Defenition of "boondocking"?

[Jan and Simonne]

I'm browsing this forum with great interest, but I am still not clear on the term "boondocking".
Would that be "stealth camping" or more (what we call it) "wild (or free) camping"?
Who can give me a defenition of this term?

 

[Mac J]

No hook-ups, no pit toilets, no water taps.
Rely only on what you bring in and out of your camp.
Leave no foot print or evidence that you stayed.

That's what I think anyway.

 

[Optimistic Paranoid]

Boondocking is essentially the same as what the Europeans call wild camping.

The boondocks are the back of nowhere.

Dry camping means camping without hookups. No shore power, no water hookup or sewer connection. You can dry camp on a city street, in a Walmarts parking lot, or out in the Boondocks.

Stealth camping means you don't want to call attention to yourself. Parking on a city street is usually stealth camping, parking at a Walmarts isn't. Boondocking might be if you go to some trouble to get far enough into the back country that you are unlikely to be seen by anyone.

Btw, during WW2, the field shoes worn by American Marines were known as boondockers. The story is that the name came from some undeveloped island in the Phillipines where the Marines were stationed during the Phillipine Insurrection.

Boondock is the Americanization of the native name.

Regards
John

 

[Scar]

I would agree with the other posts, but might sum it up a little different.

Boondocking, the name referring to parking in the middle of nowhere, with no services at your disposal. Wild camping is definitely a way to phrase it.

My Honeys Park isn't truly boondocking unless you're just from a big city, I mainly used the boondocking threads to cut down on people that thought I was offering services. In truth I have some services readily available and others within walking distance, but didn't want people expecting them ahead of time.

 

[compassrose]

Over the past few years, the term has changed from meaning no hookups to meaning parking with no hookups, no "designated" campgrounds or designated parking area and no one else for miles. If you want to see how narrowly defined the booniefanatics (polite rephrasing for forum) the ease over to escapees. It was... interesting. So much so that if a tiny group could redefine was boondocking is, then I decided I could make up my own term for parking overnight. I call it freedom parking and even have guidelines and a website. If it's on the internet then it has to be true.

Definition of boondocking... http://www.rvnetwork.com/index.php?showtopic=99339

Freedom Parking... www.freedomparking.webs.com

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BTW, the thread on escapees was sanitized and locked. It got very nasty.

 

[Optimistic Paranoid]

I can see how there would be some room for argument.

If you define boondocking as camping in the boondocks, and you define boondocks as someplace well removed from civilization, then pulling 50 or 100 yards off of a hiway to camp in the desert ain't really boondocking.

It might still count as wild camping. I think the Europeans use that phrase to describe camping anywhere outside an "approved" campsite.

After a while, some of these arguments get as silly as debating how many angels can dance on the end of a pin.

Regards
John

 

[greybeard23]

I believe the Forest Service lists it on their maps as dispersed camping.