Solitude, warm nights, sea breezes, and a full moon in dark night skies create the backdrop for a Valentine’s Day beach getaway. In my opinion the best free winter beach camping in the country is at South Beach in Padre Island’s National Seashore.
“Bigger in Texas” Padre Island National Seashoreis the world’s longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island. The seashore creates the first break, or barrier, before the sea winds and water slam into the mainland.
Rugged, remote, and prolific ocean wilderness
Coastline, dunes, prairies, and wind tidal flats are home to 380 bird species on 70 undeveloped miles of the preserve. You’ll see far more birds than people at this National Park.
All five species of Gulf sea turtles can be found on the island and surrounding waters. The Division of Sea Turtle Science and Recoveryworks to monitor and protect the turtles and is the only division of its kind in the National Park Service.
The endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle has safe nesting ground on these beaches and no effort is spared to save these turtles.
This is the setting for the best free winter beach camping in the US.
It Wasn’t Always So Beautiful
Four different nations have owned the expansive preserve on the Gulf of Mexico and none erected endless rows of condos. But the beaches and dunes had extensive damage from oil drilling and cattle grazing. Restoring the island to pre-European conditions became a goal in 1969. Two years later cattle were removed and Texaco paid for clean up of oil sites.
Today the mended island is a safe permanent and migratory home to Nature. And a perfect way to escape the city and hit the beach for free winter camping,
If you love isolation in Nature this is it. Almost.
The beach is a public road! You can drive up and down much of the national preserve beaches and even primitive camp or boondock free on the beaches.
My favorite area is South Beach because it is less crowded than North Beach located just outside the National Park’s preserve system and the sand is more packed. It also has fewer mosquitoes than Bird Island.
How to Get to The Best Place to Boondock on Padre Island
Take Hwy 358 southeast out of Corpus Christi. It becomes S. Padre Island Drive (SPID) and then Park Rd 22 and goes to park entrance directly. Entry fee is free with a National Parks Annual Pass or $10 per week. Be sure to register to camp at the entrance to South Beach at Padre Island National Seashore.
Stop at the Malaquite Visitor Center to get a copy of the tide tables and view exhibits of island history. Sign up for ranger led programs for birding and sea beaning. The center also sells ice and has cold water free showers.
Access to the south beach road starts at the park paved road just past the Visitor Center. The first 5 miles of South Beach are accessible by two-wheel drive. Beyond the first 5 miles South Beach goes on another 60 4WD ONLY miles before ending at the jetties at the Port Mansfield channel.
Tips for South Beach Driving and Free Winter Camping
This free winter beach camping is primitive and remote so come prepared with plenty of water, food, shelter, and mosquito spray. There’s little to no internet past the Visitor’s Center so be sure to make one final check of weather and tides while there.
Set up camp a minimum of 100 feet from the waters up to the edge of the white sand dunes. No camping is allowed in the dunes.
Just remember this is Texas public highway. Obey the standard laws – street legal, licensed, obey all traffic laws, speed zones, and remember to buckle up.
Because you’re gonna need to be strapped down to get to the perfect campsite. The sand road can disappear beneath surging waves forcing drivers closer to the soft, unpacked sand that can trap a car in seconds. Most of the road can disappear in high tide so plan accordingly or you’ll get trapped. Campers tend to set up in the 20-30’ section between the road and dunes.
Small inlets created by eroding high tides can provide some break from the wind, but are also sand traps. Remember to look for a site 100 feet from the water and off of the sand dunes. Look for the high tide water mark and set up at least 10-15 feet above that mark. Factor in the anticipated tide level each day listed in the tide table forecast.
Be Prepared For The Unexpected
High temperatures in winter are usually between 50°-70°. The forecast was for low 50’s with sea fog. But the third night on my Valentine’s excursion a sudden, strong cold front barreled through. Gale winds blew and temperatures dropped quickly to the 30’s.
Rocky and I napped nervously through the irritable, howling night. Winds slammed logs in jams, created dunes around the rv, and forced sand into every possible crack and crevice. Even with the built-in stabilizer jacks deployed my rig swayed and lurched in high winds.
Morning awakened the rage of a winter storm that upended predicted tide levels. By mid-morning unrelenting brown waves thrashed each other in the race to shore. The ocean swallowed the beach road four hours before predicted high tide. My mouth dropped when waves began blowing into my cozy, sheltered cove at the edge of the dunes.
The power of the howling wind and rising waves roared like a tornado. Instinct grabbed control from my analytical mind still pondering how tide tables and weather forecasts could be as wrong as maps and GPS.
