 We just camped in two epic spots. Both were beautiful and private and totally free. No more RV parks for us. Today, we're going to tell you exactly how we found those two spots and what we did while we were there. Hey birdwatchers! Welcome to our new series, Creativity RV Travels, where we're going to tell you why, how, and where we live our full-time RV life. Before I became a full-time RV nomad, I watched a ton of YouTube videos and I would see them going down these great dirt roads to these spots and I was always hoping that one of them would tell me how they found that spot where they got their water if they had a cell signal and more. But none of them ever did, so today, we're going to tell everyone how to do just that and live the life of their dreams without being stuck in an RV park. Now every place we go is amazing, but the two spots we're going to tell you about today were truly epic. Before everybody thinks that I'm going to tell the whole world about that one great RV spot, keep in mind how much public land there is in the U.S. There's national forest land and BLM land and conservation land and grasslands and more and depending on what you count, all of that combined makes up 23 to 75% of our entire country and a good portion of that can be used for recreation, meaning us going camping. Our goal is not to blow the lid off that one great spot. Instead, it's to show everybody how to find camping for themselves. Teach a man to fish, right? We spent a lot of time in the desert over the winter and spring and we're psyched to head towards the mountains and see some trees. We headed from the Hollywood of Western Film, aka Lone Pine, California and headed north on 395. This was our first year heading up 395 and I really recommend it. There are so many great places to camp. So this year we decided to focus on Bishop and Mammoth Lakes. The first thing I did was jump on my phone to start an initial search for spots. We headed for the town of Bishop, which is surrounded by BLM Land, which is the Bureau of Land Management. There's a ton of boondocking there, but only a few reviews on camping apps. Remember, when you go into an RV camping app, most of them are review-driven, like FreeCampSites.net. So there might be a guy that said he liked that one spot because everyone else uses that same app. They all head for those same GPS coordinates and the places look like they're really cramped, but it doesn't have to be that way. What we do is use the camping apps like FreeCampSites.net, RV Parky, or Campendium to find the area where there's free camping. And then we use the app US Public Lands, which is about $6.99 at your app store. And you can go into that app and drill down into the public areas, which are color-coded. So you can see what's national for us, what's grassland, BLM, et cetera. So that guy that left the review might be right here surrounded by a bunch of other people. And you'll be two miles over here by yourself in beauty and privacy. Just keep in mind that these public lands are owned by us, US citizens, and they're just managed by a bunch of different agencies. So when you see all of those colors, remember, they're all public land. The rules vary on each one, so you can go check it out for the area that you're going to. But in general, you can stay for 14 days totally for free. Remember, it's boondocking, so you have to be responsible for your own water and power and trash, pack it in people, and pack it out. Here's Bishop on a camping app. You can see that there are a couple of sites, but I'm going to zoom in on US Public Lands and look for something that looks like a little vein off of the side of a road. That's where you want to camp. It's not like you drive out into the middle of nowhere and off-road it. You always want to pull off into a site that has been established by the BLM. For us, sometimes this can be a little bit tougher because we've got a big rig, so I'm always taking that into account. But this spot looks really good, and here's another one just down the street that looks good. But if I look at the topography, the road looks like it could be a little bit rough. So I'm going to go ahead and have a couple of other spots as backups, just in case. As we suspected, the road into that spot was nasty. There was not a lot of room for us to turn around, but luckily, we found the last spot big enough for a rig our size score. We had to maneuver into the spot nose first and then figure out how to get back out when we left because we could not give up this view. Look at this place. It is gorgeous. Plus, it's close to town, had a screaming cell signal, and it wasn't too far from the ancient Bristlecone Forest, which we wanted to see so we waited for a sunny day, or so we thought. The ancient Bristlecone Forest in California has the oldest trees on Earth, some they think are up to 4,000 years old, but you have to drive up some rocky roads to get to them and then hike in to get the money shot. We hope to get up to the Visitor Center at Shulman Grove and then take one of the self-guided trails once we got up there. The drive up was beautiful. Wow. This is beautiful. Holy cannoli. But then, the road got a little bit narrow. Ooh, what lane road? What? Then, snow began to fall. Oh my God, it's snowing. Well... We had no idea the elevation would change as quickly as it did when we left the rig. It was sunny outside, but an hour later, we were sorry that all we had were keens and a hoodie. We made it all the way up the windy road to a scenic overlook that was just about 3 miles from where we'd have to get out and start hiking. We ran into some nice neighbors there that had just come from that direction and they told us that it was nasty that way and that they had to turn back from their hike. So we decided the best thing to do was to turn around and go back down the hill without seeing the best of the trees. For us, getting there is half the fun. Not spending the whole day in the Bristol Cone Forest gave us a chance to visit Shatt's Bakery. Seriously, everybody, if you ever get to Bishop, California, do not pass up this bakery. It is a total experience and we found out that they have the best sourdough bread on the planet. Mmm, Shatt. Good stuff. Our two weeks were up and it was time to keep heading north. So we jumped back on 395 toward Mammoth Lakes. Around Mammoth Lakes, there is a ton of free camping through the National Forest. The National Forest Service actually calls this dispersed camping. Now, I've been on the road for four years, but Doug's only been on the road for one and so I'm teaching him how to find camping along the way. So we jumped on and looked at all of the camping that's available in the National Forest around Mammoth Lakes while you're sitting on the road outside where you think there's camping. Have the map locate you and then zoom in right there so that you can see what spots are all around you. That way, if one's taken, you can see the next one coming up right down the road. After our research, we found a bunch of spots that were only a mile away from free water and free trash at a California rest area. After the desert, we were so happy to be back in a real forest. This place was amazing. We had hardly any neighbors. It was totally quiet and did I mention that it's free? We could have stayed in this spot for a month, but in this forest, dispersed camping allows 14 days. So we settled in and decided to do our part by picking up a little bit of trash. After picking up all that trash, we decided to head into Mammoth and go to Roberto's for margaritas. Seriously, the best Mexican food I've ever had in my life. If anybody out there gets to Mammoth Lakes, do not pass up Roberto's. Here's a sneak peek of our next travel video. No way. Just f*** with you. We'll see you all next Sunday. Until then, everybody have happy travels and be free.