Dispersed Camping on State Land, State by State

Camping on federal land works about the same wherever you go: 14 days, a setback from water, stick to the designated roads, then move on. Our BLM and National Forest comparison puts those two rule sets side by side. State land is nothing like that. The same trip is free and needs no paperwork in one state, needs a card you fill out yourself in the next, and is limited to numbered sites in the one after that. Inside a single state, the state forest, the state trust land, the state parks, and the Wildlife Management Areas follow four different rulebooks that regularly disagree with each other. Nobody has pulled all of that into one place, which is why campers keep getting caught out at a state line. This page gives the answer for every state we cover, cites the rule behind it where we recorded one, and names the 14 states we could not confirm rather than filling the gap with a confident guess.

What counts as state land, and why the answer moves at every state line

“State land” is one label sitting on top of at least four kinds of land, and each one answers the camping question differently:

• State forest. Your best bet for open camping. When a state allows you to pick your own spot at all, this is usually the land it happens on.
• State trust land. Land the state holds to raise money for schools or other beneficiaries, not for recreation. Whether the public may camp on it is a separate question from who owns it, so it needs its own answer.
• State parks. Nearly always built campgrounds with numbered sites you book ahead. Where a park allows anything looser, it is usually a handful of marked backcountry spots rather than open camping.
• Wildlife Management Areas. Land managed for hunting and habitat, not for camping. Most of the confusion starts here.

Because those four are regulated separately, a sentence like “you can camp on state land in X” is almost always wrong somewhere. The table below names which kind of land the answer covers whenever that makes a difference.

The answer for every state

Five possible answers, most generous first. The last one is not a verdict. It is us saying we did not check.

• Open by default: You can camp on some kind of state land without getting anything first. (7 states)
• Permit required: Camping is legal, but you have to get permission first. That includes free forms you fill out yourself. (9 states)
• Marked sites only: You can camp only at spots the agency has built and marked. (17 states)
• Federal land only: No state land here is open for camping. The option in the state is federal land. (3 states)
• Not confirmed: We did not reach a conclusion for that state, so we do not give one. (14 states)

“None recorded” in the last column means we did not write down a rule number for that state. It does not mean no rule exists. Several answers above come from an agency’s own guidance rather than a numbered rule, and where that is true the state is called out under what we could not checkbelow. None of this replaces the current rule on the managing agency’s own site.

Where state land is open by default

7 states let you camp on some kind of their own land with nothing to pick up first. This is the closest thing on state land to the federal default we describe in what boondocking is, though the terms still vary a lot between them.

• Alaska: You can camp on about 100 million acres of state land with no permit. Stay up to 14 days, then move at least two miles. State parks flip that around. Inside one you cannot camp within half a mile of a road (11 AAC 12.230).
• Minnesota: Camping is open across about 4 million acres of state forest, free and with no permit, as long as you stay a mile from a built campground. Wildlife management areas are the exception. Camping on them is banned by rule.
• Nebraska: Game and Parks wildlife management areas allow primitive camping across the state, and none of the 268 areas is carved out.
• New York: Camping away from a marked site on Forest Preserve and State Forest land is a real legal right. The state also publishes 2,613 marked tent sites, campsites, and lean-tos. We list only the marked sites. The wider right is real, but nobody maps where it applies, so no dataset can show you, ours included.
• North Dakota: Wildlife management areas allow camping by default across the state, apart from a published list of 15 units where it is banned.
• Oregon: State forests run by the Department of Forestry allow dispersed camping year round with no permit. This one rests on the agency’s own guidance rather than a written rule, so it sits on thinner ground than the Washington entry next to it.
• Washington: DNR trust lands allow dispersed camping along the Green Dot road systems (Ahtanum, Tahuya, Capitol Forest, and Teanaway), with a 10-day limit in any 30 days. Wildlife areas work differently. Inside one, only the marked camp spots count, never a pullout along the road.

Alaska sits at both ends of the scale. It is the most generous state in the country on state land, and it also carries one of the sharpest restrictions anywhere: inside an Alaska state park you cannot camp within half a mile of a road (11 AAC 12.230). Its federal side shows up with the other forest orders below.

States where it is legal once you have paperwork

9 states allow camping on some kind of state land once you have picked something up first. That something runs from a free card you fill out at the trailhead, to a hunting permit, to an area manager saying yes to you personally. Those are very different asks hiding behind the same label, so read the row for the state you are heading to.

