How much should a campsite cost?

Just curious after seeing so many $25-45/night sites lately. Even a former dispersed site with no bathrooms or trash bins. How much do you think a campsite should cost?

Personally, I’d say $10-30/night, anything creeping near $50 seems too much. I’d also expect any paid site to have bathrooms, trash bins and some staff presence or frequent upkeep.

The US has more public land than most countries, we should keep it accessible and free. "it's what our forefathers fought for!!" /s

The privatization of our public lands means we get to pay more for the same things so that concessionaires can profit. 

$10-20, but only if there is some kind of infrastructure to maintain (trash cans, water access, etc.). If it’s just public land with dispersed camping it should be free. 

Becca Joy Steinbrecherwrote:

Just curious after seeing so many $25-45/night sites lately. Even a former dispersed site with no bathrooms or trash bins. How much do you think a campsite should cost?

Personally, I’d say $10-30/night, anything creeping near $50 seems too much. I’d also expect any paid site to have bathrooms, trash bins & some staff presence or frequent upkeep.

should be free if u lookaround 

just find blm land 

or go for dispersed on nat for lands 

or ask around to anyone u see camping

wave and speak up and see if they will let u share a site in any campground u drive into

thedyrt.com

or learn to stealth camp

Becca Joy Steinbrecherwrote:

Just curious after seeing so many $25-45/night sites lately. Even a former dispersed site with no bathrooms or trash bins. How much do you think a campsite should cost?

Personally, I’d say $10-30/night, anything creeping near $50 seems too much. I’d also expect any paid site to have bathrooms, trash bins & some staff presence or frequent upkeep.

Depends on the location. I will happily pay $45-$50 a night for a beachfront campsite in Southern California, for example. Agree that would be excessive for a NFS site in a typical mountain location. But my experience with that is it's typically about $25 a night for a nice site near Mammoth or Bishop. 

Depends where and what you get, but anything over $15 night is gonna make me put forth effort into finding free spots unless I need internet to work or a shower for a hot date. 

Whatever the current federal minimum wage is. Sitting at 7.25 right now. That's IF it has any kind of development that requires upkeep like a pit toilet. 

No developments no dice. I don't want to pay you just because you were born first and privatized it. That's mad uncool. 

Hmm. Economics is not my strong suit, but one way to price campsites is according to what people will pay. 300$ a night campsites in Yosemite would keep the climber riffraff out and reduce the need for the pesky lottery system. Another way to price a campsite would be to add up all the expenses. https://campgroundsolutions.goodsam.com/blog/costs-of-owning-a-campground/ My guess is that the mortgage on the land/facility and the employee salary are the big costs.

Take advantage of Smith Rocks and Miguel's camping.

dave custerwrote:

Hmm. Economics is not my strong suit, but one way to price campsites is according to what people will pay. 300$ a night campsites in Yosemite would keep the climber riffraff out and reduce the need for the pesky lottery system. Another way to price a campsite would be to add up all the expenses. https://campgroundsolutions.goodsam.com/blog/costs-of-owning-a-campground/ My guess is that the mortgage on the land/facility and the employee salary are the big costs.

Take advantage of Smith Rocks and Miguel's camping.

Miguel’s used to be $2 and much more quant….js

dave custerwrote:

Hmm. Economics is not my strong suit, but one way to price campsites is according to what people will pay. 300$ a night campsites in Yosemite would keep the climber riffraff out and reduce the need for the pesky lottery system. Another way to price a campsite would be to add up all the expenses. https://campgroundsolutions.goodsam.com/blog/costs-of-owning-a-campground/ My guess is that the mortgage on the land/facility and the employee salary are the big costs.

Take advantage of Smith Rocks and Miguel's camping.

'What the market will bear is the price you pay' is a pretty gross strategy for a public resource. There's no excuse to price gouge a common good (with unquantifiable but significant benefits to equitable access) for the sake of reducing demand.

Ben B wrote:

Call me an idealist, but there's no good excuse to monetize or charge admission to any public land, ever. 

