VanLife Beacon

Campgrounds & overnight networks — North America

Campground, dispersed-camping and overnight-stay networks for the US and Canada — a different market to the European aires/Stellplätze networks covered elsewhere on this hub. Curated from our vendor registry; status reflects when we last checked each source, and provisional entries are marked as such rather than presented as verified.

iOverlander

Global crowdsourced overlanding POI database. Camping plus mechanics, water, propane, laundry, showers, border crossings and checkpoints. Human-moderated, explicitly never sponsored. The only one of these that works outside North America and Oceania.

NA / OC / Global Visit site →

Campendium

70,000+ US and Canada campgrounds with 150,000+ RVer reviews, including free and dispersed camping on BLM, USFS and National Park land. Reviews carry cell-coverage data, hookup detail and rig length limits. Also indexes dump stations.

US / CA Visit site →

FreeRoam

Free, non-profit US dispersed-camping app built by full-timers, with public-land boundary layers, cell-coverage overlays and crowd-sourced site reports. PROVISIONAL: widely used in the US boondocking community but its site was not verified in the July 2026 research pass.

US Visit site →

Harvest Hosts

US and Canada membership network of farms, wineries, breweries, museums and attractions offering free overnight stays to self-contained RVs, with an expectation of supporting the host business. Parent company of Boondockers Welcome; both searchable in one app.

US / CA Visit site →

Boondockers Welcome

3,675+ private hosts across the US and Canada offering driveway and property stays to self-contained RVs; over 70% of hosts offer hookups. Peer-to-peer rather than commercial, which makes it the closest US/CA analogue to France's France Passion.

US / CA Visit site →

The Dyrt

Large US campground and free-camping database with user reviews, offline maps and trip planning in the PRO tier. PROVISIONAL: appears as a peer app in store listings but its own site was not directly verified in the July 2026 pass.

US / CA Visit site →

Hipcamp

Marketplace for camping and RV stays on private land — the 'Airbnb of camping'. Operates in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. PROVISIONAL on market list: only its US and Canada Q&A pages were seen in this research pass. Note: Hipcamp's own Q&A content contained a factual error on BC Crown-land residency rules — use it as a booking channel, not as a legal source.

US / CA / AU / NZ Visit site →

Recreation.gov

Official booking channel for US federal campgrounds, permits and timed entry across NPS, USFS, BLM and USACE. The authoritative counterpart to the free dispersed-camping options; referenced directly by BLM and USFS camping pages.

US Visit site →

WikiCamps Canada

Canadian edition of WikiCamps with 9,000+ site listings covering campgrounds, dump points, POIs and water points. PROVISIONAL: URL taken from the app store listing's support link rather than a verified site visit.

CA Visit site →

Sources

What this page is based on — every source is verified and links out so you can check it yourself.

  1. Recreation.gov — official US federal camping and permits booking channelofficial · 2026-07 · VanLife Beacon
  2. Campendium — US and Canada campground databaseverified · 2026-07 · VanLife Beacon