Touring Cyclists Always Welcome Camping


Last week we heard about a fantastic development via the Virginia Bicycling Federation about the Virginia State Park System. They announced a new policy that ensures long distance touring cyclists will always have a spot to pitch a tent in their parks, even when designated spots are filled. Yea Virginia!

While Washington, Oregon, and California have a number of hiker/biker-specific campgrounds and generally friendly approaches to traveling cyclists, Virginia is only the third state I know of to have an official policy. (Nevada and Michigan are the other two.) I've read that New York has an unofficial guideline but it can fluctuate based on who is managing the park when a cyclist rolls in. I'm guessing this could be widely true across the country.

Wouldn't it be great to have a resource that listed all state park systems with official policies to welcome touring cyclists, even if the campground is full? Or if there was a nationwide policy in place so you would never need to worry about finding a spot to camp in any state park? We can dream, right?

In the meantime, I'd love to hear about your experiences camping in state parks. What other states have policies along these lines, official or unofficial? If you can provide a link to that information, all the better. I will compile what you submit to me either directly or via a comment on this post, as collective knowledge, and publish it for everyone's reference.

Photo: A beautiful example of camping with bicycles in a state park. This site is in Harriman State Park in Idaho. Photo from e-lame's Flickr photostream.

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GEOPOINTS BULLETIN is written by Jennifer 'Jenn' Milyko, an Adventure Cycling cartographer, and appears weekly, highlighting curious facts, figures, and persons from Adventure Cycling's Route Network with tips and hints for personal route creation thrown in for good measure. She also wants to remind you that map corrections and comments are always welcome via the online Map Correction Form.

Source: http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2012/04/touring-cyclists-always-welcome-camping.html

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