Dispersed camping: USFS vs. BLM vs. state land

USFS and BLM: allowed until it's closed

The Forest Service definition is spatial, not permissive-sounding, and that is the point — the Pacific Southwest Region calls dispersed camping “the term used for camping anywhere in the National Forest OUTSIDE of a designated campground.” The closures are carve-outs from that. Mt. Hood: “Certain areas are closed to dispersed camping, such as within developed recreation sites, along certain roads, and particularly sensitive areas,” and separately “There are some areas in federal wilderness that are not open to dispersed camping.” The Black Hills says it as a fraction: dispersed camping “is allowed on most of the Forest,” but “around developed reservoirs, lakes, and campgrounds, camping is allowed only in designated areas.”

BLM publishes the same default in one sentence: “Most BLM lands allow dispersed camping unless an area is posted ‘Closed to Camping’ or has specific restrictions for land use or conservation.” On permits it is equally plain — “Most areas don't require permits or reservations” — with group and campfire permits called out as the exceptions, California's year-round campfire permit among them. Driving is the part that is not a default: “Vehicles must stay on designated roads and trails unless the area is specifically designated for off-road vehicle use,” which is why the MVUM does more work on these two agencies' ground than any rule sheet. See reading a forest MVUM.

State land: usually the other way round

Four state agencies we carry, four different answers, and none of them is “camp where you like.”

New York DEC (1,362 camps here). “Primitive camping is allowed on many DEC lands, including Forest Preserve lands in the Catskills and Adirondacks, as well as on State Forest lands outside the Preserve. Primitive camping is prohibited on Unique Areas, Wildlife Management Areas, and a few other categories of state land.” The land class decides, not the state line.

Missouri Department of Conservation (235). “Check the regulations for the specific area where you want to camp. Some areas allow open dispersed camping (walk-in-, float-in-, or backpack-type camping) while others allow camping only in designated sites. Some areas require a special use permit for all camping.” Three regimes inside one agency, sorted area by area.

Wyoming Game and Fish (87). “On many - though not all - Wildlife Habitat Management Areas (WHMAs) and Public Access Areas (PAAs) camping is available in designated campgrounds,” marked “with the classic tent icon on maps at each WHMA entrance and parking area.” Free and first-come, but a designated campground is not dispersed camping in the USFS sense at all.

Nebraska Game and Parks (267). The exception that proves it isn't a federal-versus-state rule: on Nebraska's WMAs, “Camping is permitted unless otherwise posted or restricted by special area regulations,” a federal-shaped default — with a size rule you will not find anywhere else on this list: “Camping equipment may not exceed 8ft width and 40ft in length.” Measure your trailer before you trust that one.

The same number, pointing opposite directions

Every agency has a distance rule, and reading one agency's number on another agency's ground is the single easiest way to be wrong while feeling careful.

Distance from water runs from 30 feet to 200. Idaho Department of Lands: “Camping is restricted to campsites at least 30 feet from a body of water or wetland area.” Caribou-Targhee, Apache-Sitgreaves and Black Hills national forests: 100 feet from a stream. Pacific Southwest Region and the Rio Grande: 150. BLM's guidance: “Stay at least 200 feet from lakes, rivers, and streams.”

Distance from the road is where it inverts. BLM asks you to stay close to one — “Camp within 150 feet of designated routes; avoid creating new tracks” — and so do the forests, at their own numbers: Caribou-Targhee “keep your campsite within 150 feet from a roadway,” Apache-Sitgreaves “within 300 feet,” the Rio Grande “within 300 feet of the center line of a designated road,” the Black Hills “300 feet off of roads as shown on the Motor Vehicle Use Map (dots).” New York DEC says the opposite with almost the same number: “If not using a designated primitive tent site, your tent must be at least 150 feet from a water body, road, or trail.” Missouri goes further and switches units: walk-in campers “should camp at least 100 yards from parking lots and roads.” A hundred and fifty feet from the road is compliance in New York and a violation in Idaho. Same distance, opposite sign.

Distance from developed sites varies too: BLM advises against camping “within 1 mile of campgrounds, trailheads, or picnic areas,” the Black Hills wants “1/2 mile away from developed recreation sites.”

The clock is not one clock

Roughly fourteen days is the common shape, and almost nothing else about it is common. What actually differs is the window the fourteen sits in and what you have to do when it runs out:

