On one of my first bicycle tours, when I was riding through the Colorado Rockies with another woman, a bicyclist caught up to us who was carrying no gear, nothing at all but what he was wearing. It was in the middle of the Rockies, no towns nearby and he said he was out for several days, riding alone. But where was he staying, what was he doing for food? "Credit card!" he yelled as he blew past us. I don't think I even had a credit card back then.
Personally, I prefer free which often makes for a good adventure. Staying with friends, if you have any, is a terrific option. Strangers work, too. On that same Colorado bicycle tour my female cycling companion and I stayed at the home of an old retired miner who we'd met in a bar. More recently, while Rob and I were riding along the coast of Maine, a retired gentleman let us spend the night in the spare bedroom over his garage.
I've met people who camp along the side of the road but I draw the line there. My minimum requirement is to have water and toilets available.
I recently discovered warmshowers.org, an online network that matches bicycle tourists with people willing to host them. I've already written about the first time we used this service. You can find that story in chapter 4.
When I was traveling solo in 1980 I discovered a way to camp for free when the national park campgrounds were full. I would cycle through the campground looking for a friendly-looking family or couple or group of cyclists and ask to share their campsite. I was never turned down and, even though I offered, they never let me pay my share for the site. One evening I sat around a campfire getting to know a young couple from one of the Scandinavian countries. I received a letter from them after I returned home saying how much they enjoyed the time we shared, that they didn't really have the opportunity to meet other Americans during their trip to this country.
Also on that trip, while in the Canadian Rockies, I stopped at a campground shelter in Banff National Park to get out of the rain and met five other cyclists hanging out, waiting for the rain to stop. It didn't. Two cyclists rolled in after me, making eight of us, and we all had a grand time sharing stories and complaining about the rain that had been going on for days. Rather than set up my tent in the rain I spent the night sleeping on a picnic table in the shelter. For free.
If free isn't an option our next choice is a public campground. National forest campgrounds are generally the cheapest, but they also come with the fewest amenities. You'll probably have water at an outside spigot and toilets but not necessarily the flushing kind. Further along the spectrum in price and amenities are national park and state park campgrounds. State parks have showers and national parks often don't. In California the state park campgrounds have hiker/biker campsites, a larger group campsite for anyone who shows up that night without a car. You don't need a reservation and they cost only $5 per person.
Then there are private campgrounds. Sometimes they'll give us a reduced rate for a tent site, but often we're stuck paying for water and an electrical hookup. They generally cost more than public camping, sometimes a lot more. $45 to pitch a tent can be a bit excessive.
The biggest challenge when camping is what to do if it rains. Private campgrounds may have a shelter or a rec hall. In Canada we've found shelters in many of the national parks; in the United States you're on your own, stuck in your tent. Vermont state parks are the best, with some campsites having a lean-to for an extra $7, well worth every penny.
But even with shelters or lean-tos, when it's raining Rob and I both start thinking about going for the fallback "credit card" option of motels, hotels, and bed and breakfasts. Because we are always traveling on a budget we try to save this for bad weather or when we are sidetracked by a medical emergency. On our trip through Vermont a few years ago Rob broke a tooth and we had to find a dentist. By the time his tooth was repaired it was late in the afternoon and we were far from any campground. But ten miles took us to Montpelier where we found a reasonably priced bed and breakfast and could walk downtown for dinner at a fine restaurant. The dental emergency turned into a very enjoyable evening.
Sometimes we'll stay at a bed and breakfast just because we're tired of sleeping on the ground in our tiny tent. Or maybe we've landed in a town perched on a lake with a restaurant that has outdoor seating along the water. It's late in the afternoon and a swim would be perfect followed by dinner so why don't we see if we can find a room somewhere?
Once we built a short bike trip around staying in bed and breakfasts and country inns. When I was pregnant with our daughter, my mother was already asking us when she could babysit. So when Kylee was nine months old, we took off for a five-day bicycle tour in Vermont. Instead of bringing camping gear we packed our tennis rackets and stopped along the way for an occasional game. We only rode about 40 miles a day that trip so that we could fully savor our luxurious accommodations.
On that trip we had all our accommodations booked ahead of time. That was unusual for us. Generally, we like to keep our options open, as we never know what any day will bring.
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