• Delaware: Forest camping needs a permit and a marked site, at $25 a night on the Blackbird and Redden tracts. Camping on wildlife areas is banned. Delaware has no National Forest land, which we checked two separate ways, so there is no federal option to fall back on either.
• Hawaii: State parks take permits and marked sites only. Forest reserves and Natural Area Reserves run on forestry division permits. Hawaii has no National Forest land and no BLM land, so no dispersed camping anywhere in the state is the real answer, not a hole in our data.
• Maryland: State forests allow camping only at sites marked on the map, and you register yourself. We found nothing in the published rules that allows camping on wildlife management areas generally. Treat that as unconfirmed rather than banned. Maryland also has no National Forest land, which we checked two separate ways.
• Michigan: Camping is open across roughly 3.9 to 4 million acres of state forest with a free Camp Registration Card you fill out yourself, plus the same one-mile rule Minnesota uses. State Game Areas ban camping by rule.
• Mississippi: Camping on wildlife management areas is limited to marked sites and needs a user permit. The areas that sit on Forest Service land allow primitive camping, except in marked scenic areas. Every wildlife management area that is not on Forest Service land needs a WMA User Permit, and the Delta and Tombigbee areas allow only marked hunter camps in season.
• Tennessee: Camping on wildlife management areas needs the area manager’s permission. Some areas allow it, but you have to ask rather than sign yourself in.
• Texas: Parks and Wildlife Department areas allow primitive camping if you hold the Annual Public Hunting permit. The camping comes with the permit, not with the land. We looked at wildlife management areas only. We reached no conclusion on state forests or any other state-managed land here.
• Virginia: Wildlife Resources areas really are open by default. Primitive camping is legal across the whole tract once you fill out a free self-service form. Guinea Marsh and Land’s End are the two confirmed exceptions, where camping and fires are not allowed. Camping on Virginia state forests is separately banned unless you hold a group permit. That is the law, not a gap in our data.
• Wisconsin: No open camping on state land. What exists is marked, permitted "remote camping" on four northern state forests. Wildlife, fishery, and natural areas ban camping by rule.

States that keep you at marked sites

In 17 states you can camp on state land only where the agency has put a site. The camping is real, and often free or cheap. What you do not get is the run of the place. Pulling up a map and picking a flat-looking pullout is how people get in trouble in these states.

• Alabama: Wildlife management areas allow camping only at marked sites, with a 9-day limit in any 30 days. Barbour and Freedom Hills take no campers before September 1 without a written permit.
• Arkansas: The Game and Fish Commission keeps camping to marked areas. It publishes 552 camping points, about 19 of them on leased timber-company land.
• California: California has no state land you can camp on freely. Demonstration State Forests use marked sites only, and Jackson bans dispersed camping outright. Wildlife Areas and Ecological Reserves are for day use and hunting access, and camping is not allowed on them. The state parks department runs built campgrounds only.
• Florida: The state Forest Service says plainly that dispersed camping is banned on its land, and the water management districts and the wildlife commission each require a marked site.
• Georgia: Nothing on state land lets you camp freely or along a road. What the state does publish is 155 campgrounds on wildlife management areas.
• Illinois: Camping on state land is limited to marked sites.
• Indiana: Backcountry camping is allowed only along the trails the state has mapped for it, not anywhere else on state land. Roughly 326 km of legal, agency-mapped backcountry trail camping exists here. You walk in to reach it, and it is missing from our index. That is our gap, not the state’s.
• Iowa: There is no class of state land you can camp on freely. The walk-in and remote camping on state forests uses marked sites.
• Kansas: General wildlife management areas ban camping. Only the shorelines of State Fishing Lakes carry marked primitive sites. The other option in the state is the federal Cimarron National Grassland.
• Kentucky: Fish and wildlife management areas allow camping only in marked areas. Kentucky state forests are described as allowing primitive camping by default, but nothing we found backs that up, and the acreage is small with no road network to model. Treat the state forest half as unconfirmed.
• Missouri: The Department of Conservation allows overnight camping on its land only in marked areas. For camping away from a marked site, the option in the state is Mark Twain National Forest.
• New Jersey: State law allows no dispersed or backcountry camping at all. Every campsite is marked and charges a fee, and wildlife management areas ban camping statewide.
• North Carolina: Nothing on state land lets you camp freely or along a road. The state publishes 51 marked camping points on game lands. Pisgah National Forest also allows camping only at marked sites, so any listing that shows roadside camping there claims more than the current forest orders allow.
• Ohio: State forests and wildlife areas both keep camping to marked sites, and exactly four wildlife areas allow it: Tri-Valley, Woodbury, Appalachian Hills, and Simco.
• Oklahoma: The state publishes 299 marked camping areas on wildlife land. They are real, and our index does not carry them. What we do list for Oklahoma is camping along the federal national grassland roads shown on the motor vehicle use map.
• Pennsylvania: The Bureau of Forestry publishes 792 marked camping spots on state forest land: 717 you can drive to, plus about 75 primitive or trail-shelter sites. Camping is banned on the roughly 1.5 million acres of State Game Lands, except along the Appalachian Trail. Pennsylvania also runs a separate permit system for primitive camping on state forests. We did not check it, so we do not describe it.
• South Carolina: Nothing on state land lets you camp freely or along a road. Of 573 state properties, 79 are flagged as allowing camping. Sumter and Francis Marion National Forests make you camp half a mile from any open road across large parts of both, which is stricter than assuming any open road works.