It didn’t take this plains gal more than two blinks to break camp, say a quick prayer, and drive nonstop through blowing wind, sand, and waves. Subaru’s all wheel drive combined with the offroad tires of my NuCamp RV made me howl with delight! Every time land slipped in surging water we quickly recovered forward progression.
Malaquite Visitor Center was crowded with campers surprised by the sudden winter storm that brought coastal flooding and wind advisories. I didn’t hang around to contemplate my options. Instinct was still in charge and it drove me far inland before I realized the escape had left a mark. I had no trailer lights and it was dark.
Deal is, the best winter beach camping adventure can end like this and there’s only one thing to do. Check into a hotel, take a long hot bath, catch up on laundry, run camp dishes through the dishwasher and binge watch all the Crocodile Dundee movies!
Special Thanks for Your Help!
The fantastic folks at Custom Tinting and Truck Accessoriesfound and replaced the trailer hitch fuse shorted by seawater. They even taught me how to change the fuses myself. Good thing since shorting fuses outside of the standard auto fuse box is becoming a thing with me. Thank you for the great work Johnny Salazar and team in Victoria, Texas!
Fortunately the teams at AAA Premier RV and Subaru’s Extended Warranty programs will cover the unexpected hotel and food expenses while my vehicle was out of commission. These two programs pay for themselves every year that I’ve been on the road.
Go prepared. Stay flexible. Have fun!
This All American Road has 11 amazing national or state forests, parks, monuments, and recreation areas. You won’t want to miss any! Each is a destination in its own right, so give yourself ample time.
Spanning from 
time in a land that has shaped resilient, tenacious people. The range spans 
Vistas spanning hundreds of miles and eons of time offer a rare silence broken occasionally by the faint drone of airplanes. Sunrise and sunset delight the senses while expansive 
Scenic Byway 12 has two entry points.
All American status
A single lifetime is not nearly enough.
impact seemed to be loss of Eyesight system that’s the “
I arrived late in the day to the remote, mountaintop Upper 
Retired from a life of rodeos and barebacking Corky is a true cowboy with powerful, rugged features, good manners, and a helping hand if needed. He popped out of nowhere to assist my trailer backing before building a warm fire while I set up camp.
I don’t do campfires in the west because of fire hazards and I’m lazy. I know the tending required to have a safe fire and I’ll not risk a forest fire for food and warmth unless absolutely necessary. I have a propane stove to cook and a dog for cold toes.
You have to want it to get it. Take HW 14 east out of Shell, Wyoming for 17 miles through the Scenic Big Horn Highway then exit forest road 17 and go south 24.5 miles. Plan on two hours to drive that short 24 mile distance through some of the country’s most inspiring offroad vistas. There’s no cell or tow service.
It always baffled me that herds calmly move to a cowboy’s request. Not anymore. I’m far too independent for herds but being looked after by somebody who takes his job seriously in the sometimes perilous outback is a gift I gratefully accepted. So did Rocky.
My extensive travel does not have nor require a big budget. Paid lodging is a rare treat strictly reserved for a hot soak in a deep tub, laundry, and supplies. The anxiety over these unexpected expenses has been eased by the miracle of the folks crossing my path like family friend AJ and her Indian Gulch Ranch. It reminds me that everything works out better than I could imagine if I just stay in the flow.
Kathy at 
Watching Rob work the boat into just the right spot then hold it in the current so my line would sweep perfectly through a drift was impressive. Nothing to write home about in size but plenty of action with the small, less experienced fish.
yearned for the smaller streams and relaxed ease of outback fly fishing where larger fish are more likely to play.
Rocky and I picnicked at a boondock site an hour off HW 287 on FR 202 of the West Fork of the Madison. We spied the shallow, swift water sweeping beside the small pine meadow in a valley just when hunger couldn’t be denied any longer.
to scout a campsite nearby and had come off the mountain at dawn with big plans to celebrate his first anniversary with his new bride and their young son.
An hour or so on down the road a cyclist was stopped and I slowed to confirm he and his retro 1970’s Harley were ok. A bit later I moved on with even more secret fishing spots in the gorgeous “Chain of Lakes” and smaller West Fork scribbled in my notebook. Unfortunately there was not nearly enough daylight to keep going especially when I was nearing the end of my week near Ennis, Montana and my car still wasn’t ready.
Madison Management Kathy stepped in once again and knocked it out of the park with a cabin very much like the boondocking sites I love the most. Behind a locked cattle gate on a wild pristine stretch of the Madison River with a side stream enveloping a small
island the cabin and the imprints of lives well lived raised the hair on my body in a most pleasing way.