BLM: “generally limited to 14 days within any 28-day period, though specific stay limits vary by state and field office. After reaching the stay limit, visitors must move to a new location — often at least 25 to 30 miles away.” Property left behind has its own clock: “Don't leave personal property for more than 10 days.”
Rio Grande NF: 14 days in any 30. Black Hills NF: “a maximum of 14 days in any 60-day period” — same fourteen, half the freedom. Apache-Sitgreaves NF: “After 14 days of camping on the Forest, you must move off of the Forest for at least 16 days.” Caribou-Targhee NF: “you must move at least 5 road miles.” Mt. Hood NF: “up to 14 consecutive days at a time and camp in any location on the Forest for no more than 28 days total during a calendar year.”
Missouri MDC: 14 consecutive in 30, plus an annual cap — “Each camper is limited to 30 total camping days within one calendar year on all department lands.” Nebraska: “a maximum of 14 consecutive days within any 30 day period, unless otherwise posted.” Wyoming Game and Fish: “The statewide camping limit is 14 days, although some areas may have less which will be stated on the information sign” — the Jelm WHMA page posts “Camping limit: 5 days @ upriver parking lot” — then “campers must vacate the WHMA for a minimum of 72 hours,” and “a camp cannot be left unattended for more than 48 hours.” Idaho Department of Lands: “no longer than 14 consecutive days without a written permit from the Area Manager,” after which “camping on endowment lands in the same vicinity is prohibited for 21 days” — and vicinity is not yours to define: “The Area Manager will determine which land is considered in the same vicinity.”
New York DEC is the outlier, and it's the shortest: “Camping for more than three nights or with 10 or more people requires a permit from a Forest Ranger.” Three nights. If you plan a fourteen-day sit in the Adirondacks on the strength of a number you read about national forests, you are eleven days over on night four.

The general version of all this — and how to find your own unit's number — is how long you can stay and the stay limit entry.

The catch: the gate, the season, and whose land it actually is

State wildlife land closes for the wildlife. Wyoming's WHMAs exist for winter range, and Game and Fish shuts them: 44 areas that reopen on a staggered spring schedule — several May 1, Bud Love May 15, Wick/Beumee May 16 — because they were “closed to minimize disturbance to wintering big game animals and other wildlife, while protecting habitat from resource damage.” The published table doesn't say “closed to camping.” It says the area “opens to human presence at 8 a.m.” That is a different and much larger thing than a stay limit, and it will not appear in any camping FAQ.

State trust land is not public land in the sense you mean. Idaho's endowment lands are managed for money for schools; the Land Board policy allows recreation on “legally accessible endowment lands, as long as the recreational activities do not degrade the lands, interfere with management activities, or otherwise negatively affect the long-term financial return to endowment beneficiaries,” and the department is explicit that recreation is “a secondary use.” Camping there is a permitted use of somebody's endowment, not a right, and legally accessible is carrying weight — a trust parcel you cannot reach without crossing private ground is not open to you. Other states run trust land differently again, several of them on a paid recreation permit; we currently map only Idaho's, so check the state you're actually in rather than porting Idaho's rules to it.

Federal designations override the federal default. Wilderness is its own regime on top of the forest's — see wilderness area — and the fire order for the day sits on top of everything: check the current order before you light.

Where people go wrong

Carrying one agency's rule across a boundary. The boundary is often invisible on the ground and the rules change completely across it. A BLM parcel abutting a national forest abutting a state wildlife area is an ordinary afternoon in the West, and the correct 14-day window, road distance and water setback all changed twice without a sign.

Assuming a camp we mapped is a camp you may use tonight. Every rule above can be suspended, tightened, or seasonally closed by an order issued after we published. Nothing on this site is a permission slip.

Assuming state means simple. Missouri runs three camping regimes inside one agency; New York's answer depends on whether the parcel is Forest Preserve, State Forest, Unique Area or WMA; DEC warns outright that “specific land units in the Forest Preserve may have regulations that differ from the rules and guidelines listed below.”

Assuming a written limit is an enforced limit — or that a soft one is optional. Idaho's own policy carries a footnote that “there is no avenue to enforce camping limit violations other than misdemeanor trespassing.” That is not a green light; it means the failure mode is a trespass charge rather than a camping ticket. Meanwhile several of the tidiest-sounding numbers above are published as guidance — BLM files its 200-feet-from-water and 150-feet-from-route lines under “Best Practices (Recommendations)” while the stay limit sits under “Core Rules.” Follow both; know which one a ranger can cite you for.

Reading a blank as a permission. Absence of data is not absence of the thing — and it is not presence of it either. See below.

What our agency label is, and what it isn't

The land manager shown on a camp page is our best read of who manages the ground at that coordinate, from the source that gave us the camp. It is not a legal determination, it is not a boundary survey, and it does not travel down the road with you. 283 published camps here carry no land manager at all — that is a hole in our data, not unclaimed land, and you should assume nothing from the blank. A handful of camps sit on managers with too few entries to generalize from at all: 8 Bureau of Reclamation, 6 USACE, 6 Idaho Department of Lands, 27 municipal, 2 county conservation. For those, the managing office's own page is the only rule that exists; nothing here substitutes for it. What each instrument on a camp page does and doesn't know is reading your camp page.

What to do tonight

Read the agency off the camp page first, before the elevation or the drive time. If it's USFS or BLM: find that forest's or field office's own camping page and its current alerts and orders, check the MVUM for whether motor vehicles may leave the road there at all, and note the two numbers — days-in-window, and what you must do when it ends. If it's a state agency: invert your assumption. Go looking for the sentence that says camping is allowed on that specific area, and if you can't find one, treat it as no. Then check for a seasonal closure, because state wildlife land has them and they close the whole area, not just the campsite. Either way: screenshot what you find before you lose signal, and read the kiosk when you arrive — the posted sign outranks anything you read at home, including this. I'm a camper writing down how this works in the field, not a lawyer, and none of this is legal advice.