States where your only option is federal land

3 states have no state land you can camp on freely, so the whole question there is a federal one. If you are in one of them, go straight to the Motor Vehicle Use Mapfor the forest you are heading to. The state agency’s map will not help.

• Louisiana: The state publishes wildlife management area boundaries with no camping information attached. For camping away from a marked site, the option here is Kisatchie National Forest.
• Nevada: Almost all dispersed camping here is federal: the BLM 14-day rule statewide, plus the roads on Humboldt-Toiyabe. No state land is open for it. Inside wildlife management areas, only the marked camp spots count, never a pullout along the road.
• South Dakota: Game Production Areas ban camping. Dispersed camping in the state is federal only, on the Buffalo Gap, Fort Pierre, and Grand River national grasslands.

Where there is nowhere to camp outside a marked site

3states have no open state land and no federal land either, and in each case we checked that rather than assuming it from missing data. In these states the answer to “where can I boondock here?” is “nowhere, book a site.” They also show up in the sections above, because each still has marked or permitted camping. What they do not have is anywhere to pick your own spot.

• Delaware: Delaware has no National Forest land, which we checked two separate ways, so there is no federal option to fall back on either.
• Hawaii: Hawaii has no National Forest land and no BLM land, so no dispersed camping anywhere in the state is the real answer, not a hole in our data.
• Maryland: We found nothing in the published rules that allows camping on wildlife management areas generally. Treat that as unconfirmed rather than banned. Maryland also has no National Forest land, which we checked two separate ways.

New Jersey belongs in this conversation with one caveat. State law allows no dispersed or backcountry camping, every campsite is marked and charges a fee, and wildlife management areas ban camping statewide. We did not separately check the federal side there, so it is listed above under marked sites only rather than with these three.

Wildlife Management Areas cause the most trouble

A Wildlife Management Area looks like exactly the sort of place camping should be legal. It is big, undeveloped, public, and laced with rough roads. Usually it is the opposite. These areas are managed for habitat and hunting access, and camping is a separate permission that most states never grant.

• Banned outright in Minnesota, Michigan (State Game Areas), Wisconsin (wildlife, fishery, and natural areas), New Jersey, Delaware, and Kansas’s general wildlife areas.
• Marked sites only in Missouri, Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Ohio, where exactly four wildlife areas allow camping: Tri-Valley, Woodbury, Appalachian Hills, and Simco.
• Allowed once you have paperwork in Texas (the Annual Public Hunting permit), Tennessee (the area manager’s permission, Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 1660-01-14-.13), and Mississippi (a WMA User Permit outside the areas on Forest Service land).
• Genuinely open in only a few places: Virginia, across the whole tract with a free self-service form, apart from Guinea Marsh and Land’s End; plus Nebraska and North Dakota by default statewide, with North Dakota naming 15 units where camping is off.

Two more things worth knowing. Louisiana publishes its wildlife management area boundaries with no camping information attached, so seeing one on a map tells you nothing about whether you can sleep inside it. In Nevada and Washington, wildlife areas allow camping only at marked spots, never along the roads the way you could on the federal land next door.

