With the cost of a campground going up like everything else, we find a Free parking lot helps to make our motorhome a better investment. When we plan a weekend trip, we arrive late the night before and try to stay in a parking lot instead of paying for a night in a campground. Since all we are going to do is eat, watch tv and sleep, there is really no need to pay for a campsite, so we pull in at nine or ten spend the night and pull out the next morning.
We took my mother for a weekend get away and all she really wanted to do was go shopping. We planned to spend the night in a Wall Mart parking lot, when we realized there was a casino that had slot machines at a race track in the town that we were planning to stay. I got their phone number from their web site and called to see what their policy was for camping in their parking lot. They said there was an area that was off to the side that there were usually several motorhomes camping almost any night, so we were welcome. We pulled in between nine and ten at night and had no problem finding the area with several other motorhomes set up for the night. The next day we saw a couple motorhomes waiting in some kind of a line in the corner of the parking lot, so we decided to check it out and see what they were doing. I was surprised to find that there was a place to dump and fill with fresh water, and it was absolutely free. We ended up staying a couple nights, and security made sure everything was in order, and that no one bothered anything.
Since then, we have stayed a few more times at casinos and they are almost all the same, they welcome RV’s and many have a place to dump waste and fill with fresh water. Even the ones that don’t still have security and a well lit place to spend the night. We usually go in and pull a slot machine a few times, that is our way of paying for the night.
