Where to park for the night!

Someone always asks where we stay or how we find places to park for the night or how do we stay safe (which is really the same question). To be honest, we do follow our own little set of rules about where we park. We generally never park in the same place two nights in a row. People may notice we have parked somewhere but rarely will they complain unless we have overstayed our welcome. To avoid this we always park somewhere different every night. While we are travelling we try to get into a town before dark to scope out our options and then come back to our chosen spot as it’s getting dark. This way we can find the best spot as opposed to any old spot and by not arriving too soon we get less attention. If we have to stay in an area for an extended time we chose five or six spots and rotate spending each night at a different location. We easily stayed within a 3km range of where Michael was working last winter just by finding several good spots and changing it up every night. There have been a few occasions where we think we have found the perfect spot to stay but when we are setting up for the night or are out walking the dogs we realize that something just doesn’t seem right, in those rare cases we always move to another locations. We use our intuition. In general we prefer scenic places like overlooks, Parks, beachfronts, trailheads and sometimes dead end roads. It feels really good to have that million dollar view and not be paying a cent for the real estate! If we arrive at a new place too late at night or are unsure of where to stay we settle for Walmart, Cabella’s, tourist information places, Costco, Movie theatres or shopping malls. We aren’t really settling for these spots as there is nothing wrong with any of these places and often they have the advantage of having public washrooms. Even in a commercial parking lot we try to park so that the door of our bus opens up to grass rather than pavement. We prefer to have an amazing 360 view but there is nothing wrong with staying somewhere with amenities. We avoid staying at truck stops only because we know that trucks will be coming and going all night long, some running generators while they are there. Even a Walmart parking lot can be loud with night deliveries and RV’s with generators. We try to park out of the way and away from all the noise.