We finally got around to boondocking on The Wall just outside Badlands National Park in South Dakota.
We had wanted to do this for some time, especially since Badlands is one of Jessi’s favorite national parks. (I sometimes wonder if that’s because it’s so close to Wall Drug. We “have to visit because we’re so close to it!” every time we’re within a hundred miles.)
Specifically, we camped at what Google Maps has listed as “Badlands Boondock Campspot.” If you search for that on Google Maps, you’ll see it is just north of the Pinnacles Entrance Station to Badlands. So, you could always search for that entrance station, then look for the dirt road a bit north of it on Highway 240.
For another reference point, note that the camping area is in Buffalo Gap National Grassland. If you head into Wall, South Dakota, for more than just Wall Drug, you will find the Grassland visitor center. Interestingly, a ranger told us that it’s the only national grassland with a visitor center despite there being numerous national grasslands across the country.
This section of wall camping is quite long and offers many spaces to camp. That’s good because the area can get busy with RVers all trying to vie for the best view. We recommend the access road and the spot we listed from Google Maps as a much shorter route from the highway to the campsites. (And by campsites, I mean empty land on the edge of The Wall.)
The road in and along The Wall can be bumpy and dusty, with some good-sized holes to watch out for. There also can be a need to avoid the occasional odd-shaped rock. When we were there in early September, it was hot and dry. I don’t know what it’s like there when it rains. But I wouldn’t want to be hauling my rig in or out when it does. A second entrance road is available to the north, but it’s a longer trip to The Wall sites. And if you’re coming from town, the route we recommend is easier to spot because there are TV/radio antenna towers nearby that you can see for miles.
We like to boondock and do it as often as we can. I’ve written about our setup for boondocking before, but here are some basic stats on what we have:
- 52-gallon fresh water tank (plus 8 gallons in collapsible, portable water bags.)
- 41-gallon gray water tank
- 35-gallon black water tank
- Two 80-amp hour AGM batteries
- 380 watts of installed solar panels on the roof
- Three 100-watt portable solar panels (one of which can be used for the Airstream and the other two for our portable batteries)
- 2,850 watts of portable battery packs (Two 1,000-watt units, a 500-watt unit, and a 350-watt unit we collected over time.)
- A 3,200-watt Firman generator (actually, it’s 2,900 watts since it’s dual fuel, and we’ve only ever run it on propane, which provides fewer watts.) Fun fact: we run the generator a lot more to exercise it than we do to recharge our batteries.
Since Jessi works full-time, we need a lot of power and backup power, especially now that we’re running Starlink all day and most of the night. If Jessi weren’t working full-time and I wasn’t trying to produce videos and maintain a website, a fraction of our power devices, if any, would be needed.
Of course, you need to consider water and waste in addition to power. These are true boondocking sites—there are no amenities whatsoever. That means showing up with all the water you think you’ll need, plus empty gray and black tanks. And don’t forget you’ll have to pack out whatever trash you create.
Potable water may be available in Wall and the national park. But it’s generally for refilling containers and is not designed for RV hookups.
We have learned over time that the length of stay for boondocking rests much more on the size of our gray and black tanks than freshwater or power needs. We have also have picked up some tricks to conserve tank space, which helps. (This is another reason I cannot understand why so many “adventure” vans and trailers are being built with decent-size freshwater and gray tanks but a measly 5-gallon blackwater cassette toilet!)
If needed for dumping, there is an RV park in Wall that lets nonregistered campers use their dump station (and I’m assuming their potable water spigot) for a fee. We used a Pilot truck stop east of Wall with a dump station since it was on our route and not terribly far away.
As we learned from many reviews, The Wall is windy. I don’t think it let up once during the four days we were camped there. The constant wind meant keeping an eye on your door when opening it. We also ensured anything lightweight outside was tied down somehow. I even used a couple of tent stakes for our Jackery solar panels for the first time ever after I found them both blown over by the wind.
The constant wind does help drown out the noise of generators if your neighbors need to run them. Our neighbor had plenty of solar power. But they apparently needed to run their air conditioners and, thus, have their generator on most of each day. It would have been nice if they had just opened their windows and taken advantage of that constant breeze.
It’s quite a dark area, so the night sky is lovely. But it’s not one of the darkest sites we’ve been, which surprised us. There is too much ambient light from “civilization” in the area. Still, on The Wall itself, it feels pretty dark outside at night. Unfortunately, that means too many RVers feel the need to light up the place with their rig lights.
Despite my seeming to complain about things above, it is a place I’d recommend staying at for at least a couple of nights. After all, you’re only a stone’s throw from Badlands National Park. That is a spectacular place to visit, particularly at sunrise and sunset.
If you’re new to boondocking, it’s also not as remote as it might seem. This is the place to try boondocking in what feels like the middle of nowhere. But if you have problems or find you aren’t cut out for boondocking, there is an RV park just down the road in Wall. And, of course, there’s always Wall Drug with its 5-cent cups of coffee and unlimited kitsch.
