Out in the boonies - Misplaced your "home"?

Yarome · April 16, 2015

For those that enjoy boondocking way out in the "sticks"... has there ever been a time when you made a trip into town in your toad or TV for supplies and then had to make several attempts to find your "home" again?

No reason... just curious :lol:

sandsys · April 16, 2015

I've always been able to find my way back but I never went that far off. With today's GPS systems could you just set your campsite as home and hope it brings you back there? I know it prefers to use streets but in some LTVA's at least, my GPS recognizes the main road into the desert. I never tried using the walking setting but that might work better when away from official streets? Or you could plant a geocache near your rig and use that to help find you? I have seen travel bug symbols on RVs and toads so you must be allowed to do moving ones.

Linda Sand

Kirk W · April 16, 2015

Didn't happen to me, but someone told me that he parked his motorhome at the LTVA near Quartzsite several years ago and the next morning went into town for the day, returning after it was getting dark. While they were gone a large number of other RVs arrived and parked between his site and the road he took in and he said that he spent more than an hour locating his RV, with it fully dark by the time he finally found it.

I don't remember all of the details, but he said it was easy to do when the place is busy.

Rosita · April 17, 2015

has there ever been a time when you made a trip into town in your toad or TV for supplies and then had to make several attempts to find your "home" again?

---

No, but I have been known to wander around in a parking lot looking for my car! :unsure:

Devilishjim · April 17, 2015

I run the gps on my quad in the desert and it leaves a trail of where I have traveled but the only way it will lead me home is by following the blue line on GPS back the same way I came. That does come in handy being as I dont have to mark any turns and the GPS has a better memory than me, Oh and I definetly have lost my rig in parking lots !

Dutch_12078 · April 17, 2015

I have an app on my Android phone, "Real Time GPS Tracker", that tracks my path when activated. Very handy for finding my way back on walking trails, etc., and my wife can check my progress on a website as long as I have cell service. It would also work fine for boondocking locations I'd expect. Our Garmin GPS can also store our current location so we can return to it when we leave. I haven't used it for boondocking, but it works fine for finding the car in a large parking lot.

Bill B · April 17, 2015

LOL - no, but yes. One of the first things we do when parked and set up is GPS mark our "new" home.

City or country. I don't always remember the turns, roads or name of the parks or places so this is the easiest. Somehow, in the Texas RGV valley, the park with the palm tree logo will send you to a hundred different places.

Jimalberta · April 17, 2015

We GPS our site as soon as we settle down somewhere whether its boondocking or in a city. Makes life simpler.

wa_desert_rat · April 17, 2015

We've never misplaced our rig when boondocking but we have certainly lost track of the twists and turns in some RV parks and have had to walk a few extra blocks to find the way back to where our RV is parked. If we're boondocking in the desert (where we usually do) we can see our motor home from a long ways off.

WDR

Vladimir · April 21, 2015

I was talking to a new friend and he asked how I kept from getting lost. He had never heard of a professional Forester getting lost. He on the other hand, as a medical professional, has gotten seriously lost several times.

I have never been lost in the woods, though three times I did need a map and compass to find my way back. Not bad for 40 years!!

However, I have gotten lost in cities. Everything looks the same in cities and the road systems make NO SENSE. Everybody knows that tree height is dependent to a great extant on elevation. I got lost in Seattle and I was there to give a public presentation to a hiking group. My suggestion was that the city of Seattle should require ALL the Starbucks signs to vary in size based on distance from downtown. At least I would know IF I was headed in the right direction.

I started thinking about why I never get lost in the woods. It really is simple. KNOWING where you are is important. Well, more than important. You can't do ANY part of your job a Forester without KNOWING where you are. So every Forester ALWAYS keeps tracks of where they are.......AND once they do NOT know where they are....they simply backtrack to the last known point.

When I am in cities I relax. In my mind, I am NOT working in the city. Hey, I could always ask for help!! Plenty of people around to ask. So I let down my guard....and promptly get lost.

So its simple....always know where you are. Keep track of it. It is important. It should be second nature. I promise to try harder when I find myself in urban areas. I do love GPS!! Particularly in cities where NOTHING makes sense!!

Jimalberta · April 21, 2015

I have never been lost . But I have been disoriented. As soon as you get disoriented you can get lost.....trick is to relax and sit down and think...been hunting for many years in huge Canadian forests and it can be very easy to get lost.

We always carry a gps with us when we are out in our RZR deep in the wilds......like you say Vladimir....always know where you are.

In the cities is the same....if you get disoriented you can get lost...gps is a great friend.

Yarome · April 21, 2015

Oh... y'all thought I was talkin 'bout me?? Nooo no. It was this other guy that was camping.. well.. right about where I was. I ALWAYS (almost) set my "home" waypoint as part of my setup checklist (when I remember to check it). He's about my height and build and wanted to borrow my rig to head into town. I had no problem with that until he didn't show back up around supper time. I figured the worst case.. he could give me a call and I could talk him back to camp.. but of course.. my cell was in my rig.

