Picking Your Spot pt1

  Finding a new spot has always been a tricky thing to do for me, most of the time I am moving to an area I have never been before and know no one that can help me. When I first started it involved a lot of walking, nosing around, and just getting lucky, now I have a system that helps preselect possible camp areas with a fair amount of success. First thing you want to do is figure out what you need in an area, my list is something like this, and in descending priority.

1. Day labor office close by.
2. Grocery store close by (convenience store is pretty good too)
3. Laundromat close by
4. Hotel fairly close

 Some things you don't want

1. Major highway close, most larger camps are set up near highways, already occupied, and likely known to law enforcement.
2. Close to a shelter or soup kitchen, campsites are too likely to be occupied already and too great a chance someone will follow you if you do find a spot.
3. Close to a police or fire station, yes, fire fighters will report you, police station should be self explanatory.
4. Close to an apartment complex or other large housing complex, houses mean kids, kids go in woods, if kids don't wreck your camp, they tell parents, parents call cops,etc.

These are the major points to consider, there are some minor points that come into play later. Now you have a list of things to look for and avoid, what do you do with this information? This is where Google Maps helps a lot. If you do not have a tablet or a cheap smartphone (and you should, but that's another article) go to your library and ask for a guest pass to the computers, most of them will let you do it up to a certain amount of times, three times being the most common in my experience. Find the feature in the list most important to you on the want list and find it's address, put the address in the search box, then look around the area for the most appealing spots. Zoom in as close as you can, sometimes you can see other camps if they are there. Pick two or three areas, and find landmarks to get addresses you can use later. The are many reasons to pick several spots, one being there might already be folks there, two, sometimes it is hard to tell from Maps if what you are looking at is trees covering a ditch or drainage pond. Take some time to write basic directions down on paper if you are new to the area and do not have a phone.

 Now you have found a spot, now you need to scout it. There are a few guidelines to doing this, one being don't go in dragging all your stuff, stash the bulk of it somewhere safe and walk out to the area. What do you see? If the land is posted private, move on. Fenced in, probably need to keep walking. Obvious paths? Not a deal breaker, but be cautious. Still looks good? Ok, wait for early morning or late afternoon to go inside and see what is there, if you find a camp, leave it be. Talk to the camper if he is there, just don't expect him to be happy about your presence.  Try and find a spot far enough away or move on. If you find a spot you like, sit down a while and soak it in, feel the vibes, if you get a funny feeling about a spot, listen to it.



Continued next time