Скачать или смотреть Finding A Motorcycle Dispersed Campsite - Wayne National Forest - October 1, 2025

This is a real time first person perspective of finding a dispersed motorcycle camping site.

I'm riding a BMW G310GS and Matt is riding a Honda CRF300L Rally. My bike has bald 90% street tires. Matt's tires are only slightly better. :-/

We searched online for "dispersed camping Wayne National Forest" and had GPS coordinates to a campsite, but that's almost always nothing more than a hunting license... a location where there should be some dispersed camping nearby. Sometimes, the online description provides a hint to how arduous the ride in might be, but that's usually a big surprise as well. In this case, the ride in was rougher than expected and the very specific coordinates of a campsite was nothing more than a spot on the trail but no campsite. (4:30)

10:30 - I forgot to turn the camera back on but I made the hill climb without incident and we continued to the top, looking for a campsite.

We found a campsite in 15 minutes but the average is probably more like 30 minutes. It's good to arrive two hours before dark in case there is no camping, to allow time to go hunt in another area. This is the downside of not having a reservation, but we hate camping in those places and greatly prefer the solitude of remote dispersed camping.

We hammock camp, so we just need a few well spaced trees, so it's much easier than finding a campsite with a couple of level spots for tents. Hammock camping allows us to camp in more pristine areas, away from people, which I greatly prefer. We had ridden a couple of hundred miles when we started the off road ride to search for a camp, so we were a bit tired by this point.

I keep the speed as low as possible off road, using the minimum momentum needed to navigate an obstacle to maximize my reaction time and minimize the energy if I drop the bike. Matt tends to be a bit more kinetic in his approach. :-)

Old bones break easily and heal slowly, so I won't even try to save the bike. If it starts to go, I jump off as safely as possible.

GPS location of our campsite in the Wayne National Forest in Ohio:
39.50897, -82.20555

Our second campsite was in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia and was seven miles down a gravel road, just where the internet said it would be.

Our third campsite was in the George Washington National Forest in Virginia and was 2.6 miles up a gravel and dirt jeep trail.

Our fourth campsite was in the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky and we went 100 yards down an overgrown dirt road next to the main road and camped close to the road.