National Forest rules that change the picture

State rules cover state land and federal orders cover federal land. Neither one outranks the other, so what matters is whose ground you are standing on. A federal order can be far stricter than the usual federal rules, and several are:

• Angeles National Forest bans dispersed camping outright. San Bernardino and Cleveland restrict campfires outside built areas, and a year-round California Campfire Permit applies across the state.
• Pisgah National Forest allows dispersed camping at marked sites only, so any listing that shows roadside camping there, an app included, claims more than the current orders allow.
• Sumter and Francis Marion National Forests make you camp half a mile from any open road across large parts of both, which is stricter than assuming any open road works.
• Ocala and Apalachicola National Forests ban dispersed camping during Florida’s General Gun season, which lands in the middle of the busiest camping months.
• Both Alaska national forests allow roadside dispersed camping: Chugach under Forest Order 10-04-00-20-09, and Tongass across the whole forest under its published recreation guidance.
• Alabama publishes no motor vehicle use map data at all, so we read its road network from the forest roads inventory instead. That inventory records which roads exist and are open for use, not which ones were designated under 36 CFR 212, so it is weaker ground for calling a road campable.

Each of those is one order on one forest, and there are more. We track the orders that currently restrict camping, with their numbers, their dates, and the difference between a real ban and a stay limit, in where dispersed camping is restricted or banned.

Where camping beside a forest road is allowed, we draw a strip 300 feet (91.44 m) wide, the figure set by 36 CFR 261.58(e). Where a forest publishes a narrower one of its own, we use that instead, as with the 150 feet on Humboldt-Toiyabe. To work out whether your vehicle can actually reach a given forest road, see high clearance vs 4×4 required. For one state worked through forest by forest, with its stay limits and setbacks, see dispersed camping rules by National Forest.

What we could not check

14 of the 50 states have no answer we were able to confirm, and a few of the answers we do give rest on thinner evidence than the rule numbers next to them suggest. We would rather say so. A reference that quietly guesses at the states nobody researched is worse than one that lists them.

• The seven Mountain West states. Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, and Arizona all run big state trust land programs, and we researched none of them. A blank here is not permission.
• The six New England states. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut have no state land answer with a rule behind it. Maine’s northern timberland permit system, which covers a large share of the camping people actually do there, is outside what we checked.
• West Virginia. The state’s own recreation land data flags 37 state forest and wildlife area tracts as allowing camping, but we did not confirm the rule behind that flag.
• Minnesota, Michigan, North Dakota, and Nebraska. The descriptions above are accurate, but we recorded no rule or statute number for any of the four. Treat them as agency guidance rather than a citation.
• Oregon. The year-round camping answer rests on the forestry department’s published guidance rather than a written rule, so it sits on thinner ground than the Washington rule across the river.
• Kentucky. We settled the wildlife area half. The state forest half is described as allowing primitive camping by default with nothing behind it, so do not treat Kentucky as an open-camping state on that basis.
• Maryland’s wildlife areas. We found no general camping allowance in the published rules. We treat that as unresolved and leave it off, which is not the same as finding that camping is banned.
• Texas. We settled the wildlife management area question only. State forests and every other kind of state-managed land here are untouched.
• Pennsylvania. We recorded the 792 marked Bureau of Forestry camping spots and nothing else. The separate permit system for primitive camping on state forests is not written up here, and we will not describe it from memory.
• Sumter and Francis Marion. The half-mile rule above is our reading of the forests’ own orders rather than a word-for-word quote, so treat it as close but not exact.
• Two real inventories missing from our index. Oklahoma’s 299 marked camping areas on wildlife land and Indiana’s roughly 326 km of mapped backcountry trail camping both exist, and neither is in our data. That is our gap, not the states’.

Our data coverage page does the same thing for our own data, state by state, including the gaps we know about in each region.

Can you camp anywhere on state land?

No. Each state sets its own rules, so the answer changes every time you cross a state line. Of the 50 states, 7 let you camp on some kind of state land with nothing to get first, 9 allow it once you have a permit, 17 keep you to sites the agency has built, and 3 have no state land you can camp on freely. "State land" is not one thing either. State forest, state trust land, state parks, and Wildlife Management Areas follow four different rulebooks inside the same state, and they often disagree with each other.

Which states allow dispersed camping on state land without a permit?

Alaska lets you camp on about 100 million acres of state land with no permit, a 14-day limit, and a rule that you move at least two miles afterwards (11 AAC 96.020). Minnesota opens roughly 4 million acres of state forest, free and permit-free, as long as you stay a mile from a built campground. Washington allows camping on DNR trust lands along the Green Dot road systems (Ahtanum, Tahuya, Capitol Forest, and Teanaway) with a 10-day limit in any 30 days (WAC 332-52-300). Oregon state forests run by the Department of Forestry allow camping year round with no permit. Nebraska and North Dakota allow camping on wildlife management areas by default, and New York gives you a real right to camp away from marked sites on Forest Preserve and State Forest land.

Is camping on state land free?

