I’m sure you know the feeling. It’s that moment when the bright lights, breakneck pace and pulsating buzz of life in our sprawling metropolis suddenly catches up to you. You think to yourself, I need to get out of here.
The writer Robert Macfarlane perfectly encapsulated the sentiment: “Anyone who lives in a city will know the feeling of having been there too long. The gorge-vision that streets imprint on us, the sense of blockage, the longing for surfaces other than glass, brick, concrete, and tarmac.”
When the call for dark skies, repose and silence arises, many of us look for solace in the great outdoors. However, as we search for campgrounds in state and national parks, we’re frequently met with an unwelcome reality: everything within driving distance is completely booked, sometimes for weeks and months on end. We throw our hands in the air, shout out a few choice words and then quietly slip back into the cities hum until it all catches up to us again.
I know this had been my experience. Whenever my partner, three kids and I were desperate for some open space, our pursuit of a swift retreat would consistently end up thwarted.
In 2015, following years of no-vacancy campground searches, I turned to a friend renowned for conjuring campsites seemingly out of thin air. Describing my dilemma, he responded with a simple query, “Have you considered BLM land?”
Even as an avid outdoor enthusiast, this was the first time I had ever heard of the term.
That conversation led to my inaugural BLM camping experience and set in motion a five-year journey that immersed me in the history of these lands through a labyrinth of books, obscure blogs and the antiquated BLM website.
The BLM is short for the Bureau of Land Management, a federal agency that manages 245 million acres of public land across the West, including a staggering 15 million acres of land right here in the Golden State. And what do we mean by “public” lands? These are areas of land and water that are owned collectively by the citizens and managed by the federal government. In other words, these lands are our lands.
It didn’t take long to discover that I wasn’t alone in my lack of awareness. BLM lands are the least known, least understood, and least visited. Many historians even refer to them as the “leftover lands,” as if they are insignificant or mediocre. In comparison with other public lands like our much celebrated, deeply loved, and readily accessible national parks and national forests, BLM land is often overlooked due to the lack of stories and information about them. In the hierarchy of our public land system, they are the scrappy underdogs.
When the pandemic brought my small business to a standstill, I decided to embark on a firsthand exploration of BLM lands. Where exactly were they and what kind of landscapes would they contain?
Over the next four years, in the delicate space between work and family, I visited almost every accessible tract of BLM land from Mexico to Oregon, documenting my experiences on Instagram. My time in the field has included camping at many of the 60-plus BLM campgrounds, and taking in the immense beauty of these unique places slowly, step by step, walking 346 miles thus far.
But I didn’t just learn about where to camp and hike. I also met scores of people and non-profit groups who are working tirelessly for our public lands every single day. Their work prompted me to learn about the threats facing many of the BLM landscapes, from unnecessary mining to the privatization and land transfer movements.
These threats inspired a new set of questions, only now they were more consequential than earlier. How can we protect our most vulnerable public lands if so few writers, artists, journalists and photographers are telling the story of these landscapes? How can we conserve what we don’t know?
The reality is, if we are going to preserve and expand protections on BLM land far into the future, we need a broader coalition of people who experience these landscapes in the present.
Fortunately, for our purposes here, a multitude of BLM campgrounds are within reasonable driving distance from L.A., all adhering to a first come, first served approach. So when that longing for some open space tugs at your overstimulated city heart, rest assured there are still some places to go.
Here are nine campgrounds in the southern half of California, all of which are normally accessible for 2WD vehicles and have vault toilets, picnic tables, and fire rings. In four years of camping on BLM land, I have never encountered a single one that was full. I hope this guide acts as an extended hand to engage with these places for yourself.
Note: Before taking a trip, I recommend using the links and phone numbers below to check for updated road and weather conditions, fire restrictions and potential closures. In addition, almost all of these campgrounds do not have water or trash service, so please bring enough water and pack out what you bring in.
