Boondocking. Also known as dry camping. That means you’re not hooked up to water and/or electric. You’re using your batteries to run your lights and you’re drinking the water stored in your tank. Some people, like the ones who frequent freecampgrounds.com, spend a great deal of their RV lives boondocking.

[Aside: Etymologically, boondocks is one of the few English words to derive from Tagalog: bundok, or mountain. (If you're curious, some others are yo-yo and cooties.) American soldiers occupying the Philippines misused it to mean a remote, wild place. If you were in one of those places, I guess you would have to boondock your RV.]

Not us. RV parks seem to these city kids to be remote and wild enough. We don’t have a television in the trailer, but if we did, we could hook up to the park’s cable. We certainly use the WiFi. And most parks have a store with necessities like RV-safe toilet paper and peanut butter. Not exactly roughin’ it.

Guadalupe County Safety Rest Stop

Last night was our first adventure in boondocking. Remote? No, unless you call a major interstate remote. Wild? I would have to say exceedingly cultivated, actually. Texas, it seems, has some very well-developed rest stops. Ours, located just outside of the San Antonio city limits, had a beautiful, air-conditioned building with faux rock benches and a giant-screen TV playing videos detailing the area’s attractions. It had amazing landscaping with desert and forest vegetation–freshly fertilized, I believe, if I can trust my nose. There was a playground and interpretive trails. And supposedly it had free WiFi, but we couldn’t get it to work.

Once the trailer doors were closed, it was hard to tell we were at a rest stop rather than an RV park. Our computers did run out of batteries eventually, but since the WiFi wasn’t working (which is also a common occurrence in RV parks), that was not a huge issue. I woke up a few times because really massive trucks drove by us, but I’m a light sleeper. Ami and Frances didn’t notice. And since we didn’t hook up anything, getting started in the morning was a cinch. In fact, I think we got on the road before 8 a.m.–a personal best. No trouble finding the interstate.

We can’t do it all the time, since our RV batteries only charge when hooked up to electricity, but I think we’ll save some of our RV park dollars by boondocking occasionally as we head back home. Apparently most K-Marts and Wal-Marts also allow you to park your RV for the night in their lots, but compared to the luxuries of the Guadalupe County Westbound Safety Rest Stop, those are some stripped-down digs.

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