National Forests
The other big free-camping landlord, and the one with the most local variation in the country.
National forests are where most free camping east of the Rockies happens, and a large share of it in the west too. The default is permissive: drive down a forest road, camp on ground that has clearly been camped on before, stay within the limit, pack it out.
What makes forests confusing is that the rules are set low down. A single national forest is divided into ranger districts, and a district can set its own stay limit, its own dispersed camping restrictions, and its own road closures. Two districts of the same forest can give you different answers to the same question, and both are correct.
Two documents matter more than anything you will read on a blog. The motor vehicle use map says which roads you may drive and where you can pull off. The current fire restriction order says whether you can have a fire, a stove, or in a bad year be there at all. Both are published by the district and both change during the season.
Featured guides
All guides →Everything on National Forests
The rule changes at the district line
One forest can run three different stay limits across its districts, and the boundary is invisible from the road. Our stay limits guide explains the pattern, and every rule we publish cites the order it came from and the date we checked it.
Read the stay limits guide →Latest articles
Coming soon - Coming soonThe administrative unit that decides most of the rules you care about.
Dashed, dotted, seasonal. What each line on the map actually permits.
Mud season, fire season, and elk calving. The closures nobody plans for.
Common questions
Usually, yes. Dispersed camping outside developed campgrounds is the default across most national forest land, it is free, and it needs no reservation. The conditions are that you stay within the local limit, use ground that is already disturbed rather than creating a new site, keep the required distance from water and developed areas, and only drive roads the motor vehicle use map shows as open.
It is set by the ranger district, not nationally. Fourteen days in a 28-day period is the most common pattern, but districts genuinely differ and heavily used areas are often shorter. When your time is up you typically have to move a specified distance, not just to the next pullout. The district office is the only authority that can tell you what applies where you are standing.
A free map each national forest publishes showing which roads and trails are legally open to which kinds of vehicle, and where you may pull off to camp. It is the document that decides whether the two-track in front of you is a road you may drive or a closure you can be cited for. It is not intuitive to read, it changes, and it beats any app that has not been updated this season.
Because they change faster than any other rule and the penalties are serious. Restrictions escalate in stages: Stage 1 typically limits fires to developed rings, Stage 2 can ban stoves and open flame entirely, and in a bad year a forest closes outright. An order issued this week overrides anything you read last month. Check the district page the morning you leave.
For ordinary dispersed camping, usually not. Some forests require a free permit in specific areas, a fire permit for a stove or campfire, or a day-use pass at certain trailheads, and wilderness areas frequently have their own permit system with quotas. It is local, so check the district. Where we have not verified the answer for a state, we leave it blank rather than guess.