The first two days Rocky guarded every exit from the house sticking right by my side even when I walked to the car. He’s had enough outback experience to know we stick together with this much wildlife around.
By the third day we had explored every inch of land and water in this enchanted stretch. In fact, the week we were there we never left the property, never unlocked the gate, and never once had a desire for any part of life beyond the gate.
Montana believes water is public so there’s none of that blocked access to private waters nonsense you find in other states. Every couple of days a savvy fly fisher would wade up the back side of the island where the slower stream flows in front of the cabin and I could get a fishing report to compare to my own.
I also had an extraordinary visit with the woman who grew up on this stretch and raised her kids there too. Kindred spirits we both know how priceless a small stretch of outback fresh, cold water can be for generations of family and friends. I cherish that visit and her amazing rosemary pear preserves.
I marvel at what we’ve had access to since we left Minneapolis in August. I sense watery images of what awaits us in the secret places we’ve yet to explore.
My heart and my budget need my rig back. I’m questioning the wisdom of Subaru playing a leading role in my outback, offgrid life. Looks good in the commercials but at just over 30,000 miles my reliability and service experience is taking a huge hit by sitting in the shop for a month. That breaks a bottom line survival rule for a solo, outback, offgrid nomad and her dog and smells an awful lot like a lemon.
Northern Wyoming and Southern Montana with hundreds of alpine lakes, steep headwalls, horns, cirque, and hanging valleys.
Absaroka Range with steep slopes and stunning shapes amid long valleys.
Combined these ranges create one of America’s most stunning visual masterpieces with infinite breathtaking vistas.
you have any breath left after driving the thrilling twists and turns with steep drop offs on Chief Joseph Scenic Drive and the Beartooth Pass!
service roads, trails, campgrounds and boondocking sites.
Be sure to take the 
While there, step back in time and experience how firefighters used the lookouts to fight fires in earlier days. Tools, maps, charts, 
and displays share the historical fire stories of these mountains. National Fire Service volunteers teach visitors about everything from fires to the oceans that once covered the region.
You can sure see the smoke in my story photos. I hoped to hold off on this blog until I could get clear photos of Beartooth Pass but I’ve never been to Montana when the skies were clear.
I’ve learned that folks in the West talk about five seasons, the four we all know and Fire Season. Last year was a brutal record breaking fire season in Montana. So far in 2018 over 55,000 acres have burned in Montana and half of the counties are under air quality alerts.
Experiencing the clear, big skies of Montana is still on my list. I’ve barely scratched the surface! Friends suggest rainy season in April and May. Winter is good but it’s a bit chilly with no heater. Rocky is a nice little heater but not that good!
raspberry meadow on the roaring creek in the shadow of Crystal Peak outside Hill City, South Dakota. But I respect the other wanderers who fill the places I free up, so I sang travel songs and prayers into my pack and headed north to Big Horn country.
grow deeper, faster, longer. Twenty square acres can offer snow-capped mountains, hills rolling into wide prairie valleys dropping to canyons laced with crystal streams, waterfalls, and roaring rivers. The entire universe can exist in one alluring square inch.
There is also comfort in the northwest summer temperatures. Unlike the South’s wet sweat lodge heat, it’s quite simple to find cooling shade in the northern trees and bluffs. A nearby icy creek, river, or lake can relieve even the worst heat of the day and evening breezes bring the perfect chill for snuggling in.
Social and sacred gathering sites like Medicine Lodge outside Hyattville, WY invoke feelings of going to grandma’s – on steroids. The bluff along Medicine Lodge Creek has been a gathering place spanning 10,000 years from Paleoindians to the Crow people. Each left a mark, a lesson, a sharing across the bluff’s 750-foot mural.
Figures have been pecked, incised and painted by artists representing at least 60 different northern plains groups. The diversity and quality of the figures makes this massive mural one of the major rock art locations in the region. 
Late Prehistoric Period hunter-gatherers created most of the petroglyphs. Local tribes of Crow and Shoshone made the recent art during the 1700-1800’s. The work captures every single known, recorded figure of the northern plains artists.
sage, and sweet grass. Medicine Lodge nurtures solo journeys where protective filters dissolve and the soul opens to sing, dance, pray, and play with the Universe.
GPS is my only hope in the city. But the more the on-grid networks fade, the more I hear, see, feel, smell the way like I did as a child. It is simple but not easy to remember the way always shows up when I have exhausted all of my skills and let go of my planned outcomes. The way waits for me to ask and wraps me in sweet encouragement and obvious signs leading me to where I’m meant to be.