I totally agree.  I'm old enough to remember when "Pay to Play" legislation in federal and state Congresses was pushed forward.  Before that, tax money was used to mostly subsidize the Parks, Forests and BLM lands.  But politicians lowered taxes to get elected and then couldn't pay to keep the fees minimal.

Right now, ridiculously high fees have made camping an elitist activity.  

If prices were dropped or eliminated, what other arbitrary barrier would prevent full on squatter encampments - or is that prospect tolerable/necessary? 1-2 week stay limits seem reasonable most places, maybe longer allowances (or low enforcement) some areas where it's needed and sanitation is manageable...but it's a tricky balance with many looking to exploit. Personally I'd love to see more creative options like volunteer credit for fulfilling intermittent public land stewardship needs etc

Ben B wrote:

I would take that even further. Call me an idealist, but there's no good excuse to monetize or charge admission to any public land, ever. 

Serious question: What if the trade off was that public land is mostly closed to camping?

Every time I see "dispersed camping" areas become popular (Ie. certain areas around Bishop or Mammoth) it results in a huge shit show of what I'll generously call "public lands squatting." I hear it's even worse in places like Wyoming with people just pulling travel trailers into their "summer spots" and leaving them. That might work in the middle of freakin' nowhere but I find it very difficult to imagine any scenario for places like Yosemite, Yellowstone, RR Gorge, where there's not some revenue needed to pay for the costs of upkeep and management. 

The Butt-Shot Whispererwrote:

just find blm land 

or go for dispersed on nat for lands

Depends where you are. BLM lands:

Marc801 Cwrote:

Depends where you are. BLM lands:

Cool map

Ben B wrote:

Public land means everyone has the right to enjoy it

Unless it's being used by the government for some purpose, or been leased to a cattle rancher, or a mining company, or oil or gas company, or ski resort operator, or some other concessionaire...

Ben B wrote:

That's why limits on duration of stay need to be enforced. Public land means everyone has the right to enjoy it, but no one has the right to wreck it

Okay. How are we going to pay for that enforcement? I'm sure we're in total agreement that the BLM and NFS and NPS deserve lots of budget from the Federal government. But given the actual financial reality of things?

Just one concrete example. I'm a member of a dispersed camping group on FB. I was HORRIFIED to learn that many of the people who are camping on BLM land were taking their accumulated shit from their bucket toilets and BURYING the plastic bags out on the NFS and BLM land! Which, of course, totally defeats the purpose of that kind of latrine. If that's the common denominator of intelligence we're talking about, I think I'd much rather have the damage concentrated on a few more pay campgrounds with the infrastructure of toilets and such. And lets not even talk about how the average human seems to treat public bathrooms.

Martin le Rouxwrote:

Unless it's being used by the government for some purpose, or been leased to a cattle rancher, or a mining company, or oil or gas company, or ski resort operator, or some other concessionaire...

Or, even, if it was laid out in a grid and some private land has criss crossing corners with the public land and prohibits the public from crossing the corners. 

ben brownellwrote:

If prices were dropped or eliminated, what other arbitrary barrier would prevent full on squatter encampments - or is that prospect tolerable/necessary? 1-2 week stay limits seem reasonable most places, maybe longer allowances (or low enforcement) some areas where it's needed and sanitation is manageable...but it's a tricky balance with many looking to exploit. Personally I'd love to see more creative options like volunteer credit for fulfilling intermittent public land stewardship needs etc

The price of the fee and the length of allowable stay are two independent issues.  Putting them together as one is disingenuous.  

Moving people along when they've exceeded the time limit is what rangers and police should be doing independent of the fee.  

$5/day MAX, for publicly owned land, regardless if there is a concessionaire and inclusive of all transaction fees. 

For private campgrounds of course they can charge whatever they want.

We have to vote for politicians who will support this. I fear, there is no support and elected officials don't care about it at all. So you get what we have here today. Its why I have an overlander.

Free camping isn't free.