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Free and paid camping in Washington

552 camps in Washington: 307 free, 245 charge a fee. Every camp that charges is marked fee in the list below — or press Free only to hide them.

This is a national forest state, and the forests are the unit that matters. Of the 552 camps on this page, 513 sit on Forest Service ground under 7 forest headings — the Okanogan-Wenatchee carries the most at 199, then the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie (83), the Colville (74), the Gifford Pinchot (72), 31 filed in the northeast corner under the Idaho Panhandle National Forests, the Olympic (42) and the Umatilla (12). Only 15 are BLM, and the BLM's own Spokane District describes its Washington ground as "east of the Cascade crest in the central Columbia Basin and in the highlands of northeastern Washington." Read the heading before anything else, because the forest sets your stay limit, your fire rules and your bear rules — with one useful exception, in that a single camping order covers the two biggest eastside forests together.

There is no Washington camping season, there is a melt-out, and it runs months apart at the two ends of this page. The Olympic's median camp here sits at 850 feet and the Umatilla's at 5,137 feet; overall these camps run 49 feet to 7,285 feet with a median of 2,702 feet, and 20% of the ones we have an elevation for are above 4,000 feet. For the high end, look at what the state does with a plowed highway. WSDOT's own record has Chinook Pass on SR 410 opening as early as April 5 and as late as July 12, and the North Cascades Highway opening as early as March 10 and as late as June 14. In 2025 Chinook opened May 23 and shut on October 24. That is a state highway with a crew and a budget. Your forest road has neither. The Okanogan-Wenatchee's own conditions page put one road — Shady Pass 5900 — as "impassable due to snow" and "likely to be fully open in mid-June," and gates several others to wheeled vehicles from December 1 to April 1 so they can be used as winter recreation routes. The forest's blanket advice is the honest version: "be prepared for winter conditions, including muddy roads and/or snow and be ready to turnaround."

Fourteen consecutive days is the number everywhere we could find one published, and the tail of the rule is where the units differ. Order 06-17-00-25-01, in force from May 19, 2025 to May 18, 2027, covers "all National Forest System lands on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest and the Colville National Forest" — that is 273 of the camps below under one order. It prohibits occupying a single location longer than 14 consecutive days, and it does not let you shuffle down the road afterwards: you must move off the forest and cannot come back for 30 days, with a hard ceiling of 28 days total on those forests in a calendar year. The Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie uses the same two numbers — 14 consecutive in one spot, 28 total in a year. The Gifford Pinchot states it shorter: "after 14 consecutive days, you are required to move off the Forest." On the BLM the general rule is 14 days in any 28 and then a move "often at least 25 to 30 miles away." We did not find a published stay limit for the Olympic or the Umatilla at all, so ask that district rather than assuming the 14 you read here.

Three habits from elsewhere will not survive the drive in. First, the pass. Washington and Oregon run their own recreation pass, the Northwest Forest Pass, $30 a year, and it is honored "at all Forest Service operated day use recreation sites in Washington and Oregon where a day use fee is required." Note what that sentence does not say. It is a day-use pass, for trailheads and picnic sites. Camping is charged separately, as an expanded amenity fee, and the pass does not cover it. So the pass will not buy you a campsite — but the day you leave camp and drive to a signed trailhead, you need one. Second, water and everything else: you will be handed nothing. The Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie says it flatly of its dispersed sites — "no toilets, no drinking water, no metal fire rings, and no trash service — and, therefore, no camping fees" — and the Olympic says its dispersed camping has "no services; such as trash removal, and little or no facilities." Carry your water or plan to treat it, camp and wash and bury waste 100 feet back from any lake or stream, and burn only dead and down wood. Third, a road being on the map is not the same as the road being there. In May 2026 the Okanogan-Wenatchee was still working through damage from a December 2025 rain event and told people to "expect to encounter down trees, washouts, and slide or debris flows," listing clogged culverts, washouts, mud, rock and debris slides and downed trees, and asking visitors to "give the roads and trails a chance to dry out." Check the forest's conditions page for the specific road, and have a turnaround plan.

Bears and fire are both handled unit by unit, and both are stricter than newcomers expect. Washington Fish and Wildlife counts "approximately 22,000 black bears" living "throughout Washington except the interior of the arid Columbia Basin," and adds that "grizzly bears are rare in Washington, but there is a small population in the Selkirk Mountains of northeast Washington" — which is the corner the Colville and the Idaho Panhandle camps on this page sit in. Two of these forests make storage mandatory rather than advisory: the Okanogan-Wenatchee's order 06-17-00-24-01 runs to June 30, 2029 forest-wide, and the Colville opened its own food storage order on April 29, 2026. Complying means a certified bear-resistant container, a hard-sided vehicle or building, food hung 10 feet up and 4 feet out, or food attended by somebody within 100 feet and in sight — and it covers refuse and containers with food residue, not just dinner. We found no equivalent forest-wide order published for the Olympic, Gifford Pinchot or Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie; treat that as unknown, not as permission. Fire follows the same pattern and it lands in high summer. In 2026 the Olympic restricted campfires on June 26, the Gifford Pinchot on July 1, the Okanogan-Wenatchee banned them forest-wide including developed campgrounds and wilderness on July 17, the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie on July 23, and the Colville moved district by district — three on July 24, Tonasket to Stage 2 on July 31, the whole forest to Stage 2 on August 7. Those are that year's dates, not a schedule, but the shape repeats: assume a late-summer trip is a stove trip. A propane or liquid fuel stove with a working on/off valve stays legal under almost every one of these orders. Note that the Olympic — the rainforest — was the first to restrict, citing "abnormally dry and drought-like conditions ... for several years." Wet reputation, dry fuels.

If you have not camped Washington before, start on the Gifford Pinchot. It has 72 camps here, and 26 of the 71 we have an elevation for sit below 2,000 feet, so part of it comes into shape weeks before the high country does, and it writes its rules in plain sentences on one page instead of making you read an order: dispersed camping "is permitted throughout most of the Forest," 14 consecutive days and then off the forest, camp 100 feet from lakes and streams, bury waste 100 feet from water, gather only dead and down wood, and make the fire "dead out before you leave — drown it, turn it, stir it." Pull its Motor Vehicle Use Map first: on the Gifford Pinchot the map carries an allowable season of use for each road, so the map tells you whether you are legal on that road in that month before the snow tells you anything.

See all 552 on the map →

Showing 400 of 552. Washington has more camps than fit on one page, so these are the ones we know most about first — of the 400 listed here, 212 are free and 188 charge a fee. The remaining 152 are all on the map.