I won’t try to use words to define the shelter of Medicine Lodge because it seems insulting to try to contain flow. I can assure you it is worth losing yourself to the Bighorn. May you and yours know the peace, grace, and welcome that appears when lost is found.
“I’ve driven from coast to coast on backroads but never experienced this one yet,” I chuckled surveying the tire so flat it had collapsed in on itself with an angry pop and forceful hiss after I clipped the partially buried wedge of shale forcing a split in the sidewall of the tire.
I held up my hand to stop him. “There’s just one more thing I should show you before you volunteer to help. It’s quite the hassle,” I warned moving to the rear of my car to open the hatch and reveal the solid wood chest of drawers built to fit in the full cargo area of the Subaru. My favorite carpenter had built it for me to haul my gear. With all the drawers removed it still takes two strong people to lift. Someday I’ll find someone to build it out of lightweight aluminum but for now this 300 pound behemoth serves me well.
“I’m going to need one of you to help back here,” he quietly motioned.
And family they are. Three strapping brothers, their sister, mother, and a sister- and brother-in-law out for a picnic near beautiful meadows and old mine in Castle Peak wilderness area of the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota.
With a grateful heart we shook hands, hugged thank you’s and good byes and went our separate ways. Just as I was getting in my car a mammoth, cobalt blue 4×4 pick up pulled up and offered help. I shook his hand in introduction and George swore I was the spitting image of his cousin. He may have missed out on the heavy lifting but he did stay in my site until we hit paved road where he waved good-bye.
A week earlier when I entered the deep forests, meadows, creeks and cliffs of the Black Hills I immediately felt peace, safety and belonging in my marrow. My sleep has been deep and filled with adventurous dreams of close-knit family living here for generations. My camp in the pine and spruce forest has been busy with visitors of all kinds. The same bumblebee lived with us for three days. Two majestic bucks visit the 
raspberry field by the river every evening while I’m fly fishing for 
leaping brookies. Hummingbirds dive for my morning maple syrup. Angels dance with fairies and family long gone embrace me with a smell, a warm breeze, and memories of laughter and love. In all my travels it’s the longest I’ve stayed in one spot and I have no desire to leave.
In that instant I felt her unity with my journey in the very empty seat beside her. Yes the blessing of close, loving, grown children surrounded her. But she too knew unbearable loss and lonely, dark grief. I’ll never forget the glow of her face when she observed “you are free!” I think like me, she lives a celebrated recovery beyond the losses with a grateful mindfulness of the gift of each breath every day simply because we are alive.
Dear West Family and blue pick up George know that I still feel your infusion of safety, reassurance, and rescue. Your big medicine is now a part of me available to ground and guide me during the next calamity. May your blessings return to each of you in the gentle breeze with my grateful hug.
Following trails that beckon is life at it’s best. Free wandering with no schedule or goals has served me well since childhood exploring creeks and prairies. I’ve been trained to watch and wait for the guidance but I’ll admit there’s is a new learning curve with the addition of the off-road teardrop camper. It’s keeping my guardian angels – and me – wide awake.
Narrow, ridiculously steep grade, no safety rails and the most amazing, adrenaline-inducing experience calling my name! The Subaru and teardrop had torn up off roads for days and I was primed for the grand prize dive down The Canyon.
Perhaps a bit of recon was in order. Rapid, shallow breathing and heart-pounding adrenaline with knees bent, eyes straight ahead helped resist the abyss tractor beam pulling me over the edge on the switchback curves. Barely. There was just enough width for the car and RV. No margin for error, changing my mind or turning around. There might be a clearance and mud issue. But I was a hound dog on a scent. Ride The Canyon or bust!
Time to pull out the big guns and use a technique honed over eight years in the halls of MD Anderson Cancer Center. Call in my angels when stakes are life OR death high. Employ the hallowed Coin Toss. Best two out of three wins. Heads means I go for it, tails I turn around and find a camp for the night.
My best guess is I was in the Sheep Canyon area. GPS noted Mineral and Dead Horse Point Roads. I found an OHV trail map sign post indicating I was somewhere in the Dubinky area. Maybe The Canyon was a piece of Hell Roaring or Chicken Corners Trails. The coin toss occurred at the point requiring gate entry, is pinched between rocks on the right and the abyss on the left and drops over 1,000 feet via narrow, rocky, muddy switchbacks. Chicken Corners is where Moab area guides allow “chicken” passengers to walk, rather than ride. And Hell Roaring Canyon descriptions involve the word “pucker.”
I probably have too much faith in Beverly (my Subaru Outback) but I think she’d make The Canyon. Pulling my Outback teardrop camper affectionally dubbed Hillbilly? Sheer lunacy.