I couldn’t be happier that tonight is our last night at the RV Park we’ve been staying at for the past month.
I’m also really excited that we finally got our Discover Pass, which means, for $35 we can camp at all of these places for free for the next 365 days! Too bad we’re only going to be in Washington for another 2 weeks.
The lame thing we’ve found about the Discover Pass website, is that there isn’t an easy way to find these campgrounds. Well, we’re working on that. If you haven’t yet, sign up for early access to Campendium this fall. xoxo
Dinner Tonight:
Hearty Lentil & Mushroom Ragu + Pasta. We’re waiting on the sauce right now, it smells great!
2014 Cost of Camping:
126 night paid camping (thru 8/15)
101 nights free camping
227 days this year
Total spent on camping this year: $3239.79
Daily average cost of camping: $14.27
8 Comments
This looks really good. I believe we’ll be trying this very soon. Thanks for posting.
Hi Leah! Where did you find the map above? We seem to have trouble locating the places that the pass covers here in the Olympic peninsula.
Hey Sputnik,
That’s our map from Campendium. We’ve been working on the website and scouting awesome campsites for almost 2 years now.
We haven’t found any free camping on the peninsula, however, there is a lot of really cheap National Park & National Forest camping. $10-$14/night.
I’ll email you a little more information.
Looking at the description of the pass on their website it looks as though the pass provides free ENTRY to the parks for a year, not free CAMPING. This would be similar to the Senior Pass for National parks, or the Texas State Park Pass for Texas parks. Where did you see that purchase of the pass entitles the holder to free camping? Thanks!
Hey Liga, on the “about the pass” page you’ll see that it does include camping!
The Discover Pass offers you access to millions of acres of state recreation lands in Washington, including:
More than 100 developed state parks
**More than 350 primitive recreation sites, including campgrounds and picnic areas**
Nearly 700 water-access points
Nearly 2,000 miles of designated water and land recreation trails
More than 80 natural areas
More than 30 wildlife areas
http://www.discoverpass.wa.gov/31/About-the-Pass
Here are some locations we blogged about last year:
https://www.aluminarium.com/camping/8-lakes/
https://www.aluminarium.com/animals/forde-lake/
https://www.aluminarium.com/camping/washington-camping/fish-lake/
https://www.aluminarium.com/camping/washington-camping/toats-coulee-camp/
Oh and this one was really nice last year:
https://www.aluminarium.com/camping/washington-camping/quincy-lake/
Hey Liga,
There are a ton of FREE primitive camping spots in WA! Most of these sites are administered by the Dept. of Fish & Wildlife or Dept. of Natural Resources. If you camp in any of these free spots you need to have a valid Discover Pass visible for rangers to see ($35/year).
[…] Another very-little-known and little-used camping pass is the Washington State “Discover Pass” ($35). This pass doesn’t really save you anything in the State Parks (camping-wise), but it does get you FREE camping at primitive sites in many Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW) AND Department of Natural Resources (DNR) spots across the state. Not all rig-sizes can go everywhere and stay limits are typically 21-days (within a 30-day period), but it’s a great deal if you use it. Read more about this from other bloggers HERE. […]