- The fine print
- Louisiana WMAs dropped: LDWF requires a $7/night camping permit plus WMA access permit, not free. Kisatchie vehicle camping within 100 ft of road centerline per MVUM.
Louisiana lists 45 federal recreation facilities: 24 by the Forest Service, 16 by the Army Corps of Engineers, 3 by Fish and Wildlife, and 2 across 2 other agencies.
Scale, not a free-camping count: this counts federal recreation facilities of every kind (trailheads, day-use sites, boat ramps, developed campgrounds), and most are not free dispersed camping. Source: Recreation.gov RIDB, retrieved 2026-07-18.
Named areas where free camping is currently allowed
- Kisatchie National Forest (forest-wide dispersed camping, all five districts)USDA Forest Service · Stay limit: 30 days, then move at least 5 road miles
- Custis Camp (Kisatchie Ranger District)USDA Forest Service
Dispersed camping on public land is camping, and it is allowed by default on most BLM and forest land within the stay limit. Pulling off a highway to sleep in your vehicle overnight is a different act with different rules. Which one applies to you.
Stay limits are set by the local field office or ranger district and change with fire restrictions. The managing office's current guidance beats this page.
Free camping in Louisiana means Kisatchie National Forest, and Kisatchie is more generous than almost anywhere else in the country: dispersed camping is welcomed across all 5 districts, free, for up to 30 days before you have to move at least 5 road miles. The standard national forest limit is 14 days. Kisatchie doubles it.
Where the free camping is
Kisatchie is Louisiana’s only national forest, scattered across the central and northern part of the state in 5 separate districts of longleaf pine and rolling upland. The forest’s own language is welcoming by federal standards: dispersed camping, meaning camping outside a designated recreation area, is welcomed across the forest.
If you want a designated spot instead, Custis Camp in the Kisatchie Ranger District is a hunter’s camp that the forest says can be used year-round by general visitors, with no fee.
The state also has 5,383 acres of BLM land, but we have not verified any camping area on it, so do not build a trip around that number.
The rules that make Kisatchie work
Two specifics to plan around:
- The 30-day limit. You can sit in one dispersed spot for up to 30 days, then you must move at least 5 road miles. For anyone working a slow route across the Gulf South in winter, that is the longest verified free stay in this region.
- The 100-foot rule. Vehicle camping is allowed within 100 feet of the road centerline, on roads the Motor Vehicle Use Map designates. The MVUM is the document that decides whether your van is legal where it sits, so download it for your district before you lose signal.
What is not free
Louisiana’s wildlife management areas allow camping but charge for it: a $7 per night camping permit from the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, plus a WMA access permit. Cheap, but not free, which is why they are not on this page’s list.
How to check before you go
Call the district office for current conditions and burn restrictions; Kisatchie runs prescribed fire regularly and areas close when it does. Check the MVUM, watch for posted closures, and remember the order of authority: the sign in front of you beats the district page, and both beat this site. For how stay-limit counting works in general, see the stay limits guide.