When he finally showed up past dark 30 and my buried dutch oven trout stew had nearly turned to mush.. it took him 3 attempts from the main turn off and a 1/4 tank of fuel to find his way back. He gave me some story about the GPS directing him some 300 miles away northwest of Lake Havasu, but I haven't been round there since February so I know THAT was a lie. :lol:

All's well that ends well. My supper turned to about the consistency of baby food, but the moral of the story... you made a checklist for a reason. USE it. :lol: :lol: As for the "other guy".. I admit Nusssssinnngggg...!

sushidog · April 21, 2015

I lost my camper in an RV park once. I knew where my site was; I just couldn't get to it because of all the one way roads leading away from it. Naturally there were no signs and each intersection had at least three directions you could go. I finally gave up and went to the CG office and got a map of the CG. It turns out that it was counter intuitive. You had to turn in the opposite direction of the camp site twice before you reached the road that would take you there. It was a huge, heavily wooded maze of a campground with about a dozen or so loops laid out like giant interlocking clover leafs - really weird.

Chip

wa_desert_rat · April 21, 2015

I have never been lost in the woods, though three times I did need a map and compass to find my way back. Not bad for 40 years!!

However, I have gotten lost in cities. Everything looks the same in cities and the road systems make NO SENSE.

Seattle is a good example of a system which makes no sense; at least not at first.

Downtown Seattle has, for example, 3 different buildings with the same address on 3rd street. There is 300-3rd St.. There is 300 N. 3rd St.. And there is 300 S. 3rd St.

But that's nothing compared with some cities in S. America where the building's address is simply assigned to it when the building is built and reflects the sequence of builds... so 300 Avenida Atlantica could be across the street from 3500 Avenida Atlantica!

Gps units help a lot. But they can often cause issues because the maps they are based upon can be badly out of date. We've all had our own stories of a GPS insisting that we make a turn on a road that obviously no longer exists.

WDR

sandsys · April 21, 2015

Dave has an internal compass that works amazingly well. He also reads road maps for fun. So he can predict a left exit before we reach it. In all the years we've been together I've only seen him disoriented once--inside the Mall of America. I was thrilled that for the first time ever I was able to direct us out when he couldn't. I located us by which anchor store was right and which left of us. Different skill sets in different locations.

Linda Sand

Yarome · April 21, 2015

Dave has an internal compass that works amazingly well. He also reads road maps for fun. So he can predict a left exit before we reach it.

Show off!

Not A Clue · April 22, 2015

I don't need to be out in the "Boonies" to lose my rig :wub: , example: GS Rally in Phoenix, I usually fly my two flags that helps a lot. We had a couple of installations done while at the Rally and I used my flags to help them find us.

sandsys · April 22, 2015

I don't need to be out in the "Boonies" to lose my rig , example: GS Rally in Phoenix, I usually fly my two flags that helps a lot. We had a couple of installations done while at the Rally and I used my flags to help them find us.

Yes, parking a rig at a rally is like parking a car at a mall--hard to see it without some marker that sticks up in the air. We have friends who fly their pirate flag when parked in the desert to help us find them.

Linda Sand

Helipilot · May 11, 2015

In the aviatioin business you're not lost as long as you have fuel. The remarks above were excellent. I will carry our GPS when we start boondocking. Just got our fiver a couple of weeks ago, still working on our schedule. Hope to see you down the road!

reed and elaine · May 13, 2015

My wife dislikes GPS and prefers signage and maps. Our SOP at the start of the day of travel is to go over maps, Streets and Maps, and the GPS. If everything agrees, then we are good to go. Like the GPS which does have trucker information so we don't get stuck in super narrow roads with low bridges. The GPS took us down some interesting roads in Turkey four years ago in our rental car.

To add onto wa-desert-rat's observation. We were in Cusco off and on for three weeks (we took off for 6 days to Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu) and the streets change names every other block, and they are all Quechuan or Spanish Saint names.

But yes, I have lost car on numerous occasions, probably about every time I have left it in a large parking lot.

Reed and Elaine (who actually always can find the car)

coachmac9 · June 26, 2015

Just got our RV so I haven't had a chance to lose our "home" yet but I have to tell one on myself...I grew up hunting, fishing and just exploring the woods around our very rural home. Started hunting by myself when I was around 12 or 13 and never ever got lost. Well, fast forward to when I was a young adult (23 or 24) and thought I was Daniel Boone re-incarnated and I was hunting an area I had never been in but hey, no problem for ole Daniel Boone...well it was getting time to head back to camp and I suddenly realized I had no idea what direction camp was...it was one of those overcast (no sun orientation) winter days...so I began walking in the direction I thought was north...creeping along (still trying to hunt while lost) and all of a sudden I came across some fresh tracks...wait a minute, nobody was supposed to be in this area...so I began my best "sneakin up" on the trespasser moves and soon realized there were now three sets of footprints in the mud...yep, I was tracking myself...had made several loops and sat down and had a huge laugh at my own expense!!! I then did like I should have done originally and picked out a landmark far away and walked straight to it, picked out another and soon found my way to familiar territory!!!

Pieere · June 26, 2015

Well here is my viewpoint! When I was about 8 years of age or so, went to the state of Maine with my parents. We were at Old Orchard Beach and I was playing along and moving. In a while i looked up and didn't see my parents nearby and I waqlked and walked to no avail. I was scared shiftless; found them a while later and was I ever ecstatic. I just couldn't imagine being stuck on the beach for the rest of my life. Was about 500 milkes from home.

I can say I have never been lost since then as I tended to carry a compass; mark a trail when hunting; carry a map when traveling. I drove in many different states and always relied on a hard copy map over the GPS's that could take you through a cow pasture. And i am being honest on that.

Jack Mayer · June 26, 2015

Besides the GPS, which is easy when it WORKS, you can also use a SPOT Tracker (or similar device) on your vehicle. It has the added benefit of locating it if it is stolen. It may even lower your insurance payment.