- The fine print
- Green Ridge State Forest primitive camping requires payment.
Maryland lists 18 federal recreation facilities: 10 by the Park Service, 3 by Fish and Wildlife, 2 by National Archives and Records Administration, and 3 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
- Hiker-biker overnight campsites, Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical ParkNational Park Service · Stay limit: 1 night per site, per trip
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.
Maryland has exactly one verified free camping option, and you cannot drive to it: the hiker-biker campsites strung along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park. They are free, first-come, first-served, no reservations, and limited to 1 night per site per trip. If that fits your trip, it is a genuinely good deal. If you are in a vehicle, Maryland has nothing free to offer you that we could confirm.
Where the free camping is
The C&O Canal towpath runs 184 miles from Georgetown to Cumberland, and the National Park Service spaces the hiker-biker campsites along it for people traveling the path itself, by foot, bike, or horse. The 1-night-per-site limit is built for through-travel: you camp, you move on down the towpath, you camp again at the next site. Used that way, you can cross most of the state on free campsites.
That is the whole list. Maryland has no national forests, and its 572 acres of BLM land carry no camping areas we could verify.
What is not free
Green Ridge State Forest in the western panhandle is Maryland’s big primitive-camping destination, and its sites require payment. It is worth knowing about if you want remote sites and are willing to pay, but it does not belong on a free list, so we are not putting it on one.
We also could not verify free camping on any other Maryland state land. When an agency page does not say camping is free and allowed, we treat it as not free, because guessing the other way is how you meet a ranger at 2am.
How to check before you go
The park’s camping page is the authority on the hiker-biker sites, including any closures along the towpath, and flood damage does close sections of this park. Check it before you commit to a multi-day run. On the ground, the posted sign at each site beats anything you read online, including this page.