-10-14. Found a sentence here that is wrong? Tell us.