Where a state lets you camp at all, it is usually free. The seven states that are open by default charge nothing, and several of the permit states hand out the permit for nothing as well: Michigan uses a free Camp Registration Card you fill out yourself, and Virginia uses a free self-service form at the tract. The exceptions are worth knowing. Delaware charges $25 a night on the Blackbird and Redden tracts. Texas routes camping through the Annual Public Hunting permit, which you buy. And marked sites in state parks are normally reservable, fee-charging campgrounds in every state that has them.

How long can you camp on state land?

It varies by state, and most states in this reference publish no limit we were able to confirm. The ones we did record: Alaska allows 14 days before you have to move at least two miles (11 AAC 96.020), Washington allows 10 days in any 30 on DNR trust lands (WAC 332-52-300), and Alabama allows 9 days in any 30 on its wildlife management areas (Ala. Admin. Code r. 220-2-.55). Treat 14 days as a common ceiling rather than a promise, and check the agency that manages the land before planning anything longer.

Is camping in a Wildlife Management Area allowed?

Usually not, and this is where most people go wrong. Minnesota wildlife management areas, Michigan State Game Areas, Wisconsin wildlife and fishery areas, New Jersey wildlife management areas, and Delaware wildlife areas all ban camping by rule. Where it is allowed, there are normally strings attached. Mississippi wants a WMA User Permit outside the areas on Forest Service land. Tennessee wants the area manager’s permission (Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 1660-01-14-.13). Texas wants the Annual Public Hunting permit. Alabama caps you at 9 days in any 30 and closes two named areas before September 1 (Ala. Admin. Code r. 220-2-.55). Virginia is the clearest exception: primitive camping is legal across the whole tract with a free self-service form, apart from Guinea Marsh and Land’s End. Nebraska and North Dakota are the two states where camping on wildlife areas is simply open.

How is camping on state land different from National Forest or BLM land?

Federal land is the more predictable of the two. On most National Forest and BLM land you may camp outside a campground by default, with a stay limit near 14 days, a setback from water, and a requirement that you reach the spot on a road the agency has designated. State land has no shared baseline at all. Whether you may camp, whether you need a permit, and whether you can pick your own spot are each decided state by state and often land class by land class inside the same state. In practice that means you can carry one mental model across federal land nationwide, and you have to look up the rule every time you camp on state land somewhere new.

Which states have nowhere to camp outside a marked site?

Maryland, Delaware, and Hawaii. None of the three has state land you can camp on freely, and none has any National Forest land, so there is no federal option either. Hawaii has no BLM land on top of that, which makes no dispersed camping anywhere in the state the real answer rather than a gap in our data. Maryland state forests allow camping only at sites marked on the map, where you register yourself. Delaware forest camping needs a permit and a marked site at $25 a night on the Blackbird and Redden tracts, and camping on Delaware wildlife areas is banned.

Does a National Forest inside a state override the state’s own rules?

Neither one outranks the other. State rules cover state land, federal orders cover federal land, and which set applies comes down to whose ground you are standing on. Federal orders can also be stricter than the usual federal rules. Angeles National Forest bans dispersed camping outright. Pisgah National Forest allows it at marked sites only. Ocala and Apalachicola ban it during Florida’s General Gun season, which lands in the busiest camping months. Sumter and Francis Marion make you camp half a mile from any open road across large parts of both. In Alaska both national forests allow camping beside their roads: Chugach under Forest Order 10-04-00-20-09, and Tongass across the whole forest under its published recreation guidance.

How to check the current rule before you go

Any rule on this page can change with one order, and several of the answers above are one reissued regulation away from being wrong. Before a trip:

1. Work out whose land you will actually be on. State forest, state trust land, state park, and wildlife area all follow separate rules inside the same state, and so does the National Forest or BLM ground next door.
2. For federal land, pull the current Motor Vehicle Use Map from the Forest Service maps page and check the forest’s own alerts index for active orders. For BLM, start at blm.gov and select the state.
3. For state land, go to the agency that manages it rather than to an app. Two that publish this clearly: the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources posts its camping-on-WMAs rules including the two excepted tracts, and the Oregon Department of Forestry publishes its state-forest camping guidance.
4. Where a permit or registration is required, sort it out before you leave. A free card you never filled out still counts as a violation.

For the built campgrounds we have reviewed in a given state, start at camping by state and open the page for where you are headed. Those pages cover campgrounds you can book. The dispersed side of our catalog lives in the app, where each site carries its access tier and a verdict on whether your rig can reach it.